Make Some Noise
The Aftermath
When I wake up, I can barely move. I have no idea how long I’ve been out. I’m laying face-down in the dirt. Pain shoots through my arms and down my back when I try to push myself up. I settle for rolling over. The left side of my ribcage protests with every breath and my whole body aches fiercely.
My visor is cracked, right across the front, splitting my view of the sky with plastic lightning. It’s painful to pull my helmet off, but I do it. I rest my pounding head on the ground. The sun is starting to go down, hanging low. The air smells like smoke. I turn my head to the side.
The diner is gone.
I can’t breathe. Oh god.
It’s decimated, in ruins. I close my eyes. Open them again. I’m on the other side of the road; must have been thrown here by the explosion. Oh god. I force myself to sit up. The wheels on my roller skates are rigged to pop off with a special mechanism me and Doc worked on for weeks. My gut twists and I stagger to my feet in my wheel-less skate boots, head swimming. Doc. He’s gone too.
Just gone. Incinerated. Ashes to ashes. Nothing left.
I limp through the wreckage, tears leaking and leaving tracks through the dirt and sweat and soot on my cheeks. Some of it is still smouldering. Broken glass crunches under my feet. There’s a tangle of mostly melted wires; a piece of graffitied wall; cracked, charred records. And a strange choked keening noise. I realize I’m making it and my throat swells shut. My eyes find a bolt from Doc’s leg brace in the mess. Is that–blood? My stomach heaves. Oh god. No.
My home. My family. Gone.
I sink to the ground and cry.
***
I wait for three days. I don’t eat, don’t drink, barely sleep. I think I lose my mind a little, alone out there in the desert, surrounded by the remains of my life, shimmering in the heat. This is the second time BLi has destroyed everything I’ve got. I wonder why they left me alive.
I gather the little pieces that are left. A scorched scrap of Doc’s bandanna that I tie around my wrist. My helmet. Pink Lightning. My wheels. A shard of a record with half of the body and three of the legs of the Killjoy spider.
On the morning of the third day I realize they’re not coming. I leave everything how it is, blown apart like I am inside, and skate away as clouds roll in and it finally starts to rain.
My visor is cracked, right across the front, splitting my view of the sky with plastic lightning. It’s painful to pull my helmet off, but I do it. I rest my pounding head on the ground. The sun is starting to go down, hanging low. The air smells like smoke. I turn my head to the side.
The diner is gone.
I can’t breathe. Oh god.
It’s decimated, in ruins. I close my eyes. Open them again. I’m on the other side of the road; must have been thrown here by the explosion. Oh god. I force myself to sit up. The wheels on my roller skates are rigged to pop off with a special mechanism me and Doc worked on for weeks. My gut twists and I stagger to my feet in my wheel-less skate boots, head swimming. Doc. He’s gone too.
Just gone. Incinerated. Ashes to ashes. Nothing left.
I limp through the wreckage, tears leaking and leaving tracks through the dirt and sweat and soot on my cheeks. Some of it is still smouldering. Broken glass crunches under my feet. There’s a tangle of mostly melted wires; a piece of graffitied wall; cracked, charred records. And a strange choked keening noise. I realize I’m making it and my throat swells shut. My eyes find a bolt from Doc’s leg brace in the mess. Is that–blood? My stomach heaves. Oh god. No.
My home. My family. Gone.
I sink to the ground and cry.
***
I wait for three days. I don’t eat, don’t drink, barely sleep. I think I lose my mind a little, alone out there in the desert, surrounded by the remains of my life, shimmering in the heat. This is the second time BLi has destroyed everything I’ve got. I wonder why they left me alive.
I gather the little pieces that are left. A scorched scrap of Doc’s bandanna that I tie around my wrist. My helmet. Pink Lightning. My wheels. A shard of a record with half of the body and three of the legs of the Killjoy spider.
On the morning of the third day I realize they’re not coming. I leave everything how it is, blown apart like I am inside, and skate away as clouds roll in and it finally starts to rain.
5/9/13