The Couch Guy
First time out of the vault
Corinthia
“Hell is where the heart is…”
-Bush ‘Synapse’
So, you’ve come very far to hear stories, hey?
Stories of the world before the Fire, before the bombs. When the ground grew green; a healthy green, not the sickly pale of waste and decay. Like emeralds, scattered across a rich and dark earth. The sun glowed yellow in a blue sky, before the dust storms. Clouds, like soft spun cloth, rain that fell clear and clean.
No, I don’t remember those stories. You are not the first to come. Many have come for the stories. I think they want to know glory, the glory of us, before we tried to destroy ourselves. Maybe they think I know what it was like to be human, before.
They are kind to this old man. They listen to my other stories. I try to tell them God took the stories they really want from me, took them at night, one by one, from the old brainpan. I remember the gossamer light, the sound beyond sound, and the blowing wind so sterile it left a taste like alcohol in your lungs and that is all. I do not hate God for taking them. Not now, anymore. I have lived too long with him. He is my gambling partner. We share a drink and play cards so I am not bored, he wins and takes my money, and I laugh at his jokes. I laugh now, anyway.
Ah, I see you’ve found my little toy. An AK-112, I think they call it. No, don’t worry. It doesn’t work anyway. It broke, many years ago. Ha. It is funny. Shall I tell you how I came to have it? I killed a man. He was a respected man, so I will give him another name. What is yours? Martizo? Ah. Good name. Italian. What is Italian? Nevermind.
Shall I tell you the story?
…
We came out of the bunker to find everything destroyed. Two years in that dark hole. There were few of us. Ten, twenty, I don’t remember. Around us buildings were scattered like driftwood, and the sky had turned a darkened yellow. For many days we wondered the new deserts, looking for life, any life that we could find. One by one we died. No one had the strength to bury the dead. We left them to rot on the dusty ground. One by one, until I was left. The old Gambler had left me alive. Ha ha.
It was in the outskirts of a city, turned to rubble, that I saw him. It had been days since I’d eaten the last of our foil-covered food. The acrid air had burned my throat raw. I used a cloth wet with sweat to keep my tongue from going dry.
I saw him moving through the ashes, his bright eyes searching around the rough corners of debris. A scavenger, like me, I could see. He had a gun slung under his shoulder, a long knife tucked through his belt at his side. I hid low, ducking behind a rock pile, waiting for him to pass. His bag looked weighted with preciousness, the canteen around his neck was heavy with water.
I came at him from behind, at a run. I screamed somehow, my throat dry and cracking. He turned in time to catch his weapon as I put my hands on it to rip it away. We struggled, and I knew he was stronger than I. His eyes gave away his age, his experience. I let go of the gun, and tried to get around his side. He swung the butt of his weapon into my ribs, and I grabbed onto him to stop my fall. My hand fell on the handle of his knife as we tumbled to the ground.
He came down on top of me. The barrel of the gun drove into my chest. I saw in his face pity, pity at my madness, pity at my stupidity. He moved his hand up to the grip and, so slowly I could hear his muscle flex, pulled the trigger.
The gun fizzled and jammed. The Trickster, up to his old funny games. My hand still on his knife, I yanked it out and drove the blade under his ribcage. Eyes wide, he didn’t gasp. Instead the air just left him like a soft wind, and he slowly lowered himself to the ground.
I washed the dust from my mouth with the water. I ripped open his pack. There was food. I sat down next to him and ate a little. The adrenaline ebbed out of me, and I began to shake, so, slowly, I lay down next to him and slept. I awoke at night. I looked for a long time at his body, so very still, while the world around him tore itself apart in the endless winds. As I took his rifle, I noticed the dog tags. I read them, carefully, my fingers running over the pressed metal, as if, in Braille, they could tell me more.
I’d never killed a man before.
