A Life Unwritten

I held the magazine in my hands like it was porcelain, cradling the frayed edges and the staples that barely clung the grubby paper together anymore. It was the last edition ever printed, and I was on the front cover, staring down the camera in bold colour. I sighed and placed it back on my bookshelf, the itching emptiness in my heart returning, discontentedness as soon as it left my fingertips.

I placed it beside the newspaper that I slipped into an old, golden frame. The colour had faded in the paper after I had thumbed it so many times, but behind the glass it was preserved, my smiling face from a decade ago staring back at me.

Ten years ago, I was everywhere. Every billboard had my face on it. Every newspaper had my picture in it. And every ad campaign needed me to star in it. But now, only scraps of me remained. An old, peeling billboard, collapsed to the ground, my face almost unrecognisable from the weathering. A scrap of paper or a magazine that hadn’t been burned for heat and light. It was like when the virus came and killed off so many people, it also killed my personal touch on the world.

I stood up, admiring my collection. I had fashioned an old chest of drawers into a display case for one thing only: me. I had fallen out of the world’s focus when the virus hit. Kids born after the pandemic didn’t know my name. I had to hold onto whatever was left of me in case I faded away forever.

I walked away from my display, into my kitchen. It had been ransacked, once or twice, the cutlery and most of the sharp knives missing, plates smashed and whatever food I had at the time stolen. I opened my fridge and stared at the interior. The cold had stopped coming a few months after the virus outbreak. Instead, I used the shelves to store my old picture frames, certificates, achievements. My most prized possessions.

I still used the pantry, one of the shelves had collapsed in the last ransack, and I didn’t have the equipment to fix it. Old plastic bags (I tried to find ones that remained relatively intact) were twisted around baked bread, misshapen fruits and veggies. Traders commonly walked past my house, offering their own produce in return for shoes, clothes and water –my house had an old pump out the back. It had been a while since I had eaten meat, but without refrigeration, it was hard to store it for more than a day, even if I dry-aged it outside.

Most people nowadays were travellers, constantly drifting from settlement to settlement, offering goods they had picked up in return for a safe place to sleep and a hot dinner over a fire. My little suburban town had been decimated by the virus. I was the only one to remain. But it was like my house had me on a leash, drawing me back every time I got too far away. I could never leave.

I picked up a small, dirty carrot and used one of my blunt butter-knives to cut off a slice of bread. It was stale, the crust hard and chewy, and the top was burnt, but I was all to aware of what people would be willing to do if they knew I had it. I had to trade my favourite furry winter jacket to get it. It wasn’t a sustainable practice, I knew. I would run out of clothes eventually. My previous lifestyle had stocked my wardrobe so full I needed an entire room to store all of my clothes, but my supplies were dwindling, day by day. Until I could get livestock of my own, it would have to do.

‘House’s gold, this one. Ain’t never seen one in this good condition.’ I froze. The voice was gruff and unfamiliar. It was too close to be a passing comment from someone on the street. There was a loud thump, and a grunt. Whoever was at my door was trying to knock it down. The house shook, and I heard a sharp, splintering crack. No, no, no! I opened the fridge, and my heart instantly sank. A silver-framed photo of me had toppled forward with the impact, the glass shattering onto the fridge’s shelf. I gingerly picked up the photo, and the voices got louder.

‘Pick the lock, mate. You aren’t going to knock it down.’ There was a brief silence, and a soft clicking by the front door. I should’ve left. I knew it. Scavengers came into my house armed with machine guns with bullets from who-knows-where. Or worse, they had crossbows. I should’ve left. But I couldn’t. I stood in front of the refrigerator, the door propped up against my body, gathering all of my possessions. The photo of me at graduation. A newspaper that was in surprisingly good condition that I was careful not to crease. I gathered them in my arms, then rushed back to my room. I swept my arm across the cabinet, gathering everything I could. Okay, I just needed to get to the study to hide. Or, the kitchen. I could grab a knife to threaten them. But my arms were full. And I heard the door click open.

‘This one’s in better shape than I’ve seen in a while.’ I peeked through the crack above the door hinges. There were two men, dressed in grubby cargo pants with shirts and jackets, large camping backpacks slung over their shoulders. One of them had an imposingly large knife tucked in his belt. The other carried a handgun.

‘Go to the kitchen. Grab everything you can find.’ Handgun commanded.

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressed behind my bedroom door. A frame in my arms was slipping.

Heavy footsteps plodded away from me. I heard the fridge opening, then something rummaging around. Had I left something there?

‘They’ve got a magazine in the fridge. Haven’t seen one of these in a while.’ One of them remarked. My breath faltered. My chest tightened, the pit in my stomach deepening. Please, please leave it alone, I prayed.

‘Grab it. We can use it for kindling later.’ My heart stopped. I looked down at what I had gathered before they arrived. Frames, newspaper clippings, certificates. But my magazine. I was on the front cover. It was the most prominent thing I had to mark my existence. To prove that I once walked the earth before the virus ever decimated the human population.

I should have stayed. But I couldn’t. My mouth was dry but I dropped my possessions, squaring up to the door.

Silence. ‘What was that?’ I felt my heart pulsing in my ears. It was too late now. They knew I was here.

Too quiet. I couldn’t hear their footsteps anymore. I needed to escape, I needed to dash to the kitchen and grab the magazine. I’d plead with them, you can take anything but the magazine. Anything. Take my food. I’ve got a water pump in the back. Just not the magazine.

