The World Without Flags

“You should mind your own business,” I tell him. Nothing worse than being told things you know are true by someone younger than you. And someone who you don’t like. It sucks.

Pest just shrugs at me and turns away. He walks away into the dark.

“Touch my knife again and see what happens,” I say into the night.

“Buenas noches,” I hear, already far away.

Spanish. A fleeting, unclear memory of Lucia zips painfully through my mind before I can fend it off.

Creepy jerk.

13

The view from the top of the second lookout is one of my favorites. It looks down over a green carpet of pine trees to the south and west. There’s a lake far in the south west too, like a blue eye staring upward. I don’t know the name of that place. I’ve never been very far from the Homestead, at least not that I remember clearly. I come up here myself sometimes to watch the horizon or the clouds. Sometimes I draw. Sometimes I just sit and look and listen to the quiet.

But I’m not alone today. Artemis is manning the lookout. We had stopped using this lookout like four or five years ago. We didn’t see the point anymore. We don’t get as many visitors as we used to. Not many bandits and gangs come this far north. It’s a long way to ride or walk to steal carrots. Once word of the war came, though, we thought we should use it again. Artemis volunteered to watch three times a week. She gets bored, so she begged me to come to visit her.

She’s standing with her elbows on the banister, looking lazily out to the south. She’s like the portrait of boredom. If I had my drawing stuff with me, I’d have to draw her, but I left it at home. I try to remember so I can draw it later. “Hey, Kestrel,” Artemis says, without looking toward me.

I make a hmmm sound to show I’m listening.

“You ever think that we’re better off now than we were before? I mean, the world, not just us, but like the whole world?” I can tell it’s a rhetorical question so I just wait for her to continue. She pauses for a second. “I was talking to Beth the other day and she was telling me all about the wars she knew. There were two World Wars, I guess, before the Worm. And then another one in a place called Korea. And another one in some place called Vietnam.” Artemis yawned and then leaned back and stretched. “I guess a lot of people got killed. Millions. I can’t even imagine a thousand people, let alone a million, can you?” Again, rhetorical, so I’m quiet. Artemis is gazing up toward the sky now. “I mean, yeah, we work a lot and sometimes we’re hungry and it can get pretty friggin boring, but at least we’re not dropping bombs on each other, right?” Artemis turns away from the balcony and comes over to sit next to me. “I know all the older people talk about the Worm being a plague and a catastrophe, but I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Right? I mean, sometimes I really like the world just the way it is. I wouldn’t want to go back, even though all those people died. Do you think I’m a bad person for thinking that way?”

She looks at me with genuine concern. Artemis is always worried about being seen as a really nice person. Being nice for her is more important than anything else. So this isn’t a rhetorical question.

“You’re not a bad person,” I say.

Artemis smiles and nudges me with her shoulder, which is the closest she can expect to a hug. “Sometimes,” she says, yawning again, “sometimes I think it’s beautiful here, don’t you?”

We look out over the pine trees. The sun hits the lake and it shines like a golden coin.

It’s a rhetorical question, but I answer her anyway. “Very beautiful.”

14

I’m tired from planting all day, but I want to see Franky anyway. There’s been a lot of time in the fields lately. Nothing but work and sleep gets old after a while. Besides, I’m tired of talking with Eric, especially lately. Everyone else has kind of moved on from the war talk, but Eric won’t stop thinking about it. Every night, it’s the same thing. He stares off into space, his mind grinding away at the problem while I try to eat. Some people get annoyed when people eat with their mouth open. I get annoyed when you think too much while you eat. It doesn’t make a sound, but it’s way more irritating than chewing with your mouth open.

I’m filthy when I knock on the door. I’m happy when I have to wait because that means that Franky is alone. Diane and Amber must be out, probably down to the farm helping Crystal. Sure enough, Franky comes to the door alone and smiles when he sees me. He stands back from the door.

“Well look who it is?” I smile at him. “Come on in,” Franky says. He knows better than to wait for me to answer him. That’s one of the things that I like about him. He doesn’t expect me to talk much. “I have something I think you’ll like.”