…
I walked on for more countless days. Finally I came upon a make-shift village of tents and fragmented rock. As I approached, I saw an expectant face framed in the shadows of the inside of a tent. Eyes, bright blue, like the sky I’ve now forgotten. A moment later it was gone. Someone tending to a fire close to the entrance poles saw me. He stood, his clothing in rags. He put out his hand to shake mine.
There is a blur. They were the remnants of survivors from all around, gathered here to try to build something of another life. The face in the tent was Corinthia. Her eyes burned in that icy blue, her skin like soft, white soap. We watched the sun set through the gray fog, the smokey air bursting in tracery colors as it dove behind the horizon. We made love in the tent, and the howling wind that ripped at the fabric was washed away by her gentle breathing while she slept. She would sing as she wove clothes, and I would sit as close as I could as if I wanted to hear the words before they left her throat.
The night a patrol rang the bell outside our tent I was packing for the trip I was to take to the south. Someone had seen a caravan moving through the desert in that direction. Corinthia opened the flap and spoke to the guard quietly. She collapsed. I ran to her side, but could not control her for all her weeping. Her father, gone out to find other survivors, was dead. They’d found his body mangled by scavengers of the wasteland. She cried into my chest until, I think, I fell asleep long before she did.
The next morning, my patrol set out. Three weeks, we wondered the sandy barren. We found nothing. Radiation took three of us. As we returned, the man on my right screamed out. I looked up. The shanty town was smoldering on the horizon.
I ran until my legs gave out. Then I crawled. I found Corinthia inside our collapsed tent. There was no sign of violence on her. A sweet porcelain doll, rigid in the limbs. Like her life had simply slipped away, into the filthy sky, lost like all her unsung songs.
The old Gambler was laughing, I could hear him.
Later I found out a group of raiders had attacked. I tried hunting them down. I couldn’t find them all.
Her father was loved by the town. He had been the one to gather them together. Ex-military, a respected leader. She cried for him long after I left for the patrol, I know.
His name?
Martizo, I must call him.
Martizo.
Martizo.
Martizo.
Martizo.
“Hell is where the heart is…”
-Bush ‘Synapse’
So, you’ve come very far to hear stories, hey?
Stories of the world before the Fire, before the bombs. When the ground grew green; a healthy green, not the sickly pale of waste and decay. Like emeralds, scattered across a rich and dark earth. The sun glowed yellow in a blue sky, before the dust storms. Clouds, like soft spun cloth, rain that fell clear and clean.
No, I don’t remember those stories. You are not the first to come. Many have come for the stories. I think they want to know glory, the glory of us, before we tried to destroy ourselves. Maybe they think I know what it was like to be human, before.
They are kind to this old man. They listen to my other stories. I try to tell them God took the stories they really want from me, took them at night, one by one, from the old brainpan. I remember the gossamer light, the sound beyond sound, and the blowing wind so sterile it left a taste like alcohol in your lungs and that is all. I do not hate God for taking them. Not now, anymore. I have lived too long with him. He is my gambling partner. We share a drink and play cards so I am not bored, he wins and takes my money, and I laugh at his jokes. I laugh now, anyway.
Ah, I see you’ve found my little toy. An AK-112, I think they call it. No, don’t worry. It doesn’t work anyway. It broke, many years ago. Ha. It is funny. Shall I tell you how I came to have it? I killed a man. He was a respected man, so I will give him another name. What is yours? Martizo? Ah. Good name. Italian. What is Italian? Nevermind.
Shall I tell you the story?
…
We came out of the bunker to find everything destroyed. Two years in that dark hole. There were few of us. Ten, twenty, I don’t remember. Around us buildings were scattered like driftwood, and the sky had turned a darkened yellow. For many days we wondered the new deserts, looking for life, any life that we could find. One by one we died. No one had the strength to bury the dead. We left them to rot on the dusty ground. One by one, until I was left. The old Gambler had left me alive. Ha ha.
