Untitled Short Story

A Story by Karen Zimmer

We walked- traveling along dusty roads or dirt paths where tire tracks carved interstates in the earth and weeds grew. That’s what we knew.

These roads used to be asphalt?

Balancing on railroad tracks, we’d pretend to be graceful gymnasts, creating angles with weary limbs. The world was still but never stopped spinning. Wherever we walked, we pretended.

I often thought of home: the wood floors with broken boards and the security of mosquito netting around a make-shift bed. I had no photographs; moments hang in the air like ghosts- invincible. Wherever we went, our shadows filled with these memories.

We never asked why. The only question is how. Still remaining, it’s stuck to the walls of each of our throats, eating away like a parasite.

We hoped to get the border before vaccinations ran out.

Rumors became truth. No one knew why- information wasn’t real. Each person still living today knew only the rhythm of how. And the rhythm of how has us hungry. It seemed there was no longer time- only sun- and the sun made my brother sick.

There were three lunar eclipses during the time we traveled, and my body was tired. Plodding… The border couldn’t be much further.

There were growing holes in the skirt that hung loosely over my chafed legs. Holes- like the one where my brother’s silent body rests.

Miasma spread thick throughout the air and we walked toward the sun that hung like a torch in the sky.