Shadow of the Past

I could hardly remember the city anymore. The colorful bokeh of lights had turned into a galaxy of stars in the sky and fireflies in the long grass, and the electric, intoxicating music had become crickets near ponds that formed from pot-holes. The desolate streets were something out of a sci-fi scene, a land far in the future that emerged after the destruction of humanity and the world as we know it.

Except today, May 4th, 2028, was not the definition of The Future that appeared in our movies and books as children. Only three years ago did Chicago look like it had for years; alive. Three years ago, when I was thirteen and still walking to my bus stop at 7:05 every morning, the sour smell of air pollution and fog that felt like home to me.

My father and I were one of the few families that stayed in the city after the Outage. Most people gathered their lives and their children and moved west, where it was easier to live off the land. 

But dad couldn’t leave the city, for more reasons than I could understand at the time.

At first I was angry. When the Outage hit, I wanted to move west just like everyone else. I could have stayed with my friends, and left behind the people and the trash that blew like dry tumbleweeds across cracked concrete. But the days rolled on and every day a new apartment was empty, until my father and I were the only ones left in the complex. The city fell apart slowly, like the undoing of a puzzle, and Mother Nature took her land back.

 When Dad got sick, I got angrier. I yelled at him, told him that if we’d left he would have been able to get help. 

That was the first time I saw my father cry. 

I knew he had before. When mom died, he stood on the balcony every night, staring at the inky sky covered with smog. He cursed God and demanded answers.

When he passed about a year later, I blamed myself. I knew that if I had started west, he would have followed. I was all he had besides the memories in our little eleventh floor apartment, and he couldn’t lose me too.

The colossal guilt that hung like a wet blanket over my shoulders had lifted away, thread by thread over the past two years. 

I had buried my past behind me as I stepped forward into the new life that had been created for me. Nothing mattered but the future. 

~~~

Leaving apartment 11C was the hardest thing for me to do besides letting the memories and guilt become something of the past.

My father’s tan combat boots, stuffed with cotton at the toe, led me grudgingly across the tattered red and white carpets that flowed like a bloody river down the length of the eleventh floor hallway.

I didn’t cry, even though I wanted to.

Crying was just an emotional block in the road that I had to tear down again and again until it gave up and left me alone.

I left at midday, when the sun gleamed off tall glass and steel buildings like a beacon. Vines had crept their way from the roots of trees, precisely placed to frame entrances to big office buildings, to rooftop gardens that overflowed and fell like waterfalls down the buildings.

The same sage-green eyes as my father stared up at the bright, cerulean sky that appeared more prodigious than ever. They tried to connect the immense imagery to their brain, which was nearly going haywire with exposure to absolute freedom.

My mother’s yellow floral backpack hung loosely against my back, the frayed straps swaying in the gentle spring breeze. I’d left everything behind except my journal, dead cell-phone, small food rations, change of clothes, and water. My truck was filled to the brim with items salvaged from abandoned stores, and food that would last me weeks, at least.

I was heading west.

Anyone with a brain would have called me stupid. I had everything here. Empty stores with endless supplies, countless places to live, access to the most exclusive places in Chicago.

I hardly understood why I was leaving, myself, but something was telling me I had to. My past was still a tall brick wall behind me, even though I had stopped looking at it. And until I broke it down, its shadow remained in my path.

I found myself in my drivers’ seat then. My hands gripped the wheel at ten and two, just like Dad told me to do. Check your mirrors, look out the back window. Not a car in sight.

The dusty 2005 Chevrolet Silverado made a few funky noises before the engine purred, and I smiled. It had been two years since I pulled out of this same parking garage.

Still, my foot hesitated on the brake, not ready yet to switch to the accelerator. My gaze drifted from the top of the wheel to beyond my windshield, down sixth street. An early afternoon haze was settled close to the ground, where tall grass protruded from the torn up asphalt and the roots of new trees, smooth and tan, wrapped in a firm grip around the sidewalk.

I’d decided I was ready to leave. Sure of it. But leaving the city felt like leaving family. My conflict was exactly the same as when Dad insisted on staying. I remembered the look in his eyes, full of a desperation that didn’t want to leave my mom, as gone as she was. I remembered when he became sick; so sick he couldn’t get up from the couch, and I tore my eyes away from the street.

The realization sent my foot to the accelerator. 

Letting go was something I never thought I’d have to face. I thought I could wish away my feelings, so far that they’d never return, but they always did.

I’d never driven faster in my life. The city fell behind me, and I realized it was never mine. Nothing was mine but the future, and the vast road ahead.

Maybe it wasn’t right. Maybe I should have stayed.

But as my wheels kept on turning and I reached the high-way, I pushed the accelerator until my speed topped 95. The tear that fell from my eye told me everything I needed to know.