The Wasteland Saga

In the end, I don’t even know who I am, where I came from. Who were my mother and father? What did it mean to be an American?

Sergeant Presley called me Boy.

The Chinese called me savage.

The savages called me Bear Killer.

All of it seemed to be something that never happened or happened to someone else, long ago.

Who am I?

Jin called you…

“Don’t!” he croak-screamed into the dry expanse. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Hours later, crawling on his knees and pulling with his hand, dragging the side that would not work, he stopped.

He gasped, “Not much farther now.”

You got to decide who you are, Boy. Not the world. Don’t let people ever tell you who you are. Some people tell nothing but lies. So why ask ’em anyways?

Yes. I remember when you said that.

I’m saying it now.

His hand felt the hard, burning surface of a road.

You’re dead.

I’m sorry about that, Boy. I never meant to leave you.

Tell me who I am.

I’m dead, Boy. Said so yourself.

Who am I?

Silence.

In the distance he heard a high-pitched whine and then a loud rumble beneath it.

He was alone in the middle of a desert plain, cracked and broken.

He laid his head down onto the hard dirt and felt it burn the side of his face as he closed his eyes.

My ears are buzzing. This must be death. It has been following me for some time. My whole life even. And now death is finally coming for me. What took you so long?

Who are you, Boy?

I don’t know. I never did.

The roar and whine consumed everything. It grew and grew, filling up the expanse of the desert and the sky. Everything was now shadow and heat.

Did you expect to find her in death?

He heard footsteps.

I was hoping to. But I think I will find only death. Who am I to think I might find Jin again? The world is made of stone. Who am I that it should be any different for me?

Death bent down and touched the Boy’s cheek.

Who am I? he mumbled to Death.

You should know who I am before you take me.

Or are you just a taker? A taker who doesn’t ask.

The Boy opened his eyes.

Death was an Old Man, thin and wiry, gray stubble. His eyes sharp and clear and blue.

“Who is he, Poppa?” A young girl’s voice from nearby.

“I don’t know. But he needs our help. He’s been out here for too long. He’s close to death.”

“I’ll get some water, Poppa,” said the girl, and the Boy heard the slap of shoes against the hot road.

The Boy began to cry.

Shaking, he convulsed.

Crying, he wheezed, begging the world not to be made of stone, begging the world to give back what it had taken from him.

“Who am I?” sobbed the Boy.

“I think he’s asking, who is he, Poppa!” said the girl as though it were all a game of guessing and she had just won.

The Old Man held the shaking, sobbing Boy and poured water onto cracked and sunburned lips in the shadow of the rumbling tank.

“He doesn’t know who he is, Poppa. Who is he?”

“He’s just a boy,” said the Old Man to his granddaughter, his voice trembling with worry and doubt.

“Who am I now?” sobbed the Boy.

The Old Man held the Boy close, willing life, precious life, back into the thin body.

“You’re just a boy, that’s all. Just a boy,” soothed the Old Man, almost in tears.

The Old Man held the Boy tightly.

“You’re just a boy,” he repeated.

“Just a boy.”

PART III The Road Is a River

Chapter 1

Can you let go?

The Old Man is sick. The Old Man is dying.

His fever is high in him and the days pass long and hot, as though having no end to them. The villagers come one by one, and it seems to all of them that what’s left of the Old Man will not be enough. Though there are no goodbyes, there are words and looks that mean just as much.

Yet she will not let him go.

“No, Grandpa,” she says to him through the long days and even longer nights. “I need you.”

Can you let go?

He has told the villagers as much as he can of Tucson through the ragged flaming trench that is his throat. The security of the Federal Building. The untouched mountain of salvage. The tank. The villagers are going there.

That could be enough. They have Tucson now.

He lies back and feels that swollen, fiery ache within every muscle.

Just rest.

Most of them, most of the villagers have gone on to Tucson and all that he has promised them of a better life waiting there. A new life, in fact.

Can you let go?

The Old Man is sick.

The Old Man is dying.

My wife.

He thinks of her olive skin.

Will I be with her again?

Soon.

He is glad he thought of her when the wolves were beneath him and his hands were burning as he’d crossed over the abyss. He is glad he still loved her when he needed to remember something other than the burning pain in his fingers.