The World Without Flags

If Eric is dead or when he dies, I will have to act like he vanished one night in anger and never returned. That will have to be the story from now on. I flesh out the details. I imagine the scene, the lie as if it really happened: Eric’s anger when I tell him what we did and my own argument for killing Sam and Rhonda. At one point I imagine myself having said, “Sam was useless anyway!” (which he was), and to this I imagine Eric having said, “We can’t start killing people because they aren’t useful to us!” And then I imagine he packed. Which means I have to return to my cabin, find his backpack, and stow it away somewhere. People might ask questions if they see it. I imagine him packing and I think I will pack what I imagine he would have taken if he had actually done what I’m imagining he did. This whole thing will have to be hidden. Maybe in the Land Rover. I could burn it, I realize. I could get back and burn his backpack and a few of the things he would have taken. But the thought hurts me so bad that I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the heart.

I stumble at the pain of it and come to a stop in my run. I breathe heavily and feel my consciousness swirl and a dark pain sear through me. I shake my head. No, I can’t burn his things. Maybe I will hide them and then, then, maybe next winter, maybe then I will burn them. Or just hide them under the Land Rover forever.

This seems to calm me enough so that I can run again. Now I run uphill to our house. I go inside and smell deeply. No trace of the sickness. Just smoke. Maybe there’s something underneath it, but it’s hard to tell if I really smell it or I’m just imagining that it’s there. The Worm. An image of Eric’s eyes, dark with blood, flashes through me, the little white tubes wriggling at the corners. I nearly choke with despair.

Think, Birdie. Think. As I calm down, I stoke up the stove so that the coals are burning red hot.

I go up to the loft and go to Eric’s bed. Just as I thought, the blankets are bloody and so is the old mattress. I throw the blankets down and then turn over the mattress, so that the bloodstain is facing the floor. I climb down from the loft and start cutting up the blankets with my knife, throwing the shreds into the fire, hoping that no one notices the billows of smoke coming from our stove pipe. Then I go back up to the loft and look around for blood spatters. Thankfully, I don’t see any. I grab Eric’s backpack and then throw in a few things that I think Eric would have taken with him, including the book he was reading, The Left Hand of Darkness. Then I see a bundle of papers held together by rubber bands. I recognize his handwriting. On a whim, I grab the papers and throw it in the backpack.

Without wanting to, I pick up Eric’s holster and the gun he’s had forever. It’s heavier than it looks. I don’t like the feel of it. Strange how personal a gun feels. I feel like I’m trespassing somehow. But I need the gun, just in case, in case Eric… I try not to finish the thought, but for the briefest instant, I picture Eric running for me, cracked, and my hand going up and my finger pulling the trigger. I can’t breathe for a second as I shake off the thought. To throw off the thoughts, I pack all the ammunition I can find. I realize I’m whistling loudly, and I stop. It feels unnatural.

I don’t like being in Eric’s half of the loft. I never realized how carefully we let each other have our privacy. Living in a small place like the Homestead can often feel suffocating, like everyone knows everything about you and there’s nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. Eric was always careful about making sure he never went into my part of the loft. It was always closed off with sheets. Strange how successful a little sheet of cloth can be to create a sense of your own space, your own world, a place that is just yours. I hadn’t really thought of it before now. Eric knew I needed that space. I feel my heart constrict for him. It’s more evidence of how much I need him, how much he means to me. I thought I realized it, but I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue.

I feel a choking sob come up in me, looking at Eric’s side of the loft. His stacks of magazines and books. His crystal dragon and little figurines of soldiers and old knights. The poster on his wall of sandy beaches that says “Florida: coast to coast to coast.” The little board that he would lay on his lap and use as a writing desk. The green plastic cup filled with pencils and pens. Right by his bed, the bracelet of copper and silver wire that Lucia made for him back on the island. I lean over and pick that up. It’s smooth and electric to the touch. I put it in the backpack too. I feel a wetness on my cheek, but I can’t cry. Not now.

I pick up my own backpack and put Eric’s backpack inside it. To hide it from prying eyes.