Minerva Anderson and Bennett Shaw have been inseparable since birth, getting themselves in and out of trouble around the once-great city of New York, now known as the New Order. At a young age, the two watched as the city become overflowed with refu...
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❝ She taught me that I must do whatever means necessary to protect myself and the ones I love... ❞
Minerva Anderson
How cruel is it to hold someone time would forget? To forget the stewed cinnamon aroma varnishing his clothes or his rippling blond hair that frays and gnaws away at his porcelain skin if not trimmed or the way his breathing lumbers when he sleeps on his side, arms folded, hair shifting out of place.
To forget would be to have never known at all.
Bennett is the last memory of family I have been able to hold onto, for whenever I think of their faces, I see Bennett's array of freckles that powder his nose and cheeks, trickling down his chin in a heap of peach-colored grains. I would give anything to see the three of them smiling together again in Dad's garden, with the sun baking the rugged cobblestone and summer's shade permitting the Hydrangeas' bloom. To hear Mom yell at me to clean my room or have Dad call me down for dinner, but their voices belong to Bennett now, stolen by a whirlwind of ivory smoke that burrowed the last of their breath.
If they take my memory today, I'll have nothing, but if they don't, I'll die.
♱
I unwove my arms from the warmth of Bennett's waist and slid off the bed that housed his resting. Stepping onto the earthly bristle of ground in my apartment sent a frigid current that nipped at my arms, baptizing them in a parade of goosebumps. I maneuvered around landmines of tile and thrown about things as I crept, watching as my shadow scattered and scampered in the gloss of September's moonlight seeping in from the windows. The quiet roared like the stillness before a storm, intertwining me in its calm as I venture toward explosions of lightning and claps of thunder that bore the letter that bore the words that summon us to get treated.
I starred at the paper as it slowly fluttered against my fingertips, its creases drawing deeper while rattling and tearing under the pressure of my grasp built on the cavity contorting in my stomach and the dew that clammed my palms. The fine print blurred together as my waterline grew awash, draining onto the expiration date in my hands as wet ink changed the embedded text into smudges of nothingness.
Swiftly I turned the paper over, placed it on a table, grabbed a pen, and pondered on a plan that could allow us to evade today, but it remained fruitless, and my eyes watered again, but I knew wallowing in sorrow and self-pity won't change a thing.
Dad used to tell me if I want something changed, I'd have to be able enough to change it myself. He was a wise man, always knew a solution to complex problems, but if he were here, I'm sure he wouldn't help. Behind his scrawny curly hair was a brilliant thought, and beyond his glasses were mellow eyes that peered into your mind, gnawing at your innermost thoughts. And with his moist breath the savor of coffee, he would tell me to take his wisdom and mold it to my needs, for no one else can carry my burdens, which is why I must find a solution that suits me.
