Working Title
Starting is hard - starting over is the hardest thing in the imagined world.
Can you believe this island used to be a mountain? That this little farm land plot we are huddled on was once buried under snow, the rocks frozen for thousands of years without respite? I couldn't have, if I didn't remember the snow, didn't remember the feel of my mother's bathrobe under my legs as a child, before the war.
The war, was there ever actually a time before the war? I know there is, and was, but finding it feels like unearthing the center of the world. The distance between here and there is so vast, than time and space don't really approach concepts that fit. I remember the smell of flowers, and of rain, and of my parents on christmas morning - the coffee in my dad's mustache, and the perfume that every piece of my mother's life was scented with. I remember them, but I can't remember what it was like to have them near me. I remember them as people remember a book they read years ago, fading each time you try to bring the details into focus.
This little farm is all we have left of "pre-war" life - the furniture cobbled together from debris we found floating, the walls made of mud and more debris. Our land is fertilized with...well I will leave that part out of the telling, but our land grows food finally. I suppose that I should start somewhere towards the front end of this, with the basic tenants of information.
We are a group of 16 human beings, none of us related. That's good, we have a wide variety of genetic material to call upon, if children were ever considered in this hell. I am old enough to remember a childhood before the war, but not much of one. I remember when the TVs, those giant walls of sparkling light and first class advertisements, when they went dark - and I remember when the first lights came back on. We were running from the government, running from everything. I know my father fell first, because there was time with just me and mom. There was a time in the dark of the woods when I remember her voice, whispering things to me about herbs and food, about cuts and guns. I wish I could remember better, it seemed so important to her. And now, it's the only thing that is important to me.
When the sirens started, and seems as though they would never stop, we got into dad's truck and put the dog and the cat and all the quilts from mom's grandmother into the cab with us, and all the food and the tools we could fit in the back. I thought we were going on an adventure, a grand and exciting adventure. I remember the cold air under my jacket, mom forgot a shirt when she was dressing me so quickly, tears running down her face. I couldn't imagine why she would cry, we were packing up and going on an adventure, she told me so herself.