Taking a deep breath, I swung the door open. Instantly, I was faced with the man with the knife, raised above his shoulder. He brought it down before I could react. There was a sickening slice, and for a moment, nothing happened. The man’s jaw tensed under his thick beard. His hand was still on the knife, and he drew it back towards his body. There was a wet, sharp sound, and the blade was in front of me, coated in dark red blood.

I fell to my knees. Agonizing pain shot through my body, rippling with every breath I took. I gasped, my hands suddenly coated in blood. My body wavered and then collapsed onto the floor. My breaths were shaky and shallow, my eyes hazy with tears.

The man stepped over me. I wanted to shout at him, I wanted to scream, leave my stuff alone. But I couldn’t. My hands were clutched over my wound, spilling blood into a large pool on the ground.

‘There’s more newspapers in here,’ the man yelled casually, as if he had not just plunged his knife into my torso. I squeezed my eyes shut, a single tear escaping from the corner. It slid down my face and joined in with the growing puddle of warm blood beneath me.

Handgun peered down the hallway, his eyes meeting mine on the floor. Don’t let him take it, I willed. Please.

Handgun stared at me for a second, and I softened, as if we had reached mutual understanding.

‘Take them. Take them all. Everything you can find.’ If I hadn’t just been stabbed, his words would have felt like it. I shuddered, exhaling a shaky breath, but the deep, pulsing pain in my abdomen worsened. A numb tingling had surrounded my wound, like hot rocks around a campfire.

‘I’ve got it all. We done here?’ Knife man stepped over me again, my belongings clutched in his arms. I wanted to scream, to grab his ankle, to stop him from taking my life away from me. But my head was heavy and my arms felt limp and dulled.

‘Yeah. Let’s head out.’ Handgun had my loaf of bread that I planned to eat, along with my vegetables. But I didn’t care about that. I watched as Knife man took my magazines, my newspapers, my photos and certificates. My existence. Without them, I was nothing. They would be burned for fuel, and I would be forgotten like the wisps of smoke it produced. I would vanish into the air, leaving nothing but a bad scent, unseen and forgotten.

I heard the door slam shut. The men were gone, and they took my lifeline with them. Years from now, the next time someone came into my house, I’d be just another ghost, among the millions that died of the virus. No one would know who I was. I’d fade away, becoming one of the billions of dead, that people pretended to feel sorrow for but really just wanted to raid their houses.

The last trace of me would leave the world forever.

But, lying on the floor in agonizing pain, somehow it didn’t seem so important to me anymore. The newspaper clippings showed a version of me that was gone, erased through the pages of time. The new world had no space for her anymore. And all my belongings –they were nothing more than just that. Things. Things that took up space but had no real value. I couldn’t trade with them. I couldn’t consume them to stay alive. Why did I risk my life over these things? The last remnants of a world so different than what I lived in now that I hardly even recognised them anymore. They didn’t hold the same value as they used to. I’d been so desperate to hold onto them, for so long, and for what? They were just… there.

Like me, I realised. I had no value than to barter with every now and again. I existed in the new world but I hung onto the scraps of the old world, a world that had been left behind. A world of cold fridges and lights that turned on and dishwashers that had purposes other than storage.

My things had no value to me anymore. The house I never left was just a house.

I pulled myself to my feet, wincing as every small movement sent ripples of pain shooting through my body. My bloodied handprint painted the wall as I staggered into the kitchen, where the thieves had left my cutlery drawer open, and had taken my best utensils. But they forgot one thing. Buried in the back of the drawer was my ferro rod, which I used to light fires to cook my food. A rope attached the dark rod to the metallic piece that had a serrated edge. I picked it up, and grabbed a dirty cloth off the bench. My eyes were blurry with tears I tried to blink away, the pain in my abdomen like a heavy weight in my chest, restricting my breathing. Each movement sent jolts of agony through my body, and I fell to the cold, tiled floor. Leaning on my elbows, I struck the metal piece against the rod, sending sparks flying towards the cloth. I blew gently on them, as much as my lungs would allow. No good, the sparks fizzled out. Slumped against the kitchen island, I tried again. They looked like fireworks –a pre-virus memory I hadn’t thought about in a long time. New Year’s Eve, before the sickness had ever gone rampant. Dancing on spiky grass, surrounded by the smell of sweat and the warmth of bodies close to mine. Music booming and a glass in my hand. A countdown. Then, a loud whistle and immense colour sent rocketing across the night sky.

Fireworks. I had forgotten they existed.

The sparks had ignited a small flame on the cloth, which I coaxed into growing with a fragile breath. But I knew the flames wouldn’t spread on the tiled floor. I had to get them to something flammable. I swivelled my head, acutely aware of the puddle of blood that was forming beneath me. That had saturated my clothes. My breaths were quick and shallow. I didn’t have long left. I had to get the flames to the carpet before they fizzled out, and my life extinguished with them. I couldn’t be remembered as the corpse in the nice house. Hell, I didn’t even want to be remembered as my pre-virus self. I wanted everything gone.

Groaning, I commando-crawled through the kitchen, carefully dragging the cloth with me. The heat radiated to my hand but I couldn’t feel it above the searing pain in my abdomen. A trail of blood followed me, like a snail leaving slimy residue. Just a metre away. My eyelids felt heavy. With an outreached arm, I thrusted the cloth towards the carpet, just as my eyes slid shut.

Maybe for good.

But after a moment, the crackle of the flames intensified. The heat around me grew stronger. And despite everything, a smile inched across my cracked lips.

People would see my charred house and wonder who lived there, what happened, and then move on. I wouldn’t be remembered as my famous persona pre-virus. I would be a nobody, an equal.

I would die with a life unwritten.

And I was okay with that.