Living with sight in only one eye sucks. Not as much as being totally blind, of course...but it still sucks.
THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH, yet another excerpt
By James Robert Smith.
Mark Wenzler went to school with the rest of his
pals every morning, riding the school bus. Most of the kids of Mark’s age
couldn’t recall what it had been like before the infection had caused the
government to change the way almost everything was done. If you were younger
than ten or so, it was hard to recall that once upon a time either your parents
took you to school and picked you up, or you rode there in a normal bus that
wasn’t almost an armored tank.
And even though he’d been just a little kid, only in
first grade, Mark remembered those days well. It was because he had loved his
father so much that mixed in with the general fog of the past were very bright
memories of the times he’d spent with his father. Even though his stepdad was a
neat guy and was great to have around, he wasn’t Mark’s real father and never
would be.
Mark wouldn't say that to Davis Cotter. He didn’t
want to hurt his feelings, and sometimes Mark had to admit that it almost seemed like Davis really was
Mark’s dad. But then he’d remember something funny his father had said to him, or some goofy thing his father had done to amuse him,
and he’d laugh and forget about his mom’s new husband.
Remembering, he turned to Betsy Polk who was sitting
just behind him.
“Hey, Betsy!”
She frowned at him, knowing something was coming and
never being able to figure out just what it might be. Sometimes Mark Wenzler made her laugh, and sometimes he was interesting, but most of the time he was just
gross.
Turned in his seat, his hands on the padded bar and
looking down at Betsy sitting alone, Mark suddenly belched. But instead of just
a sudden burst of air, he turned it into a word. Instead of a burp, he said it:
“BART,” pause, “Simpson.”
“Oh, Mark Wenzler, you are just gross! That’s what
you are! Just gross!” Then she pulled her backpack to her stomach and bent over
it, doing her best not to laugh. Because that was one of the funniest things
she’d seen him do in a day or two. She could feel him hovering over her,
looking down, waiting for her to break, so that he could gloat over the fact
that he’d made her laugh with his gross joke.
But then the call came from the front of the bus.
“Mark Wenzler! You turn back around in your seat and stop bothering that young
lady right now!” Fred Drake’s voice was like a foghorn, and Mark did as he was
told, turning and collapsing back into his spot facing forward before he could
taste the victory of having seen Betsy Polk laugh at him. He liked her, and he liked making her laugh.
Once, seeing
Mark talking excitedly to Betsy at a PTA event, Davis had walked up to him
later and said, “So, you like the shiksas, do you?”
That was the only time Mark had gotten really angry
with his stepdad. He knew what shiksa meant. It was not a nice word and he
didn’t like it being used about any of his friends, especially not about Betsy
Polk. Instead of saying anything that day he had just glared at Cotter and he ran
off to be with some of his pals.
Facing front, Mark watched Mr. Drake’s eyes dart
to him for an instant, just to make sure he was behaving, and the driver went
back to paying attention to the road, pulling up to the next bunch of kids
waiting with today’s adult volunteer. Every bus stop had at least one adult
supervisor since the infection days. Sometimes they were either police or
deputized citizens who were allowed to have a gun. Mark had never seen a gun
with one of them, but he knew they had them, concealed somewhere. Once he had
seen a bulge under the jacket of Betsy Polk’s dad, in fact, and had known
immediately that it was some kind of firearm. Maybe it was a .45 like the
soldiers in World War II used to shoot the Nazis. He sure would have liked for
Mr. Polk to have shown them the gun, but he knew better than to ask.
The bus came to a halt and the armored door opened
with a pneumatic hiss. Kids climbed aboard, filling the last few empty seats.
Mark recognized all of the kids—no big surprises there. He could feel another
belch rising naturally in his gut. This one was for real, and not a fake one
like he used with Betsy. One of the kids was coming close to him. Now was his
chance.
“Hey, ART!” He belched the name at full blast,
greeting Art Wallace, the red-headed menace of gym class.
Behind him, Betsy Polk could not contain herself and
the laugh bubbled out of her.
That’s all he wanted. Despite the playful but sharp
punch in the arm Art delivered with martial excellence to his shoulder, Mark
smiled in triumph, and none of the kids knew exactly why he was so happy as the
door sealed shut and they pulled away, headed for school.
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