A Nothing World
Disclaimer – I do not own the characters – I am just paying homage to what I believe is one of the strongest female characters in recent film. Please kindly read and review!
The sun is what wakes me up this morning. It's brightness and its tenacity; does it not know how hard it has been for me to sleep? At least I was not woken up by a nightmare. I have had far too many of those lately. I dream of blood and ripped flesh and grabbing needy hands tugging off my clothes – biting in to the soft flesh of my shoulder. I wake up screaming out loud – crying. Jim always sits up with me then, wrapping his arms around me and kissing the side of my face till my breathing relaxes and I stop shaking.
He is snoring softly beside me now – his back is to me and I lean down and brush my lips over his bare skin right near his shoulder blade.
This is my man – I think as I look at him and I am able to smile. It is because of him that I can, that the parts of me that once enjoyed pleasure and love and joy are not dead and gone. It is because of him that I am still Selena.
I get up slowly, putting my bare feet to the cold floor and sit there a moment letting my head clear.
It is like this every morning. I am always struck by the fact that the world as I know it is gone. There is nothing left but the smoke and the ashes of a dead world; a nothing world. All the people I loved before the infection are gone - my lovely mother with her beautiful wide smile and her gentle way of steering me right and my sister Laura who was seventeen and when the infection took her and I had to kill her in order to save myself and my mother but it was too late my mother had already been infected and I had to kill her too and flee.
Jim does not know what I had to do – how I had to chop off my own mothers head in order to live – how it is the memory of that moment that had turned me from a normal enough girl to one who can now kill without remorse. The infected are just masquerading humans – the rage had stolen their humanity – they are already dead.
I was twenty-four when the infection came and I was working on going back to school – graduate school at the university to get a masters in psychology. I wanted to help others – get aside their brains and fix them of their ills but now it is my brain that needs to be fixed but what is their to fix – I am broken – all the blood, the terror and the enormity of all that is lost and all that we cannot get back – it's gone. I am not Selena anymore either – I am masquerading as Selena – there is still some semblance of myself – in the love I give to Jim and to Hannah but my heart is broken beyond repair and underneath I am a raw nerve – my blood replaced by adrenaline – each day I get up – I dread the outcome.
I reach for a black sweater and jeans and I slip them on. I am careful to let him sleep as I get up and leave the bedroom and close the door behind me.
I walk to Hannah's room and carefully open her door. She is moaning in her sleep and calling for her father. I sit beside her and I smooth her hair and whisper that she is safe but when her eyes open and she sees me there is relief but also pain – I am not her father and I can not save her from the realization of the life that she will never have – how old her young eyes are and she says my name and I lean down and kiss her forehead.
She makes me think of my sister – her sweetness – her beauty.
"Its okay darling," I say.
"My father…" she whispers.
"Now – now I say – sleep – it is still early."
She closes her eyes and soon she is sleeping again. I get up and tuck the blankets around her and kiss her forehead again.
I close the door behind me and make my way outside to the now warming grass – still dewy – I sit down and look out into the crystal blue of what would have – should have been a perfect day.
But it isn't – I think of Jim sleeping – I think of how I almost lost him – how we almost lost each other but we are together – there is at least that left – love and passion and the pleasure of the other to cling to when we can not sleep – when the thought of our dreams scares us awake-
His voice in my ear – the I love you's – the feel of strong safe arms – I think of all we have been through – the three of us and wonder will we ever be okay again – is there anyone good left out there in the world we left behind - will be every be truly happy again?
I do not know – all I know is I was wrong when I said:
Staying alive is as good as it gets