I walked backwards into the water, him directing me, gripping my shoulders. The blaze in his eyes I still believed was love, but my instinct was screaming. He kneeled over, forcing me backwards into the water. The first submersion of my head was sudden, and I was definitely a fish out of water.
“Hold still.”

“You know what you could have done Mum? You could get one of those time machines, go back in time and get rich!”
“And why would I want to do that, honey?”
“’Cause then you could find a different ‘daddy’.”
“Doesn’t work that way, honey.”
“You know what I’d do with a time machine Mommy? I’d go back in time and fight all the dragons.”
“Yeah, that’s nice.”
“And I’d be so strong, that I’d defeat all the dragons, and then I could come home and be a hero.”
“Yep.”
“Hey Mommy, what’s that?”
“It’s mascara.”
“What do you need all that for? Why so much?”
“I need it for my job.”

Quiet.

“You’re beautiful.”
“Really? You really think so?”
“Yeah, I really do.”

Quiet.

“God, I only got 54%.”
“What are you complaining about? I got 50%! You’re the smart one. I’m damn lucky.”
“That’s what I’m saying, man. I’m the smart one. I should’ve done way better.”
“You know, this guy, he’s like so.. oh my god. You don’t understand.”
“Do you ever stop talking about guys? Maybe you should study more.”
“I try! And then I just find myself thinking about guys when I’m staring at some ugly dude in a history textbook.”
“Damn girl, you need to get a life.”

Quiet.

I stare up at the bleak wall above me. They just seem to grow up out of the ground. I climb them, they grow taller. I must seem like a joke to them.
I try to remember important things, from before. Before everything was ripped apart and I was thrown deep into the dark and quiet. Perhaps the memories mean nothing. I must seem like a joke to them too.
There are others here. But we prefer to work alone, in our quests of finally pulling ourselves up over the crest of the final wall and lying on the real earth. Sometimes I watch them climbing, from my ledge in the dark. Other times I watch them fall back to the place where they started all those years ago, or perhaps even farther.
I think I have fallen farther than all the others who still have hope.

“Light up, light up, as if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice,
I’ll be right beside you, dear.
Louder, louder,
And we’ll run for our lives…”

The song lines drift into my mind like fog seeps through a forest. I light up one of my last few matches, and toss into the chasm below me. Perhaps it will reach somebody else who will keep it burning. I wish I had a choice.

“How long have you been here?”
I look at him. Down here, in the dark, you can never see anybody clearly. I look in his direction anyway.
“I’ve always been here. Perhaps born here.”
I don’t remember falling, after all.
The next morning, as far as we can tell, we begin climbing again. I always preferred to climb alone, but for whatever reason, it was an unspoken agreement between us. And I believed for once that I would get out. It’s a feeling like believing you’re dead and then realizing you still have the capability to bleed.

I don’t remember much of him. Or any of the time I spent with him. It’s like a blank page in a novel that never ends. The sentence stops, you turn the page and nothing. You flip the page again, and the story re-begins.

I remember it. I remember the blue sky. We were there, at the top. He called to me. He told me to pass up my bag, and that he would pull me up. I gave it to him. I was astonished at my trust of another human. Were we humans then?
He looked down at me. I reached out with my right hand. He looked at it.
“You’re not going to pull me out, are you?”
“No.”
I smiled, and let go before I could give him the satisfaction of pushing me back.

I sit here, on my ledge, and watch another climbing up the steep wall. I’ll be honest. I don’t have food. I don’t have water. I don’t have much of anything. Just a beating heart. But what is that worth down here? I may as well just be buried. I can be the first living dead; the first real zombie.
I wonder where he is now. I think of my bag. He probably looked through it and threw it down after me. After all, the only thing inside was a burnt match; a burning match that had fallen in front of me many years ago.

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