Run for the night
Feelings
They woke up a couple hours later. It was hard to sleep with the dim light from the burning clouds lighting the room. When the walked into the living room, they saw the other man sleeping, his head resting against his dead girlfriend’s belly. They thought better than to wake him up and went outside. They chose a random direction and started strolling around.
‒ It’ll take him a while to get over it, he said first.
‒ And? she replied.
‒ And we’ll have to wait for him.
‒ To do what?
‒ To go somewhere else, there’s bound to be other survivors.
‒ Why? You saw what happened, a fireball for each of them, there even was one for us. Not a single miss in this city or we’d have heard about it. Why would it be different anywhere else?
‒ I don’t know. But do you have a better plan? We can’t stay here forever because, as you just said, there’s no one left here.
She didn’t answer. They went back to the house without a word just to find the other man still crying and sobbing. They proceeded in finding everything that could be useful and stuffed it into backpacks. They rampaged the fridge and the cabinets and filled a bag with food.
‒ We should go now, the non‒crying man said.
There was a most annoying long pause as the other man slowly turned around, his face wet from tears and asked: “Go where?”.
‒ To the closest city. There might be survivors elsewhere.
‒ And who said you could decide where we were going?
‒ No one, I’m doing what I think is the smartest, you’re free to do what you want.
As each sentence was said a little louder, the room’s atmosphere became thicker.
‒ Do you not have any sympathy? Any feelings at all? The entire population of Earth might have just been wiped out. Your friends, family and everyone else you’ve ever known are all DEAD and you’re not feeling anything?
‒ I am feeling something. I am sad and mad at my incapacity to do anything about it. But staying here and CRYING over something we can’t change is just useless.
The air would not stop growing thicker and thicker. They just stood in front of each other, in a stare‒down fight a few feet apart. When the sad, now angry one said his next sentence, he did so in quite an obnoxious tone.
‒ You weren’t happy before this all happened right? he said.
‒ What? the other replied, trying to make sense out of those words.
‒ People like you, who are scared to live their emotions cannot live happily. I think you never lived without thinking over each decision you took. You never took the chance to follow your heart and CRY for once. Maybe you should try to listen to your inner self for once.
‒ Oh, because it is better to cry for a whole day.
That was it. The fist flew straight and true and sent the logical man to the ground. A second later, he was up and rammed the other one with his own body. The woman could only watch as sheer anger and hate fought for no intelligent reason.
It lasted 15 minutes before it slowed down. One man had a broken arm but kept fighting. The other had a black eye he kept shut. And her, she was pissed. She walked and stood between them.
‒ Enough! she shouted.
They slightly relaxed but remained stiff. She opened her mouth but nothing had the time to come out as complete darkness settled around them.