Still Not Dead

Really. I swear. I've just been Very Busy. To prove how Very Busy, I provide you with a Short Story of Not Very Epic Proportions. SP, I would appreciate if you'd show this to Ben to prove that I can write something with straight people in it.

Men of Clay, or, The Last Call

It was 2:13 AM when the first shot came. It was quick, just a snapping report in the dark, as though Clay had stepped on and broken yet another precious thing. But I knew it wasn’t Clay. Yesterday, he’d broken his Last Precious Thing. Everything we did now was our Last. We’d been staying up late, playing our Last Game of Scrabble and half expecting that shot to come.

The Last Dog came in and snuffled at our feet, licking Clay’s toes. I didn’t tell him to stop it, even though it was disgusting, so Clay turned to me and said, “What’s wrong?”

The Firing Squad has finally come for us, I thought to the Last Dog. The Last Squad. And he wants to know what’s wrong.

“I guess I miss life,” I said quietly.

“I guess I do too.” He smiled his goofy smile. Maybe his Last Goofy Smile. “Everybody does.”

I hugged my knees to my chest. My Last Hug. “Do you think the dog does?”

“You mean the last golden retriever in the world?” Clay used one bare foot to turn the Last Dog over on its stomach. “I think he misses playing with the other dogs.”

“Maybe we should have just given him to population control,” I said, locking and unlocking the tight lacing I had made of my fingers. “When they took all the others. He would have had canine companionship up until the very end.”

“What, I don’t count as canine companionship?” Clay cocked his head doggishly at me and began to pant.

I didn’t feel like playing one Last Game. Of course, Clay did. Sometimes I thought that the only reason he’d done whatever it was we’d done – resisted, rebelled, dissented, whatever you want to call it – was because it was a fun, exciting way to go out. Or at least it had seemed like it at the time. But it was not heroic or fun. We weren’t going to make a miraculous escape. The bad guys were going to win. He was such a kid, Clay. He didn’t realize anything at all.

There was another shot from outside.

Clay was rolling on the floor with the Last Dog.

I went into the kitchen.

Trailing my fingers over the cupboards, I tried to remember why I’d chosen this. Inside the cupboards were illegal, treasonous, libertinistic merchandise, according to The Last Regime. Mixed spices, mostly. Some oregano, very precious, and basil that smelled like the pizza parlors I could remember from being very young. And thyme, too, in the cupboards, thyme for flavoring and time for enjoying the flavor, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to live, and a time to die.

A copy of the Joy of Cooking was lying on the counter. It shook with the vibration as something slammed into the wall. I didn’t jump. They were still far away, working at the barbed wire. Just a small time grenade, maybe, or a gunshot bullet.

I had never kept anything good to read in the kitchen. You don’t want anything good to read when you’re cooking, just something pointless to while away the time when something simmers. I’d only ever cooked for Andrew, really, while he’d been alive and kicking, and then only for something special, like Valentine’s Day. That was one thing the Last Regime had done that I agreed with – outlawing Valentine’s Day. If ever there was a dumb holiday.

Clay came in with a stack of thick books and the Last Dog. “You wanna read to me?” Maybe they were the Last Books. I wasn’t sure. We hadn’t had any communication with the other dissenters for weeks. For all we knew, they were all dead. For all we knew, we two were the Last Dissenters.

“Clay,” I said, “you’re too old to be read to.”

“How old is too old?”

“Fifteen is definitely too old.”

“Well, how old are you?”

“Older than you,” I said, took the books, and set them on the counter. “Old enough to know better, but not old enough to care.”

“I bet,” said Clay. “Read to me. You read to Andrew, when he was alive. Read to me.”

“Which one?”

“Whichever one you pick up first.” He knelt down by the Last Dog and rubbed its belly. “I don’t care how boring it is, I wanna hear the words.”

“I’ll put on some music.”

“Yeah, do that. Elevator music, so it’ll fit the waiting mood.”

I didn’t laugh. I went over to the CD player, though, and then there was another shot and all the CDs jumped like metal birds out of their alignment and fell to the floor. I cursed and dove for them. The first one I picked up got put in. It was Lou Reed. He was singing about colored girls, another term outlawed by the Last Regime.

We let it play.

“You still want me to read to you?” I asked, finding now that I really did want to. “I’ll do voices if you want.”

“Sure.” He smiled cherubically, much too cherubically for Clay. “Whatcha wanna read?”

“Whatcha wanna hear?”

