It closes your eyes

                            

Globe Soup  7 DAY STORY WRITING CHALLENGE #8 Best in Genre: Disaster Fiction

A loud crunch pierced the air, scared off the birds they couldn’t see; their wings slashed the dense murk with a whoosh, and Nina felt a cold leaf graze her right cheek.

‘It’s not so far away. I can smell the earth and …’Martha paused. ‘They’re burning resin… Are they crazy?’

They probably burn all they can find. Nina looked up at the sky again – nothing. The stars became distant, less defined with each hour, until they vanished altogether. She looked down; she wished she had memorised her palms when she had the chance. Against her cheek, the back of her hand felt dry and cool, but the palm was still holding some warmth in the middle, it was still quite soft.

‘Fuck,’ Martha tripped again.

The ones who were left, saved every last speckle of electricity. So, the sisters could only guess, could only sense that they were travelling through the woods by the persistent cracking of brunches underfoot, the sharpness of the bark against their skin and the fabric of their clothes.

Black velvet pressed against their eyes; there wasn’t even the moon to guide them anymore. And it was becoming colder still. Every other breath was caught like spikes in the throat. Their feet, bruised and freezing, bore testimony to several hours on the road. Exhausted and scared, they kept going.

There was a rumour, that a group of knowledgeable people found a solution to the problem, even if temporary. They hoarded the equipment and dug a tunnel deep in the earth, built an artificially controlled temperature habitat to wait out, to see if the world straightened itself back. Nina thought it was absurd. Martha wanted to survive.

They finally emerged from the darkness and met some kind of light – dull and orange. In it, they saw outlines of figures lowering boxes into the pit. The pungent smell became more persistent.

Martha took Nina’s hand. They made few synchronic steps forward.

‘Who’s here?’ they heard an annoyed bark.

‘We’re women, just two women, unarmed, please,’ babbled Martha.

‘And what are you doing here, “women”? It’s a closed zone.’

‘Please, we came to ask for help. I have a small daughter, she’s only 9, and here is my younger sister–’

‘Younger sister? How old is she?’

‘She’s 27, too young to just die here–’

The men laughed.

‘No, deal, “madame”. Your sister is in her late 20s and you’re in your 30s, plus you’re a mother. We don’t take anyone “used” and past 20. But you can leave your daughter here, she can wait her time out with us,’ the men guffawed again.

Martha’s body shook by Nina’s side. She could see flashes of memories from the past –  her older sister, her Mattie, shouts at the children on the playground for pushing Nina from the roundabout for being too slow for the game.

‘Bastards,’ Martha whispered in rage.

‘Please, let’s go, Martha,’ Nina tried to pull her sister back into the woods, the way she did when she was a child, into the familiar textures, noises and smells.

The stench of these men, the foul pond filled with decay, made her stomach turn. She couldn’t feel anything around but her sister’s cold, trembling hand.

‘Yeah, go, mommy!’

Some men proceeded with their task, boxes were gently lifted, snappish conversations ensued.

Martha wrenched her hand out of Nina’s grip. She was ready to run at these men, ruthlessly, pitilessly tear them apart. Her puny body, fatigued with worry and pain, cosmically, comically insignificant, thrashed against the despair. Always a fighter, forced to be, raised to be – the eldest daughter. 

Nina was suddenly pierced by that old hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. She grabbed Martha’s waist and clung to it, falling to her knees, tugging with all her strength.

‘Please,’ she whispered, tears running down her vanished cheeks. ‘Don’t’ let us die like this.’

‘We will die anyway, let me at least punch one of them in the face, before I can’t … fucking…anymore–’

‘Mattie…’ this one word stopped Martha’s twitching and wrenching, her body became limp in Nina’s embrace.

Two women frozen in the moment – one wet face, one dry; one – a defeated fighter, one – a fighting coward.

‘Just go, you don’t want to be in the one room with them anyway,’ one of the men came up to them. His voice was soft, but dejected. ‘Don’t cry, it’s easier that way.’

Martha helped Nina stand up. They took each other’s hands.

After several heavy, dragging steps, they heard the familiar crunching underfoot.

Nina’s face felt dry and tight, but it wasn’t as unpleasant as the cold “nail” that pierced the sole of her numb foot.

‘I think I ruined Mrs Bennet’s boots. Oh, shit, I borrowed them, what will she say?’ even to her own ears her voice sounded childish.

‘Borrowed things, borrowed time, who cares now?’ Martha sat on the ground.

Nina snorted and sat next to her sister. She put her face in the hollow of her throat and took a loud sniff. More than anything now she wished, she could go back in time, to every time her family argued, and just sniff them all, hug them so tight, look at their faces until her eyes became too watery to distinguish every other freckle. But mostly she wanted to scold herself for every second of carelessness, every minute of indifference, every hour of solitude. 

 ‘Funny, how when the world wants to see you, you close your eyes; but when you want to see the world, it closes your eyes,’ she said.

Her sister, Martha, kissed her on the top of her head, on her forehead, and on each cheek; she put her arms around her trembling body. They embraced tightly, each limb intertwined, and they closed their eyes.