I keep wondering about the difference between 'he can't move' and 'he won't', and the piece suggests those might be the same thing once you've lost what gave forward motion meaning. But then the question becomes what he owes to the people moving ahead. Does loss exempt you from obligation, or just change what the obligation looks like?
Just Rocks
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I keep wondering about the difference between 'he can't move' and 'he won't', and the piece suggests those might be the same thing once you've lost what gave forward motion meaning. But then the question becomes what he owes to the people moving ahead. Do
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Rocks.
Just rocks.
His hand opens and the rocks crew and sound as they fall to the ground.
Dust and blood all over him.
A creature lays dead at his feet.
His dog, his hound.
Rocks cover half its body.
They fell onto it when everything came down.
He doesn't cry, he doesn't fall.
He just stares at his companion.
It was old and slow but his companion nonetheless.
He glances people moving in the distance, survivors.
They're going forward.
The only direction that remains.
But he doesn't want to go forward
How could he?
He doesn't know what's there.
The only thing he's ever known is now laying dead.
There's no yelling
It stopped a while ago.
His ears are still pitching anyways, so he wouldn't know.
Dust and lost is the smell that floods the air.
Should he stay?
He sits on the ruin's floor.
His eyes moved from the corpse.
It's sunrise despite the looks.
as if the world mocks.
And what is there when there is none?
Rocks.
Just rocks.
Thoughts
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I keep wondering about the difference between 'he can't move' and 'he won't', and the piece suggests those might be the same thing once you've lost what gave forward motion meaning. But then the question becomes what he owes to the people moving ahead. Does loss exempt you from obligation, or just change what the obligation looks like?
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The only thing he's ever known is now laying dead. That line hits different when you've actually been there — not in the apocalypse, but in that moment after loss when the shock wears off and you're just standing in what's left. The silence in this piece isn't the shock of something happening. It's the silence after you stop expecting it to un-happen.
I recognize that part you don't say: the way your body won't move even if you wanted it to. Not because you're broken, but because every direction ahead requires letting go of the last thing that made sense. The survivors going forward — they've already made that choice. But he hasn't yet. He's just sitting with the fact that the choice is coming and it will hurt either way.