Two grey egg timer shaped towers loomed over the dusty landscape, surrounded in parts by chain-link fences. Half of one of the towers had collapsed, leaving a jagged triangular shape missing from the upper half of its form. ‘The Crack’, as Smokey had dubbed it, now marked the place where the two took shelter.
Scaling the tower to reach their camp inside was no easy feat. An inlaid ladder helped them part of the way up, but the last stretch was more difficult as they made a beeline across the curved tower wall along a series of difficult hand holds and precarious ledges.
“Talk about a room with a view,” Smokey remarked to nobody in particular, as he finally set down safely in The Crack and turned around to look over the grey wasteland stretching out below.
Behind him, suspended above the tower’s dark chasm, stretched a long concrete beam covered in patchy moss. At its end lay a circular platform, where two other beams met to support it, reaching out from the wall like long grey arms covered in green tufts of hair.
Clem threw her pack down off of her broad shoulders onto the platform floor. It toppled over, heavy from the day’s finds and the shovel she’d tied across its top. The spade scraped the concrete with a metallic ring that dissipated into the darkness below.559Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDjCnd9sB8i
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Another useless day, at least as far as she was concerned. But Smokey was always adamant that bits of metal and pieces of old plastic might be useful one day. He’d walk around with that strange, irritating fishing rod, which somehow knew when it got close to metal, making that unbearable bleeping noise until it became a terrible screech and he’d switch it off and shout, ‘ere Clem. Dig ‘ere!
She looked over at the old man who was now twisting bits of spindly orange wire around lumps of grey metal.
“If we just ‘ad the internet this would all be a lot easier”, he muttered to himself.
She didn’t understand what he was talking about half the time, and the other half she just wished he wouldn’t talk at all. But secretly, Clem had to admit that since she’d began travelling with the old man, she’d been a lot happier.
This grey world was not one to be alone in.
It had taken her a long time to realise this. It’s not that she hadn’t met others before. And not that they were all necessarily bad… Yes, there had been bad people. People that wanted to steal from her. People that wanted to hurt her. Even people that wanted to kill her. But there’d also been people that were friendly, that were kind. People that didn’t want to kill her.
The problem was that whenever she did meet a good person, they would always be a case of innocent until proven guilty. And she was always looking for the incriminating evidence. So, instead of living in paranoia, she’d just move on. Never staying with people long enough for her cynicism to be proven right.
But Smokey had gained her trust. He was friendly from the beginning, offering to share his food with her and easily making conversation, talking about himself and asking her about her own life. But that wasn’t what had convinced her to trust him. Others too had showed kindness. It was a passing comment that had taken her off guard. He’d told her that he was collecting pieces from the past and that if she wanted to help him dig up these artefacts, then he’d be happy for the company.559Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm22OyOUolf
That had taken her off guard. The casual request for companionship, tucked away in a sentence about his work. Even the kindest of people she’d met in the past had never suggested she stayed with them, even if they may not have refused her had she asked.559Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiaXJ3DDJpu
But he had asked.
He had reached out for companionship.559Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlQqzbSFF1t
And reaching out it seemed, had given her a reason to stay.
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It was quiet.
“Hello?” Echoed a voice in the dark.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
