Survival of the Fittest

Cobar slogged along Phoenix Avenue with no protection from the belting rain. Dragged down by his faded blue jeans and mellow yellow polo top he closed himself against the storm’s mild gusts.

There’s no shelter under the blackened urban bones of this flattened city. Yet Cobar keeps to the sidewalks. Not bothering to see where the shuffling tops of his military boots take him.

These sturdy boots are the only kindness the military had shown him as they forcibly stripped off his Lance-Corporal uniform.

With the world in Hell the military are still greatly in control. But they don’t need Cobar. His sister, Jara, is worth more to them than he was. She promised to get him food and other provisions but Cobar already knew he wasn’t going to let her help him.

He is half-dead already.

The call of a crow made him stop and look ahead. There’s a bridge with a checkpoint, all busted up, with a fluttering under the lip of it’s arch. Cobar half-remembered this is where civilians dumped the corpses of their friends and family. It had been his job, once upon a time, to clear the area. Cobar knew there’s shelter underneath. He’d guess that’s where the crows really are.

Yet, with a destination now reachable, it was difficult to lift his cemented feet.

Is this his life now? And what then? He’d have to go before a truck came to collect because he damn well knew he’d regret it. What does he have to do to survive one more day?

Move his feet.

Cobar moved his feet towards the bridge.

Though he knew the bodies would be there he’s still shocked at seeing his first outstretched arm. The muscular arm of a man who lay face down in the churned mud.

Then a child. Cobar couldn’t tell the sex. Then two women. One young and one old. And then he saw his first naked bodies. Mottled with decay. They lay on each other in an obscene tangle.

Cobar walked on until he got underneath the bridge. And he was again surprised. There are piles of bodies here as well. He could understand – to a point – people throwing bodies from the bridge. He wouldn’t have figured anyone bothering to put anyone underneath, piled up on strangers.

Yet, this is how it is.

Cobar staggered to a halt. He felt relief the smell isn’t too bad. He’d forgotten he always came here with a mask. The wet earth mixed with the smell of a bad crowd verging on rotting sweetness. He felt he could sleep here if he would be allowed to sleep a hundred years. He unwrapped his arms and shook off as much water as he could.

He heard movement before he saw the light. Cobar stood still, trying to process what it was he is looking at. His ignorant mind made connections with too many horror movies.

He saw something undead. A scrawny old woman with the whitest hair, the most pallid sunken face which seemed to hover in the air. Until Cobar realised he could see a rusty-black coat in the dim light of the woman’s phone.

She was shining her device over a slackened face and produced a pair of kitchen scissors. With great care, the old woman cut off the hair of a female corpse.

The last spark in Cobar’s soul snuffed out. Whatever the hag is doing he didn’t want to have to sink so low to be doing it.

She finishes and bags the long hair. Monkey-like on all fours she climbs off the pile of bodies. Cobar hadn’t moved. He hadn’t said anything until the woman had come to his level and froze.

Cobar found his voice, “what are you doing here? What are you doing to those bodies?”

There was only one way to run. Back over the tangled interlocking limbs. But like an excited predator, Cobar chased his prey. All at once grabbing her by the hair and tripping her up. Sprawled on her back she scratched and bit.

“What are you doing? What are you doing?” Cobar is screaming at her. Until she gives up and lies panting with her eyes closed. An expression of preparedness. Cobar understood she was waiting to be put out of her misery. Disgusted, Cobar gets off of her and refuses to look at her.

“I’m not in the forces no more,” he says, “I won’t hurt you. Just… what are you doing?”

In his periphery, the woman stirs. She says, “I can’t survive on benefits and begging. I collect the hair to make wigs to sell.”

Cobar says nothing but looks down into her wild dark eyes. The old woman stabs the air towards another woman.

“I knew her, ” she says, “I used to see her at the military markets. I know she’d catch rats. Cut ’em up and sell them cooked at her food stall. She had repeat customers!” She barked a laugh. Cobar’s stomach twisted.

“I don’t think she’s bad for doing that. I don’t think anyone here is here because they’re bad,” she pauses to gauge a reaction from Cobar.

“I can’t survive on what passes as benefits and there’s always rumours it’ll be cut off altogether.”

Cobar could barely hear his own thoughts over the belting rain.

In for a penny, Cobar advanced on the old woman, he said, “well, I ain’t bad.”

He wrestled with her until he victoriously ran off with the rusty-black coat and her bag.

Severely weakened by the scuffle it took some time for the woman to get back on her feet. She’d have to steal another coat from a body. She was alive, barely, for another day. And briefly wondered how long a young violent man could survive.

THIS STORY IS INSPIRED BY RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA’S SHORT STORY, RASHŌMON, WRITTEN IN 1915.