The World Without Flags

If I don’t, Eric will die. I squeeze. I picture the movements I need to make. The last pressure of the trigger, the turn at the waist, pointing the gun at Boston who will probably sit up straight at the sound of the gun. And then the second shot. Easy. I squeeze.

If I don’t, Eric will die. I steady my aim and take a deep breath.

But my finger won’t move.

I can’t do it. I can’t.

I let the gun drop. I have to find a different way.

When I get back to my sleeping bag, I feel sure Eric would be proud of me. I slip inside and close my eyes.

This will give me no consolation if he dies because I couldn’t do what had to be done.

54

The next day I wake up to blinding sunlight. The sun is almost directly above me. I slept until midday. I feel a lot better than I did last night. When I sit up, I see it’s a beautiful day. There are long, lazy clouds in the sky, but otherwise the skies are deep blue. To each side of the road are tall pine trees. Boston and Sidney are by the fire, drying long strips of venison. The sight of the meat makes me ravenous. I think I could eat half the deer myself. I sit up and stretch. Somewhere a chickadee calls out. Chick-a-dee-deee-deee.

“There’s some breakfast left, if you want some,” Sidney says, noticing I’m up.

Do I want some breakfast? Talk about an understatement.

I try not to think about how close I came to shooting him last night as I go to the fire. There’s a pan in there with two large deer steaks. Soon I’m sitting down and gorging myself. I eat both of the steaks without so much as a pause. Then I sit back, wiping my greasy face with my sleeve, and take a deep breath. I could almost take another nap.

But I remember Eric then, so I boil some more tea. The sleep has done me some good. I’m thinking much more clearly. I’ve got an idea.

Boston and Sidney work silently on the deer, but I notice Sidney watches me as I get up.

“Thanks for the breakfast,” I tell him.

“No problem,” Boston says. Sidney just nods, his big onion nose dipping down and then back up. When he turns away, I see his cauliflower ear and I wonder for a second what happened to him before I stop myself. Best not to think about that. I don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s a good chance that all of this is not going to end well. It doesn’t seem smart to wonder about the past of a man you might have to kill. So I just turn and walk away.

Eric has moved during the night. He’s lying on his stomach in the pine needles with the heavy backpack on top of him. From the sound of his breathing, it sounds like the weight of the backpack is not easy for him.

“Come on, Eric,” I say. I push him over. His face is covered with black bile.

I stand up and walk away, trying to hold down my breakfast. “Oh, man,” I say, covering my mouth with my wrist. “That’s nasty.”

But there’s nothing to do but clean him up as best I can, so I hold my breath and get the rag. Then I go through the bag until I find the bag of maple sugar I brought from the Homestead. I mix some in with the mint tea. This way Eric will get some kind of nourishment. Better than nothing, I figure.

I have to turn my head away as Eric drinks it though, with his lapping tongue that has turned black. It’s too gross to watch. The smell alone is brutal. But I think I got some food in him, so that feels good.

After the tea is gone, I clean him up again, and help him stand up.

“Unh,” he says when I’ve finally hefted him to his feet.

I walk him around a little, just to exercise him, get the blood to his muscles. Then I stand next to him and look back through the trees, down at the camp where Boston and Sidney are working on drying the strips of deer meat. Eric’s mouth hangs open. His breathing is rough and makes a gurgling noise, like he’s trying to draw air through liquid. I turn away from him.

I try not to look at Eric too much. He doesn’t look like the man I remember. He looks like a skull with a beard now. The wrappings I made for his eyes are stained deeply black. I don’t even want to imagine what’s underneath that. And his clothes are just too disgusting to mention. With his jaw hanging open and a little to the side, he looks like a stranger. It’s hard to imagine this is the same person who used to teach me mathematics during long winter nights, who used to read books to me, who taught ne everything I know. It breaks my heart to see what he has become. I want to hug him or something, but I can’t because he might bite me. I feel my chest kind of freeze up.

Eric suddenly tenses up and then makes a horrible, wet hacking sound. A fist-sized blob of black bile, writhing with pale worms, rolls out of his mouth and then down the front of his shirt. It leaves a stinking, wriggling trail on his clothes as it drops to the forest floor.

That does it. I stagger to the nearest tree and wretch out a good portion of my breakfast into the bushes.

“Damn it, Eric,” I say, spitting on the ground when I finish.

When my stomach settles, I take a few deep breaths. I have to clean him up now.