THE GREAT
and powerful man stood by himself in a deserted hallway, staring out a window. He could still hear the screams of his family echoing through his mind. He shook his head, trying to force them away. He had made his choice. He had to focus.
He remembered a time, shortly before his daughter was born and before he’d become great and powerful. He and his wife had walked next to a river he could no longer remember the name of. It had been springtime, and the trees were flowering. His wife, heavy with their first child (
First of four
, she would remind him constantly, often filling his head with visions of tiny tornadoes made of little hands and feet), smiled as he plucked an iris from near the bank of the river and placed it behind her ear.
I’m going to win
, he’d told her.
She watched him for a moment before rising on her tiptoes and pressing a brief kiss to his chin.
I know.
The relief he had felt was palpable.
You do?
She’d laughed.
Yes. I knew, even when it was just a dream spoken aloud in the middle of the night. When we joked about such things. I still knew.
Even then?
Even then. You will do good things, my love. Wonderful things.
He’d gathered her up carefully in his arms and held her close.
And now, in the deserted hallway, he wished he’d never begun.
Wonderful things. I still knew.
A young man appeared through a doorway and cleared his throat. The great and powerful man glanced over at him. He held a sheaf of paper in his hands, gripping so tightly the edges wrinkled. One of his speechwriters. A newer one. He couldn’t remember his name. Not that it mattered.
I have this for you
, the young man stammered.
The great and powerful man waved him away.
Not today.
B-but… sir?
You know how to start
, the fat scientist whispered in his head.
And he did. He knew what needed to be said.
I won’t be needing that
, the great and powerful man said.
The young man appeared unsure. He turned to leave but stopped before he could take a step.
Sir?
The great and powerful man looked out the window again. The sun was setting. On so many things.
Yes?
Will… will it be okay?
What?
He heard his daughter’s laughter in his ear.
Everything.
The young man’s voice broke.
The great and powerful man turned to look at the young man whose name he could not remember.
One day
, he said, and out of all the lies he’d told himself in the last months, maybe even years, this was the one he chose to believe the most.
One day. One day someone, and I don’t know who, but
someone
will say
enough
. A line will be drawn, and there will come an hour that we will
rise
and say we’ve had
enough
. That we won’t take the darkness any longer. That we will say
no
. That we will fight against those who would break us. We will fight
back
, and in this hour, we will have succeeded in what we have set out to do.
The young man’s eyes were wide.
Is that day today?
he asked quietly.
The great and powerful man deflated and looked nothing more than a normal man.
No
, he said quietly.
It’s not today. You should leave. While you can.
Will it matter?
I don’t know. Probably not.
Your wife. Your daughter.
Yes?
They… they won’t…
we
won’t….
No. We won’t.
The young man left and did not look back.
THE GREAT
and powerful man sat at his desk, a group of people, cameras pointed at him. He watched as a woman pointed at him and counted down with her fingers.
5.
I know what to say
, he thought.
4.
It’s what they need to hear.
3.
It’s what they should hear.
2.
It’s the only thing I have left to give.
1.
The lights above the camera went on. The group in front of him watched and waited. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He touched his wedding ring. He looked up and directly into the camera.
And said seven words.
As those seven words spread across the globe, bouncing instantly along the airwaves to billions and billions of pairs of eyes and ears, there was a moment when it seemed all the world held its breath. Upon hearing the seven words, they all exhaled as one and began to break down, because those seven words meant much. They meant sorrow. They meant relief, as darkly cold as it was. They meant nothing and everything, and as they echoed and became waves that drifted off into space to travel for as long as the universe was old, they carried with them a beginning that would signal the end of the world as they knew it, brought down on a wave of greed and anger. Of betrayal and power. Of selfishness. Of terror.
Of fire.
And that is how civilization fell. The bombs dropped. Cities collapsed. Billions of people died in a matter of months. A button was pushed again. And again. And again. And again until there was no one left to push the button.
In those weeks and months that followed, miles above Earth, satellites drifted darkly around the planet, the land below ablaze, large columns of smoke catching in the atmosphere and stretching out into long tails. The satellites would spin for as long as Earth maintained its pull of gravity, but they would no longer function. They no longer transmitted to the scarred and pocked world below. They no longer moved except with the flow of the earth. They were dead.
But far off into space, transmissions carried, bouncing radiofrequency waves that crashed and collided with the universe. And out of all the unfathomable number, there was one that began with seven words. Seven words said by a man who died two hours after speaking them when a suitcase nuke exploded forty feet away from the helicopter he was boarding in an attempt to join his wife and daughter. In the end, he never learned what it felt like to burn as he wasn’t even aware he had died when the blast hit him. His last thought was
I hope I come back here to—
and then he was gone. There was nothing left of him but his seven words. And they carried long after the whole of humanity became nothing more than a thing of the past in a future of chaos.
God forgive us for what we’ve done.
autumn
a wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves,
and the trees stand. I think i too have known autumn too long
—e.e. cummings
blood trail
A MAN
moved through the stunted trees. His footsteps were soft, each step deliberately chosen. He stopped for a moment, cocking his head. Listening. Waiting. A heavy breeze blew through the bare branches of the trees. They rattled together like bones. It didn’t bother him as it once had.
The man heard nothing more and took another step. He adjusted the strap to the oak bow over his shoulder. He thought about the sun hiding behind the leaden gray clouds above. It had been a while since he’d seen it. It had been a while since he’d seen the sky behind the clouds.
