The Isolation of Ashley
Chapter 1
Day by Day
"Yawn!" I stretch out as far as I can before I sit up in bed. Well, it is the closest thing to a bed I could make. Just four metal beams that I welded together into something remotely square shaped. I then filled it with every pillow I could scavenge from the abandoned city and covered it with a sheet. It was fine for the first couple of nights, but then the pillows would settle in the corners and leave me sinking in the center. Now I have to take the time to readjust all the pillows before going to bed. Hopefully, some day soon, I will find an actual mattress in the city.
"Good morning, Popeye." The empty can of spinach doesn't answer. I decorated him with scrap metal to give it a face and call him Popeye because that was all I could read from the can's label. I crafted a pendulum with a hook on the end and placed it inside of him. That way I can put him on a string that I got hanging in my room. The string is connected to a series of tripwires that surrounds my house. Typically, the only thing sets off the trip wires is some small desert animal. Lizards, snakes, and even a cat once set it off. Maybe one day, a person will snag the tripwire, and Popeye will wake me up so that I don't miss it.
"I had a weird dream last night..." I let my mind drift off, remembering the dream. I was on top of the roof looking out over the desert to the East. On the horizon, I saw a twinkling light that seemed unnatural. Without hesitation I ran off towards it. I thought that it must be a person signaling to me. When I got to the light I saw a giant wall with painted scenery. It was so massive that it must encompass the whole city. What created the twinkling light was a doorknob attached to the wall. Looking at it made me panic. I wanted to turn the knob, but I knew that opening the door would shatter the world that I knew and I would become lost.
I take several deep breathes and close my eyes. Then I jump out of bed and shout, "Remind me to get a journal the next time I'm in the city. It might be a good idea to start a journal of all my dreams." I start stretching out, remaining quiet while I pretend that Popeye says something in response. "Of course I will read them, again. What else do I have to do these days." I pause again. "Those are good things, too, but I got to keep my mind occupied with some fun activities, too. Otherwise I will go crazy and start talking to tin cans." I let out a terribly fake laugh. I make a joke about that every morning, and it just keeps getting sadder.
After I finish stretching I head over towards the corner of my room where I installed a somewhat functional shower. I put a open topped basin on the roof that collects rain water and connect it to a series of pipes that leads to a filtration unit. I built that after I discovered what the birds do in my water basin. It took a little bit of studying and experimentation to get it right. After that, it connects to a main storage tank and then to several other parts of my house. My shower has a working head, but I need to use a ball valve connected just above the head to turn the water on or off. I cut out the floor and made a recessed chamber with a central grate to collect the water. After my shower I take the collected water back to the roof and dump it back into the basin.
"Oh, dammit!" I'm out of conditioner. With my fur coat it is difficult to comb out tangles and knots. It is one of the many things that is difficult about not being... human. I'm some sort of combination of human and squirrel. I got a squirrel's tail and claws on the end of my fingers and toes. My face has human eyes and a squirrels nose, mouth, and ears. My body is covered in gray fur and the hair on my head is more like a mane. It's a dark gray, thick and looks like a mo-hawk from the way it sticks out.
I call myself Ashley, because of my gray fur. Not very creative, but I like it.
"Remind me to get some more conditioner when I go into the city today." I pause for a moment, both to pretend that Popeye is talking to me, and also from anxiety from the pain I will experience combing my hair soon. "I know it not really a necessity, but this is one luxury that I will not give up." I pause, again. "I will not discuss this further. Add it to my list, and let's get on with the day."
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After I returned the used water to the basin and put on my blue jean overalls... and combed out a dozen knots from my hair, I gather everything I need for a scavenging trip to the city. My belt and pouches, rope, a pickaxe and shovel, a hammer, string, pitons, Popeye, a long pole, a wind-up flashlight, and my over-sized backpack that I carry on my tail. I store a few amenities in my pouches such as some homemade trail mix, some blank paper, a few pencils, some chalk, and I tie a canteen of filtered water. I also have an old city map that I have marked to let me know where I have been, what I found, and what still has useful things that I couldn't take with me on the previous trip.
The last thing I do before heading out is fold up a towel and put it in my backpack. I read a guidebook that suggested I should always take one with me. It has been helpful on plenty of occasions, but I sometimes question why they gave such emphasis to it in the book. Perhaps it is because everyone knows the basic necessities, but no one thinks about a towel.
"So, let's check the list." I look at Popeye, how is currently attached to a strap on my backpack. "Hey, you forgot to add the conditioner. I can't trust you with anything, can I?" I add the conditioner to the list. The list has never been this long before. I'm running short on food, water, scrap metal, coal, and medicine. The hair conditioner just fell on my list of priorities like an anvil.
I take a look at my map to see where the closest place I can find food might be. The longer I live here the further I have to go to scavenge useful materials. I thought about relocating to somewhere further in the city, but I dismissed the idea when I realized everything I would have to go through to move everything into another building. The forge alone is impossible to move. I would have to build a new one from scratch.
