The Rite of Spring

It’s a warm Spring night, and you’re positioned about a good 25 to 30 feet away from the bonfire, sufficiently distant for all the people dancing around it, kids exclusively, to seem like so many drunken moths fluttering around a lightbulb. The enormous tree root that you’re sitting on is about as old, moldy, and surprisingly sturdy as you yourself seem to be, and this estimation is not without cause. You’re in your mid-fifties and still in relatively good health considering there are no formal doctors. You call the people dancing around the bonfire, playing crude instruments 'kids', but they’re all in the age range of 18 to 22. They’re kids to you now, but you remember that you were around their age when the world broke and this became the new norm. You were even younger when magic entered the world.

The person who taps you on your shoulder from behind is the one exception to the relative youthfulness of the group you travel with.

“You’re not going to join in?”

“I don’t dance much these days,” you answer. “And if I did I’d probably pop something, knowing my luck.”

You give in, and invite her to take a seat next to you, trying to stave off the distance from the bonfire, the group, and the world at large. The woman’s name is Tiff. You call her that, everyone calls her that, but when you first met her some 30 years ago she said her name was Tiffany. To make a long story slightly less long, about 4 years after the apocalypse, when zombies and various undead monsters became a thing and after the cities and suburbs had been cleaned out, a 26-year-old you happens upon a home in the countryside. It’s nice and wide open prairie, with huge fields laden with hay bales and a few fenced off areas, but of course no cows, so no use staying outside. You go into the house expecting to find nothing but a few canned goods, same as always, only to find yourself in the middle of a kitchen, on the far side of which is a woman being eaten alive by two zombies. Judging from the wheelchair next to them and the fact that the zombies are taking their time eating her chunk by chunk, you guess that the woman’s paraplegic and got concussed when her head hit the tile floor. She’s lying on her back, slightly on her left side, with her head propped up on the wall behind her. Her face is in a permanent grimace. She seems to have heard you open the door and step into the kitchen because she looks in your direction, and with her face covered in blood, sweat, and pain, motions her head to her left side as if she wants you to notice something. You think it’s another zombie that you somehow failed to see, but instead, in the corner between the stove and the wall there’s huddled a small child, all boogers and snot over what’s taking place. You look at the kid and then back at her, and she gives you a pained smile of supreme relief that quickly disappears as she resigns herself to being impromptu lunchmeat. The understood last request of “Please take my daughter away from here,” isn’t lost on you, and as you hunker down and ever so quietly carry the sniveling child out of the house, you can’t help but wonder whether anything in this world happens by accident. If that’s the case, you think, then fate must’ve had a shitty next few minutes in store for this girl. As you cross the fence that encircles the front yard you hear the mother’s deathly shrieks punctuate the idyllic farmland. A few minutes later and you’d have stumbled on a fresh corpse and been none the wiser to the frightened child now clinging to your back. She can’t be any older than five. When you’re far enough down the road the girl tells you in so many garbled syllables that her name is Tiffany. You take to calling her Tiff because in the heat of getting your flesh devoured you figure you’re not going to be bothered to remember anything longer than two syllables.

The night before your excursion finds you sitting on a huge tree root alongside this now grown woman. With her hair tied back in a loose ponytail and the fact that she’s wearing an old janitor’s outfit, scavenged from some school ruins, she looks every bit like the hands-on person that she is. Her burliness helps with this impression. Drinking a cup of her hand-brewed ale, she tries to strike up some conversation.

“I’m glad we get to do celebrations like this, y’know, for the coming of Spring and all,” she takes a gulp from her cup. “But we’re going have to start thinking about someplace to stay, at least for a few months. Can you believe we’ve got seven women expecting kids soon?”

No, you cannot believe that seven girls amongst these kids are pregnant. In fact, you cannot believe that anyone would have the time and wherewithal to go out screwing each other in any capacity in this undead wilderness. But then you remember that this is all they’ve ever known, and that nothing about this is strange to them in the least bit. You pretend as if you’re likewise acclimated.

“Really? Haven’t noticed.” Even though three of them look like giant marbles at this point and could probably give birth any day now.

“So when are you going out scouting?” Tiff asks.

“Hm? Ah, a place to stay. Right.” You stare squarely at the bonfire thinking on this proposition. The dancers have linked their arms to form a ring around the fire and are dancing in circles around it. The feeling that they all trust in you and will listen to whatever you tell them without much protest still seems surreal to you, but you shake this feeling off instantly and make up your mind.

