“I never told you this. So imagine me grabbing the words out of the air and popping them back into my mouth, swallowing them… I never told you this.” That’s what she told me? Can you believe it. Oh, her name was Emily, I forgot to tell you that. And I’m going to let you know that she was the kind of girl that didn’t tell you she was a girl. Shit, she didn’t mention her gender until you bombarded ..them, until you bombarded them with it. So alright, so imagine, a person.. with parts that would say she’s a girl, but that will spend their time yelling at you for assuming it. That person, told me this secret.
We sat next to some embers cradled in a spent firepit. Smoke thankfully chasing off swarms of mosquitoes. They moved closer to me after the statement, asked if it was okay to lean their head on my shoulder. I nodded. Their hair brushed my check and smelt musky with a thin spike of vanilla. The weight of them against me felt right, a little comforting.
“You’re name’s Issac,” Emily asked. I nodded. I also went through a quick leftist paranoia spasm. Was Emily a cop? When did I tell them my name? Where did I post I was coming?”
“Isaac, you want me to move. I can feel your muscles fluttering.”
“Oh, I’m okay.” I said.
Emily pointed at the glowing crumbles of wood in pit.
“Soon, that’ll be the last light left on Earth.” Emily pulled back and smiled at me. “Promise, not to tell?”
Emily closed their eyes and pulled softly at my hands and placed my fingers tips on the their eyelids.
“So you know I’m not lying,” they said. Emily’s eyeballs stayed steady under the thin webbing of skin. Emily told me,
“No one listens. This whole world is filled with people telling you this way or that way, that religion or this one, that money, that life, that education. They’re going to tell you, non stop, but they’ll never listen. I don’t think there’s much right in the world. At least at this moment. I don’t know what’s going to survive, but I’m starting to worry it’s not us.” Their eyes only changed when I felt my fingertips moisten a bit.
I never asked Emily anything. Maybe I should of, like, whose us? Is us humans? Humyns? Or just, was us, just us, you know that fringe attack squad of anarchists. Shit, I think of that old saying. First they came for the anarchists. I think about it, because someone was left to write that shit down. And I don’t think that’ll be the case next time.