"There's a grocery store a few miles from here that I haven't hit, yet. If we can keep a good pace we can get there and back before dusk." I might even find everything I need in one store. "Hey, stow that attitude Popeye. I will not tolerate your pessimism today after you forgot to put conditioner on the list."
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The trip is uneventful. The sky is clear, the air is calm, and the temperature is mild. This is pretty much the normal. It might rain once every two or three days, but the temperature is always mild. Strange for a desert. Even stranger for it being like this year round. I don't know where I got the idea that deserts are supposed to be hot, or the concept of changing seasons. I never read about it, since I normally just read D.I.Y. books to learn new ways to improve my home. I owe the library next door to the easy access to all those D.I.Y. books. I figure that I learned about deserts and seasons from the same place that I learned how to work metal and speak English. Either that I always knew how to do it or I was taught about it by someone in my distant past that I don't remember. All I ever remembered is being alone in this city by the desert, or in the desert. I haven't reached the other side, yet.
"Hey, look at that." I point at the pet store and move my tail to show Popeye. It is obviously a pet store since it has a giant sign with the letters P, E, and T still visible. The rest of the sign has fallen off. "They might something useful in there. Some pet medicine might work the same way as human medicine." And if I ever get desperate, I guess I could eat kibble. Hopefully, it will never get to that point. I shutter just thinking about it.
The grocery store is in the same parking lot as the pet store. "Well, this is lucky. If we don't have much trouble in the grocery store we can hit the pet store on the way back." The trip here doesn't take too long, but I have learned from experience that scavenging in a dark store is rarely easy. Turned over shelves and scattered debris mixed with little to no light makes it difficult to find your way around or even figure out what you are holding in your hand. I don't know what put the stores in such a state, but I assume it is from other people scavenging through the building before me. Maybe I just missed them.
Right behind the grocery store is a very tall building, maybe ten or twelve floors tall, with some severe structural damage in the side facing the grocery store. It looks like a tree with a wedge cut out of the side, and it is threatening to fall on the store. "Great, this my be my only opportunity to look through this store."
Of course, it might collapse on me while I'm inside. I pull out my map and start to weigh my options. "Okay, Popeye, feel free to voice your opinion if you got any better ideas." Looking at the map, I can see that the next place I might find food is another mile into the city, and nothing with any promise for coal or medicine.
"So, do we keep on going or risk the possible death trap?" This time when I wait I actually expect an answer. Forgetting for just a moment that Popeye is not real and that I'm actually alone. I catch myself quickly and slap myself across the face. "Get a hold of yourself Ashley."
"This could be my only opportunity to get anything from this building." I start covering my options out loud to keep me focused on the problem at hand. "If I wait until after the building falls down on the store I could dig through the debris and find some useful items. But that would end up taking more energy that just navigating a dark building, and I might find nothing useful in the rubble of a collapsed building. Also, there is no guarantee that the building will collapse soon."
It's decided, I got to search this place now or miss out on getting anything good from it.
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I pull out my string, pitons, and hammer at the front door and set up a tripwire to alert me if anyone comes inside. I put Popeye on the cord and tell him to be a good guard. I pull out my flashlight and give it a dozen turns to charge it up. I'm fortunate that the building has some skylights that allow a little light in. They are either dirty or designed to limit light through them, so I still need the flashlight, but I can still see the layout of the whole store without it.
I start collecting every can that isn't busted open. So long as the can is still sealed there is a good chance that the food inside is still edible. I used to use my flashlight to read the label before collecting any canned foods, but experience taught me that is a waste of time. You need to collect fast, especially with a guillotine hanging over your head.
I then move to the corner of the store where I find bottled water. Some of the water bottles have gone stagnant and are no longer good to drink, but I can still poor them in my basin and let my filtration system make it drinkable. I typically boil it first to make sure it is okay, I'm not sure if it is necessary, but better safe than sorry.
From there, I move to the coal. Unfortunately a leaky pipe, or possibly minor flooding from the rain, has soaked the coal. The bags have soaked into mush and all the coal is spread out on the floor. I might be able to dry it out and still use the coal, but collecting it is going to be a problem. Fortunately, I have a towel. I tie it into a carrying sack and gather as much coal as I can within it. I attach it to the end of my pole and shoulder it on my way to the shampoo and conditioner.
Scrap metal will be easy to collect in the parking lot. All I need to do is rip off a car door or hood and I'm set for a little while. So, I take my time looking through the conditioners. I open up the lid and take a quick smell. Most of them smell rancid from age, but I can sometimes find some that either smell okay, or just scentless. Maybe one day I will read up on how to make conditioner.
I suddenly hear Popeye ring in his dulcet tones. Something set him off, and I run towards the front door hoping that it is a person.
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At the front door I can see it is opened slightly, but nothing around that would suggest who did it. "Well, speak up clatter box! Who opened the door?"
As if to answer, I feel the earth start to shake. My heart stops as I realize the building behind us is collapsing.