TIM ODELL.

leaves and flowers and trees growing out of abandoned houses and cars, smashing glass windows, invading and reclaiming the spaces humanity took from them

warning scrawled hastily on the sides of buildings in spraypaint or in blood; don’t come here, it’s not safe. turn away, go back. we died here. you will too.

notes and messages scattered across the world, addressed to people who never saw them or never lived to reply to them. rachel, we’re alive. david, don’t look for us. amy, dad got bit, please come home, we need you. kim, i love you. 

people broken into tiny groups. society shattered. they are past the anger, past denial, past trying to fix any of it. now there is only begrudging acceptance, and the knowledge that nothing is ever going to get better. the only thing they can do is survive.

a skeleton lying at the foot of a tree, flowers blooming in its ribcage. a bloodstained note in its front pocket. ‘sorry, mom’. travelers see it and barely spare a thought; such things are commonplace.

roaming packs of dogs and cats still wearing their collars, centuries of domestication breaking down under the need to live and to keep living

families born of blood and sacrifice. trading stories over campfires about who they used to be, who they might have been, what they could have become if none of this ever happened. looks of understanding when someone loses a sister, a brother, a father. it happened to me, too.

abandoned bedrooms combed over for supplies, but the faded posters still hanging on the walls and the useless knickknacks on the shelves tell the stories of the people who lived there years ago

                                                 “  what  word  is  always  spelled  incorrectly ?  ”

nolan  had  asked  tim  the  question  about  an  hour  ago,   just  when  he  could  tell  the  alcohol  was  getting  to  him.     nolan  didn’t  enjoy  being  a  bartender  by  any  means,   but  one  thing  nolan  wouldn’t  ever  not  get  a  kick  out  of  was  asking  the  patrons  stupid  fucking  questions   ———   if  they  figured  it  out  within  the  hour,   he’d  give  them  a  free  shot.     it  had  become  a  routine  for  tim  to  come  to  nolan  every  saturday  night,   prepared  for  the  question  of  the  week.     kota  often  figured  it  out  easily,   but  she  never  told  tim.

“  no,  it’s  not  a  trick  question,   tim.     you’re  just  drunk  and  don’t  get  it.     listen  to  the  question.     what  word  is  ALWAYS  SPELLED  incorrectly ?     i  mean,   jeez,   i’m  practically  tellin’  you,   man.  ”

tim  had  some  good  answers.     restaurant.     waxahachie.     even  supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.     every  time  he  seemed  to  give  up,   nolan  would  watch  him  from  his  position  behind  the  bar  and  shake  his  head  and  giggle  at  how  hard  the  guy  seemed  to  be  thinking  about  it.     he  wanted  that  goddamn  shot.

eventually,   the  hour  was  up,   and  tim  sat  himself  in  a  stool  before  him.     nolan  tossed  his  rag  over  his  shoulder  and  leaned  forward,   awfully  proud  of  himself.

it’s  incredibly  WARM,   the  way  she  looks  to  him  after  he  speaks.     she  knew  the  weight  of  the  sentence,   the  slight  seriousness  of  it.     he  hadn’t  been  in  texas  long   ———   hadn’t  made  many  friends,   which  wasn’t  at  any  fault  of  his  in  the  excruciatingly  seclusionist  climate  of  a  small  town.     but  milly,   she  was  the  exception.     she  was  the  welcoming  light  in  the  sea  of  faces  either  turned  away  in  apathy  or  turned  ahead  in  judgement.     she,   in  all  meaning,   was  safe.     it  wasn’t  only  her,   of  course.     there  were  others  in  town  who  had  taken  a  liking  to  tim,   but  none  to  the  same  determined  extent  as  milly.     she  cared  for  him,   and  she  wanted  him  around.