Me and my kvatch plop down into our home but I'm sad to see it's not the same. My ruddy gray plop-down flipped on its side and the fire pit kicked up so the sooty parts are draped all over everything like a big gray blanket. I kick at the blek colored floor and shout "Weepy fucks!" all loud but I probably should have been quieter. My kvatch yips at me down by my walkers. He looks up with his eyes all weepy and confused, funny I can tell how he's feeling.
Down by his own little walkers a picture, all crumpled and folded and crunched, flicks in the air. Two people with the most unblek faces I've ever seen down on a furry green carpet I've never seen before. The glimmer shining down so clear and bright it's scary, no sooty dust mugging up the highest air. I found it whipping down sky tower alley one bright and it smacked me right in the chest so I took it with me. Wherever those people are I want to be there with them. Maybe my kvatch could come too.
But our home is all in rambles and I need to do what's on my front. I start picking up stuff and right upping things all over, the soot poofing up into the air. My kvatch starts yipping again and out of the crumbled wall on my next pops a dirty little fur-tail. It darts across the floor; almost slipping through the cracks except my kvatch snatches the tail. It swings back and forth in his biters, all pointy. Reminds me of the raider's clunking metal wheel-runner, it shouldn't. They probably did this. Took my weepy fur-warms then flipped and crashed my home into a big rumble pile covered with soot. Did they take anything? I didn't check.
I step step further into the rambles of upturned plop-downs and things, the soot shooting up and smacking my face. There's a box under my dream-mat, like a monster under a rock. When I touch him he's got biters and he bites me, but he's soft and warm so I snuggle with him before I go dark with the world. I slide under my dream mat perched up on its four walkers and feel around in the dark, all grime and soot until my feelers scrambling around in the muck touch something cool and smooth. I pull it out and into the soft haze of the glimmer. It's brown and paper-like except harder, I don't know what it's called, maybe brown-tack, yes. I pop the lid and the biters bare themselves up in my face.
Crunched up glass and a couple crumples of brown, veined leaves stuff in the box. Maybe it's like my dream-mat for what's inside, less comfortable I'd think. On top of all that is the fire-hand, gleaming sharp in my face, flickering.
Use it if things get tough without us, she talked. We won't be gone long, we promise, he talked. We love you so much, they both talked and smooched me on the face, seers not watering a drop. They left me too many brights to remember ago, they lied to me. Those weepy fucks I'm meant to call my man and woman left me fifty brights ago, lied to me and left me a fire-hand in a box with one thumper left in its clack-spinner. What am I supposed to do with that? And now I have a grimy little kvatch to take care of. Yipping and licking and jumping up and down always needing a little kvatch water and nearly getting me offed because of it. Maybe the thumper's for him.
He's all I've got left though. All that melts out the shivers when the glimmer sinks down behind those sky towers blocking half the highest air, and I go dark with the world. He stays curled up on my dream mat on my next and sees me through all those dreams of murk and blackness and nothing being left but me. Sometimes I hear him whimper; when I'm still bright but the world has gone dark and he's gone with it. What happened to his man and woman? Or kvatch and kvetch, whatever they'd be called. Maybe we're the same. Maybe he remembers where the floors are all matted in green carpet and people with unblek faces smile under the glaring blue sky. Maybe he knows but can't tell me.
He's flat splayed on his belly now. On my behind he's looking up at me with those big kvatch seers smacked in the middle of his face, all peeking up so I can see the clean white under his murky black orbs. The fur-tail isn't with him, maybe he hid it somewhere. I'll have to find it before it rots and starts to smell all sour and biting.
I've picked up the fire-hand, not even noticing. It's cold and dead, heavy though, more than you'd think for something its size. My feeler's wrapped around the trigger all gentle. A yip pops up on my next. My kvatch on his walkers now, looking at me with those soft seers. I put the fire-hand down, reach into the box and crunch down into it, glass and leaves roughing my hands and rawing them up. Crunching, tinkling, scratching. I feel the smooth, round thumper.
Wind screams through the cracks of my home. All the dead brown leaves in the box blow up in a whoosh of crunch brown haze. They stick to walls and whap my face and tear themselves apart on rocks and sticks and by flipping out in the wind. The sharp glass biters bare themselves sharp and clear in my face, a small white corner peaking out the gaps. I pinch it with my feelers and pull it out all gentle, the glass crunches, groaning and clicking, moaning. The white paper's all creased and bleked up with gray stains and black curling, twisting designs all tangled up in lines. I toss it off, dancing, twisting, shaking in the wind.
