Good Old Days

I grab a carton of milk out of the fridge and slam the door shut with my hip, pouring the milk into the bowl of cereal I’m trying to balance. Only a dribble of milk spills on the stained checkered floor. I commend myself on my skills, beaming with pride at what a professional multi-tasker I’ve become. I put the carton back into the fridge and gaze for a moment at the photos stuck to it with smudged tape. Images of little girls with tiaras in her curly brown hair and smiling parents hugging her or each other. A reality that I wouldn’t know. The smiling little girl’s green eyes glow and her missing tooth grin would melt any serial killer’s heart. She’s probably what I would have looked like as a kid. But then again, I never had my photo taken so I wouldn’t know. 

I walk out of the dim lit kitchen and fall back onto the couch, exhaling loudly. Nobody responds to my sigh, no one says, “Wow, that was a loud one. You alright?” No one’s here to see if I’m okay, so that I can say, “Oh yeah, I just forget to breathe sometimes.” I sigh again, pressing father into the scratchy couch and listening to the silence for a moment. I search for the remote, finally finding it shoved back into the couch cushions. Clicking on the TV, I shove cereal into my face. 

“Breaking news,” Says the pretty blonde woman with her mic attached to her cheek. “Protesters gather at the capitol building in Houston protesting the banning of Dr. Seuss books all over the state of Texas.” 

Her face is sober, eyebrows coming at a crease in the center of her perfectly airbrushed Botox pumped skin, “Parents all over are outcrying the destruction of their childhood, declaring that Dr. Seuss’s children's books are attached to some of their key memories growing up. One man, by the name of Jordan Voghan, is here to tell you why getting rid of these staple children’s books may stunt the growth of the next generations.”

“Thanks, Jane,” Say Jordan as the camera switches to his bland face. “I just want to call out parents all over the country and beg them to protect the childhood of their sons and daughters. One days they’ll look back and think, ‘Remember those good old days reading Dr. Seuss without a care in the world’. It would be a crime to take that away from them.” 

“Oh, gosh, what a crisis,” I groan, and click the remote to change the channel. 

An old rom-com comes on, and I watch, slurping up the last of my cereal. I’m not really watching however, I’m thinking about how I never once read a Dr. Seuss book growing up. I never read it because I didn’t learn to read until I was nine. No Dr. Seuss, all these poor people broadcasting breaking news on the crime, and I’ve never even read it as a seventeen year old. But hey, I turned out alright. I set the bowl down on the table, staring down at the wet crumbs that dot the bottom of the grimy dish. It’s funny how humans freak out over little things like picture books. I’d say there are bigger problems out there. War. School shootings. Bombing of malls.

In the last three years, half the world’s gone dark. The areas of the United States that have managed to stay above the catastrophe are rebuilding life and carrying on as usual. The President said to continue as usual– that we must not panic, and that we will continue life as we know it. I say that’s bull crap. The world is falling apart, but we shall sit and pretend that it is lollipops and rainbows. 

I stand, trudging back into the kitchen and putting my bowl in the sink, not bothering to turn the faucet on. No water would come out even if I did, just a loud screeching sound from the straining pipes trying to produce a liquid that no longer exists under this apartment complex. We’ve been losing water for years, it came on slowly and then all at once. One day the faucets and tubs worked just like before. Now I haven’t taken a shower in over a month, and have been bartering for the spare water bottles I find on the streets. 

I look down at the drawings sprawled out on the granite counter tops. Pictures of flowers and spaceships, rainbows and lots and lots of hearts. Probably that little girl from the photos sat here on one of the bar stools, wearing a princess dress and scribbling with broken crayons. Her mom must have stood at this sink, washing dishes and humming her little girl’s favorite Disney song. When the husband came home the girl would jump down and go running to him, flashing her beautiful drawings for him to ooh and ahh over like they’re fine masterpieces.

I brace my hands against the counter and close my eyes, picturing the commotion and celebration as the dad swept his little girl into his arms and carried her back into the kitchen where he kissed his beaming wife hello. A year or two ago I would have sobbed at how real I can see it now, but my eyes stay painfully dry. My eyes dart to the closed blinds at the sound of thunder outside. Not thunder, considering the fact it hasn't rained in weeks. Gunfire, becoming more common every day.

I walk back into the bedrooms, the parent’s most likely, and grab my pack from underneath the bed. I toss it on the bed, finding a water bottle and shoving it into it, along with medical tape, granola bars, my GPS and a Walkie-Talkie. My GPS barely works and I’ve never had anyone to use my Walkie-Talkie with but having them makes me feel more prepared. Feeling more prepared is a necessary foundation when you spend the day wandering through war zones.

The United States is at war with itself, and it’s been for so long that nobody really knows what anyone’s fighting over anymore. The neighborhoods are corpses of once happy and bright places, now falling apart and bomb ridden. The grocery stores are empty and abandoned, all the shelves clean, every once and a while an overhead like flickering or a speaker starting to play the radio. Schools are death houses, and no one dares entire one knowing the activities that go on inside. The malls have been ransacked, and some if not most burned to the ground. I spend my days roaming through the empty streets, or paying for a lift on the freeways. I wear my hoodie and keep my head down. Never give my name and never ask for a favor, always paying for what I take and never in debt to anyone. It’s the only way you survive. 

This house I’m in was once the safe haven of a beautiful family with a mom and a dad and a little girl with brown pigtails. Now it’s abandoned and filthy and deathly silent, and all that’s left is me. The girl with brown hair cut at an uneven angle and scars scraping down her face from a car wreck. The car wreck when her abusive mom’s boyfriend finally passed out at the wheel and let her get away eight months ago. We’d been driving across the state with the hopes of getting to Mexico. He gagged hours back after I refused to stop cursing him out and demanding him to let me out. 

It was a long drive, and he was falling asleep fast. I let him doze off, and managed not to scream as the car swerved, hitting the side of the road at sixty miles per hour. We rolled. It wasn’t pretty. I crawled my way out of the smoke and glass, and ran for it, limping just a little. I’ve been running ever since. 

Before then I had a mother, but she was never my mom. Before it was only her and I, I must have had a loving dad, but I wouldn’t know that either. She never spoke of him and she’d pull my hair if I ever tried to bring him up as a little girl. I learned quickly to pretend I never had a father and even if I had no one could love an annoying brat like me. My mom died of an overdose when I was eleven and then it was just me and her boyfriend. 

I had no Dr. Seuss. I have no princess dress and Disney songs to pull out when I want to reminisce about the good old days. I didn’t make mac and cheese or lick the bowl when my mom made brownies. I never went to birthday parties or had Christmases or went to Disneyland with a huge smiling family. I lived in a sunbaked Chevrolet, and ate canned food or government handouts when we were lucky enough to have those. I watched out the back window of the car as we drove and drove, listening to my mom’s distasteful rock music played so loud I could hear my head shake. Now the world’s crumbling into chaos, and they whine about their children not being able to read Dr. Seuss. 

I’m just over here still waiting for my good old days to show up.