It was in the outskirts of a city, turned to rubble, that I saw him. It had been days since I’d eaten the last of our foil-covered food. The acrid air had burned my throat raw. I used a cloth wet with sweat to keep my tongue from going dry.
I saw him moving through the ashes, his bright eyes searching around the rough corners of debris. A scavenger, like me, I could see. He had a gun slung under his shoulder, a long knife tucked through his belt at his side. I hid low, ducking behind a rock pile, waiting for him to pass. His bag looked weighted with preciousness, the canteen around his neck was heavy with water.
I came at him from behind, at a run. I screamed somehow, my throat dry and cracking. He turned in time to catch his weapon as I put my hands on it to rip it away. We struggled, and I knew he was stronger than I. His eyes gave away his age, his experience. I let go of the gun, and tried to get around his side. He swung the butt of his weapon into my ribs, and I grabbed onto him to stop my fall. My hand fell on the handle of his knife as we tumbled to the ground.
He came down on top of me. The barrel of the gun drove into my chest. I saw in his face pity, pity at my madness, pity at my stupidity. He moved his hand up to the grip and, so slowly I could hear his muscle flex, pulled the trigger.
The gun fizzled and jammed. The Trickster, up to his old funny games. My hand still on his knife, I yanked it out and drove the blade under his ribcage. Eyes wide, he didn’t gasp. Instead the air just left him like a soft wind, and he slowly lowered himself to the ground.
I washed the dust from my mouth with the water. I ripped open his pack. There was food. I sat down next to him and ate a little. The adrenaline ebbed out of me, and I began to shake, so, slowly, I lay down next to him and slept. I awoke at night. I looked for a long time at his body, so very still, while the world around him tore itself apart in the endless winds. As I took his rifle, I noticed the dog tags. I read them, carefully, my fingers running over the pressed metal, as if, in Braille, they could tell me more.
I’d never killed a man before.
…
I walked on for more countless days. Finally I came upon a make-shift village of tents and fragmented rock. As I approached, I saw an expectant face framed in the shadows of the inside of a tent. Eyes, bright blue, like the sky I’ve now forgotten. A moment later it was gone. Someone tending to a fire close to the entrance poles saw me. He stood, his clothing in rags. He put out his hand to shake mine.
There is a blur. They were the remnants of survivors from all around, gathered here to try to build something of another life. The face in the tent was Corinthia. Her eyes burned in that icy blue, her skin like soft, white soap. We watched the sun set through the gray fog, the smokey air bursting in tracery colors as it dove behind the horizon. We made love in the tent, and the howling wind that ripped at the fabric was washed away by her gentle breathing while she slept. She would sing as she wove clothes, and I would sit as close as I could as if I wanted to hear the words before they left her throat.
The night a patrol rang the bell outside our tent I was packing for the trip I was to take to the south. Someone had seen a caravan moving through the desert in that direction. Corinthia opened the flap and spoke to the guard quietly. She collapsed. I ran to her side, but could not control her for all her weeping. Her father, gone out to find other survivors, was dead. They’d found his body mangled by scavengers of the wasteland. She cried into my chest until, I think, I fell asleep long before she did.
The next morning, my patrol set out. Three weeks, we wondered the sandy barren. We found nothing. Radiation took three of us. As we returned, the man on my right screamed out. I looked up. The shanty town was smoldering on the horizon.
I ran until my legs gave out. Then I crawled. I found Corinthia inside our collapsed tent. There was no sign of violence on her. A sweet porcelain doll, rigid in the limbs. Like her life had simply slipped away, into the filthy sky, lost like all her unsung songs.
The old Gambler was laughing, I could hear him.
Later I found out a group of raiders had attacked. I tried hunting them down. I couldn’t find them all.
Her father was loved by the town. He had been the one to gather them together. Ex-military, a respected leader. She cried for him long after I left for the patrol, I know.
His name?
Martizo, I must call him.
Martizo.
Martizo.
Martizo.
Martizo.