Then the walls of my home break down. They crumble and burst and gush out on my next and on my front and everywhere. I'm flat splayed on my belly, looking up with clouded seers. The blek haze wipes away slow and those weepy raiders slip through all lanky with skinny limbs hanging down all limp and swinging. They've got their cut-bats, twisted and gnarled and rough, dangling from their feelers. One grins at me with his big, chunky biters all blek yellow like the haze.
"Hey boy, how're you doin' this fine day?"
My talker's shut, why wouldn't it be? I pull myself to my walkers.
"What's that in your hand there?"
The fire-hand must have winked at them, flickered in the glimmer. I put it behind my back.
"That what I think?" says one with hair wrapping around his talker, "You got a gun, boy?"
One of the weepers rushes up on my next and roughs me around by the shoulder. He grabs my feeler and tears away the fire-hand easy. Clacks open the clack-spinner. Peeks through the holes.
"No bullets," he lowers it, grabs me, shakes me, "where your bullets boy?" throws me to the ground real easy, like I'm nothing.
My kvatch yips from the corner. All their heads whip over, weepy seers glaring harsh. His blek gold fur all matted with gray soot, looking like glimmerlight seeping through the haze.
"Well you just got all sorts'a treasures, don't you boy." Talks the one with hair rounding his talker. "Whaddya say we take this dog and make a nice blanket outta ‘im?" the big lot of raiders holler and whoop, shake their cut-bats, stomp the sooty floor.
"And why not take this little kid's head while we're at it? String it up somewhere?" this one's biters all filed down, painted red. His hair shooting all directions in shocks of black. They growl and flail their thin, dangling arms in all directions.
One snatches up my kvatch and holds him tight by the throat, draws a needley little sharp-stick from his fur-warms.
"Take your gun boy, we got no use for it empty." The talker-fur one whips it at me, it glints as it passes through the air, it whaps me in the face. They all go to my kvatch. He writhes and twists and yips muffled yips held tight to the floor by that weepy fucks boney feelers. But I've got my fire-hand.
Still flat-splayed I clack open the clacker-spinner, slip in the thumper, clack shut, wrap my feeler round the thin, cold trigger, lift the fire-hand. I squeeze, hard. The raiders jump.
The thumper cracks open the weepy fuck's head and splatters in all directions onto blek brute faces and the blek gold fur of my kvatch as he twitches free of now limp feelers. The rest flies off in a red-water stream and disappears into yellow haze.
It's quiet for a short time as the echo of the fire-hand floats off into yawning skytower alleys and, for a moment, I hear them groan and creak and the wind whip and the tinkling of glass in the distance. I hear the yip of a kvatch somewhere off far. Then I quick. I quick with my head forward and my walkers whapping at the soot floor and my arms pumping with the fire-hand waving in my feelers. The raiders roar and scream and rush at me with their cut-bats waving in furious spirals above their heads. I tunnel and bash and slip and dodge as I push toward my kvatch still laying on the ground, his big black seers meeting mine in the flurry of walkers and arms and feelers and cut-bats and sharp-sticks smearing together into something, I don't know what. I pull him up and clutch him close as I quick and quick and quick into the yellow haze as the endless white line rushes by and by and by. As skytowers creak and groan on my top. As my walkers smack and smack and smack down the smooth rock road. As the damn weepy raiders cry and howl and screech sucked up in the murky haze behind, washed and drenched in the blek yellow so my seers can't see.
My kvatch doesn't yip, doesn't make a sound. Eventually it's just my walkers smack smack smacking slower and slower and my chest heaving heavier, and heavier and the fire-hand rattling in my feelers and. It's just my breath now.
To the smooth rock road I drop down and let go my kvatch onto his tip-tap little walkers. The beat-keeper in my chest thump, thump, thumps slower and slower but heavier and heavier until it's shaking my whole body. My kvatch looks at me with those big black seers so I can see the whites peeking out from underneath. He tip-taps over and sniffs at the fire-hand, licks it gently. I look at him for a moment, see him with my seers for a good big time. Then I throw the fire hand into the yellow-haze and it's gone, it can never come back, I don't even hear it clatter onto the smooth rock road. I pull myself to my walkers. The wind bites at my cold, raw skin as it surges down the long sky tower alley. The endless white line shoots down the middle. The yellow haze draped over it all.
My kvatch yips at me and I say, 'OK.'
Jack Colton is a 17-year-old high-school student from Concord Massachusetts. He has a broad background in the arts, ranging from videography to photography to acting. Influences include the electronic musician Burial, the avant-garde rapper Doseone and the filmmaking duo the Coen Brothers, among others. Music and film play a larger role in his life than literature, though certain authors, such as Jack Kerouac, permeate his style.
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