Insecure

Cold always found its way—creeping up through a hairline crack, a splintered board; coursing silently as it filled the space—curling around my breath, expulsed from dreamscapes, as the frayed comforter rose and fell.

Overhead, the handmade address sign from my grandparents’ house swung slightly as another lodger vacated in the quiet early morning hours, their rig rumbling over dusty gravel and worn speed bumps, vibrating me awake.

Fully emerged from my blanketed cocoon, I descended from the bunk and felt the Reflectix panels’ outfacing sides against the windows—to assess the angle of the warming sun and decide if it was time to remove the panels and switch off the heater, to capitalize on solar gain.

Outside, as another rig drove by, I examined the leavings of my carefully tended tomato plants: their late fruit dangling, stems and leaves with chlorophyll-exploded veins—the listing masses liquefied in the rising sun. I wrested away the tomatoes and tossed them into a small bowl. Later, I’d crack open the green skins, scoop out the seeds, and dry them for next year’s planting. Though late this year, the fruit would enable me to try again under a different sun.

Feral cats skittered along the coyote fence’s uneven top, leering down as I nudged wind-jostled insulation board back into place along Bertie’s underside. I imagined if I looked underneath, I’d find a number of critters hunkered down there, escaping the morning’s below freezing temperatures.

Ensnared within the same crucible, we creatures had a way of striking an amenable symbiosis.  

***

Shattered eggshells lay in the sink next to a weeping nectarine pit as the heater sputtered welcoming warmth—animating the leaves of the avocado tree leaning in its pot atop the table. JoJo draped herself over the dinette bench’s cushioned back and dozed into the morning sun spilling through the windows. I pulled from my steaming mug of tea, reviewed my weekend to-do list, and eyed the pair of vent caps I had to replace.  

Scaling the ladder to the roof, I slung my supplies upward as my new neighbor tottered behind his rig. A few rungs from the top, I swiveled my head as he hollered up.

“SECURE YOURSELF!”

I smiled quizzically and kept going, at which point he yelled again, revealing from his pant pocket a gleaming pistol—aiming it at the ground. With just enough time to duck haphazardly behind my roof-mounted storage unit, I flinched as the bullet seared into leaf-littered earth. Soon thereafter, as I sealed a vent flange, he staggered drunkenly to the same spot and took a piss, as if to acknowledge a job well done. 

***

As I rounded the bend where asphalt gave way to gravel, I shifted the grocery bag to my other shoulder and eyed a familiar landmark. Brittle plastic sheeting flapped against the trolley’s split, calving side panels—translucent fragments glittering in the beating sun against the rusting behemoth. Ahead, a freed sheet cartwheeled across the gravel road; bits and pieces catapulted into the surrounding bramble and lay still: inviting decay in an apocalyptic nightmarescape, our waking reality.

I nudged open the rusted chain-link gate leading into the park, and noticed one of the groundskeepers mending a section of the coyote fence. I looked around at the barren landscape and smiled to myself.

Years from now, as economies collapse and governments fracture, we’ll laugh at such absurd things as fences. Because nothing can keep out the inevitable. 

Water seeps through, warping; the sun bakes, bending. And, ultimately, time splinters each of us: bones fragmenting into earth, toiled up by worms, arachnids—keepers of the dead. 

Our sense of security: an insidious ruse.