The Journey of Bryan Francis Arleen

[Bryan Francis Arleen]

Time melts in the wastes. Was it yesterday, or weeks ago I saw the marauders kill the boy? I’m not sure. They were on the highway. They had the boy cornered beside one of the phone​

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(what’s a phone?)​

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poles. I hid. I hid and cried. I hid and lived. They tore him apart. I think he saw me. How he saw me, I’m not sure. He screamed at the car which I lay beside. Then the blade came down. The car was yellow. I think. The pole was red and glazed. I think. I am going insane. I think. Did I mention Time melts in the wastes?​

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I had found this book before the boy was killed. It lay in one of the ducts of the dam. I remember because when I looked up at the dam, it swayed and spun. The sun seems hotter these days, maybe it is, but either way the dam was folding in upon itself, melting like clay. The book lay beside a pool of water, dark water. I stared at it and was scared. A relic from a world that was no more, a horrible alien thing. A skeleton clutched the book, grinning up at nothing. Crumbling white bone lay darkened on the leather bound journal. I stole it and began to run. Looking back I almost felt pity, the skeleton bobbed in the wind, its fingers following me and pleading for its last possession.​

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I remember that skeleton, it pops up grinning in my dreams… I figure the boy will look like that someday. Sometimes the boy turns into the skeleton in the dreams. I scream as the crinkle of a loose shirt hanging off bones echoes, and as he drags himself towards me. He shouts: ‘’WHY DID YOUU RUUUUNNNN BRYANNNNNN?’’ And I’d find myself beside my grave in a field of glorious green. The stone would read: Bryan Francis Arleen – The Coward…and I’d awake crying.​

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The road ran with the boy’s blood. Wherever I ran and turned, I found myself standing in crimson. It followed me, so I left the road. The blood couldn’t follow in the dunes of dirt and decay.​

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And I’ve been now in the waste for Time. I live in limbo. The days have become watery and bent, worse than it was after the Ash Days. Back then the smoking ruins comforted me there used to be a world where you could throw food away as you pleased, you could walk after dark without thinking of sharp spikes and torches that could surround you at any moment, you could live and talk and love. Now there is only the bones and dirt. And blood. The fire that swept the land burns beside me to keep me warm in the cold nights, and sits by me as I write. I am going insane. I think. But I’ll go on. I think the boy would want me to. I think I’d like to see the mountains. The majestic mountains of stone and snow. I think if I travel far enough, maybe I can find the boy, and say I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I think I’m going insane. But it’s not my time yet. Not my time yet.​

 

[davidjl123]

Bryan are you fo realz?

 

[Trap_Wolf]

Spoiler

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Bryan Arleen remembering the unnamed boy, his son.​

A short artistic rendering.​

 

[Bryan Francis Arleen]

The fire began early on a summer morning. It shined and sparkled much like a sunset. It raced over hills and plains and cities and rivers. I had been in my apartment that morning. I think the wallpaper was roses. I’m not sure now. I looked from my window to see a tide of red and black. I set down my novel (a James Patterson…incredibly good book if I remember right), walked calmly into my bathroom, and lay down in the tub. I looked up at the faucet and imagined it leaking fire onto me. And then the wave hit. A splintering sound began and I thought I was flying. I think my last image of that apartment was the bathroom wallpaper. It was blue stripes.

I later awoke beside a pit of flames and rubble. I laughed and laughed and laughed. The world was smoking around me, and my hair was singed off my body, and my building was gone. I laughed hollowly to the emptied city. I think someone laughed back. I then collapsed. When I came to again, I was beside a flaming arm. It stank everywhere. I got up and looked around, and wept.

After the fire hit, I swam in and out of consciousness. I imagined the bodies burning in the streets had blue stripes. I saw smoke turn into rabbits and horses and bears and deer. I tripped on a brick and cracked my skull. I had seen Springburn burn. And it was too much for me. I crawled into a hollow of debris and waited to die. In my mind though, I continued to survive. I wanted to die and could not. I gathered what I could find. A charred satchel. Pieces of broken glass. An empty bottle of water. Food. I continued to walk and to run, and all the while I looked into a world that had moved on in a blink of an eye. I looked at the dried husk of a garden. I walked on.

I walked into the mall and sat looking at the horse statue that I had always loved as a kid, and found stupid as an adult. I looked into the glimmering water of the statue, and saw a face smeared in blood and grit. A stranger. Not myself, not Bryan. I picked up a stone, threw it at the statue and moved on. I left the mall and entered the streets. I walked past a broken helicopter. I walked past more bodies. I walked and walked and walked.

I met people along the road, most dazed and holed up within themselves, looking and not seeing as they stumbled about. I saw destruction and death. Tanks and weapons and more death. A world that had ended, still filled with deadly toys. I saw many sunsets. I walked the unending lane of asphalt. My feat blistered and bruised. The marauders scurried about as a walked my path, fighting and killing and dying. I found this journal and saw the boy. And then I entered the wastes.

I’m not sure I want to continue. Do I really want more voices talking to me at night? The Boy. The Blue. The Yellow. I’m not sure. I had to tell my story. I write now in the sunset, glinting in the wastes. It reminds me of Springburn. I hope I’ll see the sun set atop a mountain. It’d be beautiful.