
I stared at the clouds and the sky beyond the canopy hanging over me. Brilliant blue streaked with wispy white, and I closed my eyes, feeling the sun that sneaked past the leaves and branches in streaks on my face.
It must have been noon. I placed the back of my hand across my eyes to shield myself from the glare. Breathed. And the darkness crept in slowly.
“Dude?” a distant voice flickered in my head.
“Huh?” I sat up from the bench I was lying on.
“Looks like you drifted off for a moment there.” It was Dee. He sat diagonally across from me, the wooden table between us. I noticed he didn’t have on his usual funky-shaped metal framed glasses, and in its place was a wraparound that looked like goggles, lens made from superhard plastics. The ones that sportsmen typically wore. His hair, like always, looked perfect even though we hadn’t showered in days.
“Yeah..” I unbottled my canteen and took a long drag from it, washing away that dry and bad taste you usually get when you’ve just woken up. Even though we hadn’t had fresh water in days, and the liquid swimming in my battered canteen had been warming and cooling during all that time, it tasted sweet. Delicious.
“Game for a round, then?” I looked across from where I sat up. It was Kai, with that deck of cards he’d been carrying ever since that firefight we had in that small town more than twenty klicks away. By now it was tattering at the edges, over the dozens of games of daidee we’ve had since then.
“Uh, no, thanks,” I glared at him. “You took my last stick of gum the last time we played. Unless you let me use these socks I’ve been wearing ever since the start of the campaign as stakes.”
Kai put up his hands in mock surrender and laughed. “I fold. I’d have a better chance surviving an artillery attack.”
“You’re a smart man, sir,” I grinned. “Coulda fooled me.”
“Wish you’d told me earlier our platoon commander was such a damn card shark,” Dee grumbled. “Took my last two granola bars while you were dozin’.” He gazed longingly at the best things in our field rations as Kai slipped them into his right breast pocket.
“Live and learn, Pretty.” Kai smirked as he patted the bars, which were each covered in thin green foil, sitting in his pocket. ‘Pretty Dee’ was what we called him, because he looked like he had just stepped straight out of the fashion pages in GQ. And he was the best damn marksman in the entire battalion too, his four hundred degree astigmatism notwithstanding. He could shoot a 5.56 hole through a golden dollar two hundred yards away without even nicking the edges.
“And the best way to learn, my four-eyed friend, is the hard way.” I sighed and leaned back onto the bench, laying my head on my hands.
“But they were granola bars..” Dee opined.
I heard a soft rustling noise then, and I craned my neck for a better look. And saw four people in dark blue uniforms crawling around in the vineyards.
Raising my voice, I said, “Gotta try harder, boys. Those uniforms make y’all stand out a mile away.”
The four figures stood up, grumbling, and further back I saw the rest of their section standing up amongst the trees.
“Semula!”
One of the four figures took off their helmets, and my eyes widened when I saw it was Denise, Dee’s girlfriend of four years. We all knew each other, back in a different life.
“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “Since when did you join the SWAT teams?” S.W.A.T – Special Weapons And Tactics, the elite aggressive unit of the police forces. Back when before the world changed, Denise was a childcare teacher, and to see her here, in a uniform even, was a truly monumental discovery.
“Just a couple of months ago. Figured I should do what I can to help in the effort. Hi, Kai! My mother was asking about you.” she smiled sweetly, like she always did. Just beautiful, like Pretty Dee, and I wondered, what kind of world allows two people like them to walk in a life like this?
But who knew, when the bombs fell? When the walls came up? Who ever thought that that could ever happen in our lifetimes?
But I didn’t speak those thoughts out loud, I merely smiled. “Well, who would’ve thought even you could make the grade for SWAT..”
I laughed, and Denise glared at me. “Don’t mess with me now, Jay. I’m armed and officially dangerous.” She swung her H&K MP5 at me and I stepped back in reflex. Kai laughed.
“That’s better!” she beamed. She walked over to Dee and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Be seeing you, Dee. Bye, Kai!”
“You’d never have sneaked up on us, ya know. You’ve got to get out of our field of vision, divide your team, and hit us on the flanks. If you came from this direction,” I gestured about forty-five degrees south of where the three of us had been sitting. “You would’ve been shooting holes through us before any one of us could’ve had a weapon in our hands.”
Denise squinted at where I was pointing. She nodded.
“And you really need some urban camouflage gear, these blue threads make y’all standing bullet magnets.” I said, tugging at her sleeve.
“But we’ve only had these, even before the bombs.” Denise wrinkled her nose at me.
“Things’ve changed, babe.” I looked at her straight in the eyes. “And if you want to survive and live for the day you can hold a child in your arms again instead of that cold metal you have there, you just have to change with them.”
“If that day ever comes. Stay alive, Jay.” she walked off with the rest of her squad.
“Well, aren’t you all bright skies and sunshine today..” Kai said.
“Bringing you smiles and giggles. That’s what I live to do, sir.” I grinned and went back to my spot on the bench.
“Another game, Dee?”
“I’ll have to refuse, sir. I’m hungry.”
“Well, take one of those sorry excuses that we call a ration pack and fill up that ravenous cavern of yours.”
“Got a granola bar, sir?”
I glanced again at the skies, still that bright blue with the clouds drifting through them. If you had only looked up the past three years, you’d never have guessed what sort of madness was going on for the rest of us who were gravity-bound to walk on God’s green earth. Maybe that’s why the flyboys always dreamt of the air, always craving for the freedom of flight, that next rush of adrenaline and the gee forces pressing on their skin, so that they could be far away from where the rest of the world lay. Far from the madness, the blood, and the screams. Hard to feel anything or look into the eyes of the dying when you were unleashing hellfire from five thousand feet above.
But I pushed those thoughts out of my mind. And the sweet dark took me.
– excerpt from the first chapters of Little Red Gods
*
Inspired by this dream I had on Tuesday night, but couldn’t write about due to events like the revelation of Bon Iver’s music, and Josiah’s arrival.
The title Little Red Gods was something I thought of a while ago, while the premise danced in my head, refusing to be written down. Not sure if you can figure out what it’s all about from the title, but I think you can get the idea.
Then as I tried writing this out, it kinda fit into the premise, so I just went along with that. But the dream was real, as were some of the conversations, and so were the characters whom you can probably recognise pretty easily!
This is just part one of the dream.. next part coming soon!
Written while listening to Fleet Foxes’ Your Protector and Aimee Mann’s Freeway on repeat