The man known only as Cavalo moved through the trees, unaware that it was his fortieth birthday. Even if he’d known, he wouldn’t have given it a passing thought. He thought little of such things now. They were frivolous things. Things meant for the towns. Not for him.
Maybe part of him knew, but it was suppressed. Buried. Like the sky. Like the sun. He was aware of things, sure. The weight of the pack on his back, a quiver of arrows sewn at the side. Dark feathers attached to the ends of the shafts. The scrape of the heavy tunic against his thin chest. The dark stubble on his face, flecked with gray and itchy. A lock of hair against his ear, loose from the deer hide strap that held it back. The sharp, metallic scent in the air. His companion moving unseen thirty yards to his left. The weight of the old rifle hanging around his neck. It was rarely used. Bullets were precious things. Unusual things. He had many of them, collected over years. He tried not to use them if he could help it.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t before. He fired the rifle every now and then to make sure it still worked. Into a tree. He always dug out the bullets, the flat discs still hot in his hands. He’d done this twice a year since he’d been given the gun by his father at the age of sixteen.
It’s a Remington
, his father had said, though when asked how he knew, his father had shrugged.
That’s what I was told when it was given to me. See those markings at the top? A scope would have gone there. It helped you see things far away up close. Like those binocs that old Harold has. It’s gone now. Have never been able to find one that fits when the trade caravans come through.
His father had died just a few weeks later. Found in a ditch. Neck broken. Thrown from his horse as he rode home. The smell of rye whiskey still hung around him even as the flies began to land on his open eyes.
Accident
, the constable had told Cavalo when he came to deliver the news.
Just an accident.
These things happen, you know.
Cavalo had nodded and asked after the horse. It’d been found two miles away, grazing in a field. He later sold it for coin. Didn’t get for it what he’d asked, but a horse that throws a rider was a hard sell, even if the rider had been drunk.
He’d left the town shortly after, the rifle on his shoulder.
Cavalo now had forty-seven discs.
But the shots into the trees hadn’t been the only times he’d fired the rifle. There had been two others. Once to stop the charge of an angry bull elk he stumbled upon in the low hills to the north. Its eyes had been milky white with blindness, a deep froth pouring from its mouth. Irradiated. It hadn’t made a sound when it charged, its accuracy frightening. Time had slowed for Cavalo, and even though his heart thudded like thunder in his chest, he’d moved slowly. Surely. The stock against his shoulder. Rifle cocked. Sights lined. Breath in. Breath out. Fired. The snap against his arm. The loud crack in the clearing. Spray of blood as the bullet pierced a white eye, an impossible shot that Cavalo couldn’t do again even if he had millions of years and millions of bullets. The bull had come to a stop. Shuddered once. Twice. Fell over as it began to seize. Its tongue lolled from its mouth as blood dripped from its nose. Cavalo had stayed with it until it died, the massive chest rising one final time, followed by an exhale, followed by silence.
The man, much younger then, had sat near the bull, watching it for hours. Eventually night had begun to fall, and predators stirred, drawn by the smell of dead flesh. Cavalo had stood and walked away.
There had been one other time he’d fired the gun. But that didn’t matter now. It was in the past. It brought ghosts. He didn’t like the ghosts.
He’d had a handgun once too, but he didn’t know what had happened to it. After.
He continued on now, listening.
He moved in between the trees, a thin figure, hidden as he passed them by, moving with an economic grace. His black boots were covered in alkaline dust. He had a puckered scar on his right temple, fingernails dark with grit. His face was weathered. Lined. Severe, it was said by others who whispered about the man with one name. All planes and angles. Grizzled. Worn.
But he cared not about such things.
Not anymore.
Moments later he pressed his hand against the trunk of a gnarled tree, the bark rough against his skin. He knew this tree by its shape, because it was
her
tree. It looked like her, or as much as a tree can look like a woman now dead and gone. The base was wide, like a dress. The trunk slimmed out as it rose and curved, like a torso. Branches swung out wide. Arms. The breeze carried through these branches and they waved, like it was dancing.
Like
she
was dancing.
He knew this tree because it was her tree, and for a moment, this man, this one-named Cavalo, let himself stop and drift, a thing he thought to be most useless. But even here, the coarse bark under his fingers turned to smooth cotton, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and they
danced
. He could hear the music swell, could smell the lilacs that were her scent, could hear her laugh in his ear, her husky voice as her words promised him things he’d never thought of before, and how they
swayed
. How they
moved
. The curve of her thigh. The whisper of her—
A chuffing noise, low, followed by a growl.
The man opened his eyes under a leaden sky, his hands upon a stark tree that was only a tree. There was no woman. She was gone. And had been for a long time.
Dammit
, he thought.
I almost missed.
He moved then, quicker than he looked to be able to do. Crouched low, dust kicked up behind him from the parched, cracked earth as he flashed between the deformed trees. He pursed his lips and blew out two quick breaths. The whistles that came were sharp and short. He didn’t receive a response, but he didn’t need one. He’d been heard. He knew. His companion would follow orders.
As he ran through the half-dead forest, he pulled the bow from its strap on his shoulder, the grip familiar in his hands. He reached back and pulled an arrow from the quiver. A bark came from off to his left and he stopped against a malformed spruce. He notched the arrow into the bow and waited.
It came a moment later, the light tap of hooves against the ground. The slap of branches. Rocks kicked. His companion would back off now to wait in case the prey escaped.