#clov

"What house? This isn't a house," Clov said, looking around. There were but one wall already crumbling to the ground, part of a ripped couch, a small pile of books, and a big cardboard box with a rug inside.

The woman standing in front of him was tall and imponent, she wasn't weak and didn't seem like she'd been starving like him. She walked properly, was agile and strong, her strawberry blonde hair was so long that her braid could be used as a scarf, and her blue eyes were incredibly odd.

"What do you call it then?"

"Nothing, it's nothing..." he murmured, finally realizing what was so odd about her. Her light was still there, bright and blinding.

"I live here, so it's my house."

"How do you know where it ends if it has no walls?"

"I decide it depending on my mood," she said, placing the basket on the couch. "Wanna come sit down? You look exhausted."

"I can't, ma'am, I can't sit down."

"That must be a horrible existence... Here," she held her hand out. "If you can't sit, I'll lay down with you."

The lady carefully helped him down, taking one of the pillows from the couch to support his head. She joined him and sighed as they both stared at the gray sky.

"Do you think I'll be able to get up?" he asked, remembering the prophecy Hamm cursed him with when he said that one day Clov would end up just like him. "What if I'm not? What if my sight fails me the next time I blink?"

"I'll carry you then, and I shall find you a cane," she said, not worried in the slightest. "What is your name? Since you broke into my house, the least you can do is tell me your name."

"Clov."

"Clov what?"

"I- I'm not sure I know," he grimaced. "And you?"

"Aine Salvato."

"I thought there was no one left in this world," he chuckled, ignoring the little lad from the window, he was hopefully dead by now.

"Humanity always finds a way, part of it at least. Isn't it amazing how we always persevere?"

"It's terrifying. To think of starting it all over, only to fall in misery again and again and again..."

Despite his words, the sentiment he was used to bearing in his chest had somehow shifted, Clov felt something different ever since leaving the flat. Even though there was no more nature, hardly any food, even though the world was in shambles, he wasn't stuck in a loop anymore.

Maybe misery would be all he was bound to find, but at least, it would be his own, at least he would be somewhere else, somewhere he chose.

"But we embrace it, we embrace the circumstance and find comfort even as we face humanity's inevitable doom," Aine countered.

"But to live is to suffer."

"And still we live."

"And suffer."

"But we live!" she insisted. "If a tiger were to show up right now, starved, ready to devour you, I guarantee you'd find a way to run. It's simply how we were wired, we were built to survive."

Closing his eyes, he thought about that, for sure he would run. With his bad legs, bad eyes, nearly dead light, he would still run for his life. What a contradiction that the very thing he wanted to end was also his most precious asset.

"So do you like being alive?"

"Not particularly, but how am I supposed to find out what comes tomorrow if I'm not here?" she giggled. A giggle that turned into laughter, and soon they were both laughing without knowing why. "Even if it's horrible, I'd still like to know."

"I don't even know how many days I've spent in there, every horrible day just like the one before. Nothing new to look forward to."

"Imagine all you can do now that you're no longer hiding in Plato's cave? Simply looking at the shadows of what might've been, never truly feeling the sun on your skin. I can't say out here it's better, but it's different for sure."

"Why are you kind to me? After I broke into your house?" Clov asked.

"Because us humans gotta stick together, there aren't many of us left," Aine shrugged, reaching in her basket for a few biscuits, which she also offered to her guest. "The world isn't kind, but I am, or try to be. I envy the optimists, so every day I try a little harder to be more like them."

For the first time in a long time, he wanted to say thank you. What could it be? Happiness? Hope? No, certainly not. It was much too late for that, but... Maybe just peace. And for that moment, laying down next to that twisted-minded woman who offered him so much without asking for anything in return, peace was enough.

Clov has never been much of an optimist himself, he never tried to exercise his kindness, so this volatile simple peace might not be enough the next day, or the next, or the one after that, but now it was.

That's friendship, yes, yes, no question, you've found it.