“Well, tomorrow seems as good a time as any. We have to find one soon, right?”

“Yeah, the quicker the better.” She says, having finished her cup of ale. When she starts tapping the cup against the root you know that she’s restless about something. It doesn’t take long to be told what.

“When are you going to stop pretending?”

That you can still see? Well, the cataracts make it impossible for you to see clearly, at any rate. When you said that the dancers looked like moths you weren’t kidding; their forms are so blurred that, combined with their shadows, they look like thick black wings flapping senselessly. Outside of the bonfire’s light it’s hard for you to see much of anything. You can still make out the light blue color of Tiff’s clothing, but even sitting so close to her, her facial features are all fuzzy. Everything’s an unclear shape, and you can only just barely make out the large black mole off the left corner of her mouth. You know you weren’t fooling anyone, what with your clouded eyes and constant squinting, but you didn’t think Tiff would take any particular exception to it, which was stupid you now realize. You take a deep breath for the conversation you know is coming.

“It’s not as bad as you make it out to be,” You say.

“That’s bullshit.” She points to the crowd near the now waning bonfire, who’ve all finished dancing and are now making light conversation. “You can’t tell any of them apart, can you?”

You admit that you can’t see a single one of them as a distinct person. The only ones you can tell apart from the others are the pregnant girls sitting on a nearby log, and that’s only because to you they’re shaped fundamentally different from the others. This bothers you a lot less than it should, circumstances being what they are. Tiff, on the other hand, is understandably pissed and jumps off from the root to stand right in front of you, hands on her hips.

“Why have you just kept quiet about it? This shit isn’t just going to fix itself so why haven’t you spoken up if you can barely see?”

You could say that it wasn’t any of her business and that’s why you didn’t tell her, but that wouldn’t be true, and since the actual answer will only make her more enflamed and make her start yelling at you, you say nothing. The outcome is the same regardless.

“TELL ME, DAMMIT!!! The fuck were you gonna do, just go out there and get yourself killed!?! Are you stupid? Do you have a fucking death wish!?!”

Why yes, you do in fact have a death wish, but that’s not the problem here, at least not the whole of it. Tiff’s yelling gets everyone’s attention, and along with the bonfire almost having gone out they wisely make their way back to their tents to call it a night. In answer to her wall of flame you keep a calm head; you find it a lot easier now than when she was younger. That said you don’t look at her where you think her eyes are and you fiddle with your hands as an added distraction.

“I’ve been traveling about for a while now, seen all sorts of things, and I know very well when something’s outlived its usefulness. If I can’t see, then that’s just how it is, and I’ve gone as far as I’m able.”

“That’s bullshit!” She takes a step towards where you’re sitting, and you wonder whether she’s actually going to hit you over this. “You’re willing to just die out there and leave behind everyone you know?”

Of course not; half of everyone you know is already dead. They died in the apocalypse and while you might see them again someday it’s not something that you’re hoping for. The quarter of the people that you know that Tiff is referring to would be better off without you as a liability, which you know you will eventually become. Tiff may have a personal reason for denying it, being about the person who raised her, but she must have seen this coming.

“Listen.” You say, trying to calm Tiff down. “I can’t spend the rest of my life trying to avoid the inevitable”

“You can at least try!”

At this point the bonfire has been reduced to nothing but smoldering embers, which means you’re completely blind. The full moon is out, but other than being a big white dot hanging out in the sky, that doesn’t mean much to you; the moonlight is too faint for you to see anything by. It’s something you wanted to avoid, but then so is this conversation. Tiff continues.

“You know what, forget it. I’ll go out scouting, you stay here”

You can’t see her anymore but she must be stepping in place from the sounds of the dirt crunching. Always an active one, this girl. You slowly rise from your seat and reply,

“Nope. You’re better off here in case someone goes into labor. These hands…”

You hold up your hands and wriggle them in front of you, assuming Tiff can see them in the moonlight even though you can’t.

“…aren’t as dexterous as they used to be. Besides, you’re better at midwifery than I am.”

There’s a silence. She breathes in sharply and then exhales, regaining her composure.

“Two days.” She says, right into your ear, it seems. “After two days, I’m coming out there myself.”

You stumble in your attempt to walk back to your tent.

“You can’t see, can you?” She says, concerned rather than mockingly. You don’t answer. Tiff comes up and grabs your arm anyway, and you’re not sure whether it’s pride or embarrassment that twists your gut in a knot and makes your lip wobble ever so slightly.