He reached one hand up and dipped it into the pile of books. “Ummm…I wanna hear from….” He glanced at the title, but before he could say it there was another disquieting shot, so his voice shook as he said, “The Road to Oz.”

I nodded and let the book fall open where it wanted to.

Another shot. Closer now.

“Do you care if I start in the middle?” I asked Clay.

He shook his head. “I just want to hear the words.”

“You’re sure you’ll be over to hear them over the Lou Reed?”

“Yeah. Keep it on.”

I began where my eyes fell on the page. “’As they walked leisurely along the shaggy man said to the Tin Woodman –‘“

Boom.

Grenades now. Big grenades, for the inner garden walls.

“’What sort of a Magic Powder was it that made your friend the Pumpkinhead live?’ ‘It was called the Powder of Life,’ was the answer, ‘and it was invented by a crooked Sorcerer…’”

The Last Dog began to whimper, but Clay stroked its muzzle and whispered in its ear.

“’A Witch named Mombi got some of this powder from the crooked Sorcerer and took it home with her. Ozma lived with the Witch then, for it was before she became our princess –‘”

Clay sat up and went to stand next to me, hunching his shoulders over the pages. Lou Reed got to the “doo doo doo” part.

“’-while Mombi had transformed her into the shape of a boy. Well, while Mombi was gone to the crooked Sorcerer’s, the boy made this pumpkinheaded man to amuse himself, and also with the hope of frightening the Witch with it when she returned.’”

Whoomph. Very close now. Clay put his head on my shoulder and made a sweet, painful noise. I rested my forehead very gently on his hair and kept reading. The Last Dog looked left out. “’But Mombi was not scared, and she sprinkled the Pumpkinhead with her Magic Powder of Life, to see if the Powder would work. Ozma was watching, and saw the Pumpkinhead come to life; so that night she took the pepper-box containing the Powder and ran away with it and with Jack, in search of adventures.’”

“Funny,” said Clay, his voice muffled by my sweater, “what people keep in pepper-boxes. What do you keep in your personal pepper-box, if you know what I mean?”

Fuck, he was so fifteen. And isn’t this what I would be doing, if I thought I was about to die, and I was fifteen? I’d be trying to have sex to Lou Reed music.

“Yes, Clay, I know what you mean.” I took my head off of his. “And it involves a little more nasty bodily fluids and awkward freezing and waiting around with no clothes on than it does actual excitement.”

Clay gave a laugh that turned into a whimper. “Keep reading.”

“Okay. But get your face off my chest.”

He did.

“’Next day they found a wooden Saw-Horse standing by the roadside, and sprinkled it with the Powder. It came to life at once, and Jack Pumpkinhead rode the Saw-Horse to the Emerald City.’ ‘What became of the Saw-Horse, afterward?’ asked the shaggy man, much interested in the story. ‘Oh, it’s alive yet, and you will probably meet it presently in the Emerald City.’”

“Sorry to be so fifteen,” Clay said.

“If it’s any consolation,” I began to lie, “I wish I would have died a virgin.”

“Was Andrew that bad?”

“Worse,” I said.

“You’re lying. To make me feel better.” He looked strangely flattered by it.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Keep reading.”

“’Afterward Ozma used the last of the Powder to bring the Flying Gump to life; but as soon as it carried her away from her enemies the Gump was taken apart, so it doesn’t exist any more.’”

BOOM.

Very, very close now. But they wouldn’t blow us up from far away, they would come in and look into our eyes as they shot us. Killing people is kind of like sex. You definitely connect, and if it’s good, its mind blowing. Also, its better if you face the person you kill. Creates that special feeling of intimacy.

The CD player had stopped working.

They could probably come in the front door now.

“Let’s go back to the living room,” I said. My throat was getting kind of dry. “It’s an ironic place to die in.”

Clay laughed. “No one even ever kissed me,” he said.

“Maybe if you ask real nicely, one of them will do it for you.”

He laughed again, but then he started to cough. Both of our throats were getting really dry. “Like hell they will. The Last Regime hates boys kissing boys.”

“A fact we voyeuristic females eternally deplore,” I said coolly, and we went into the living room. We settled on the couch.

“Keep reading,” said Clay.

“All right, hang on, where were we… ‘It’s too bad the Powder of Life was all used up, remarked the shaggy man; ‘it would be a handy thing to have around.’”

From the kitchen, the Last Dog barked and barked and then there was another shot and there were no more dogs in the world at all. We could hear footsteps in hobnailed army boots. The doorknob was rattling.

“Pull, don’t push!” called Clay.