How do you come up with so many witty one-liners? Teach me your ways.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: July 5, 2023

Character: Maximillian Fitzroy
Race: Human
Age: 37
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

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I wonder if it’s because I don’t have a sense of age that I can’t really tell how old, or not, these kids are. I tell myself they’re kids but they’re possibly teenagers at this point. The telling sign would be to know whether or not they were possibly newborns, or just a year or so old when the snow started but that doesn’t mean anything to me, does it? It doesn’t.

At what age do kids start to flirt with others? At what age are they old enough to know about these things? I can’t even base myself on my own experience since I never had that in my life. All there’s been to my days was music, more music, some more music and then, when I was winding down and relaxing, more music.

I don’t even know why I feel as though I should concern myself with these kids who might be teenagers and thus old enough for whatever it is they’re doing. It’s none of my business, they’re not part of my life, they’re probably being cute and all and life has changed and just, I’m confused, all right? That’s all there is to it.

Seeing kids—to me—asking other kids about learning about all of the witty one-liners they know is just baffling and while I’ve only really heard it happening once, it was enough since I was in range and, again, to me, it seemed as though the kids that were part of this conversation seemed really young to me.

Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe it’s not even about impressing other parties with witty one-liners, or at least impressing others that they might be interested in ways that are emotion-based. I don’t exactly have great social skills; my delightful partner has enough of that for both of us and I’m stunted, I’m fine with being stunted and nothing will change that particular part of me. I didn’t socialize enough as a kid and that’s all there is to it.

I mean, I guess that the thing at this point is that it’s just been on my mind when there’s no real reason for that to be. What are one-liners, really? All I know of them is what little I used to hear while playing for the orchestra. Men and women using these to pick up people but for all I know, they could be something else entirely. They could be about short jokes that are funny because they’re short, would I be wrong?

If it’s the latter that the kid was interested in, then I shouldn’t even be bothered by all of this, should I? I think this is one of the reasons why I don’t spend a whole lot of time on my own, but around others. I need Jarod in my life. He makes sense of the things I can’t make any sense of and I’m sure if I were to stop thinking about this for five minutes and file it away until he got back, I could ask him about it.

But no. My brain likes to hash things out until it makes sense of whatever it is it has latched on and I’m going to be no different than a bovine ruminating until I can understand whatever there is to understand about it. This is the one part of things that I often get frustrated about and if I’d been just a bare few steps further away, I wouldn’t have heard them and I wouldn’t be in this situation.

Some might think this is funny for some reason, the fact that I’m dissecting the very short interaction down so much but it’s not. It’s a frustrating issue if there’s ever been one and I do wish my brain wasn’t like that. There’s not much I can do about it, and I’ve tried it all. At this point, I’ve gotten so distracted from what I’d been doing—weeding our little garden because I have no green thumb, but I still try—that I haven’t gotten anywhere with that. There’s all of a handful of weeds pulled and I can see that the rest of the garden has plenty for me to take care of but I’m not doing that.

I’m not doing that because I’m stuck in a loop of trying to understand what these kids were talking about, which I can’t because I don’t have the details, and to have more details—or understand the situation better for the words that I’m uncertain about, I have to wait until Jarod gets back from the market because we needed some extra vegetables on our table for tonight.

He’ll be back, I know he will, but for the time being, my mind will remain in its loop, and I just have to deal with it.

Final Word Count: 804

I’ve done my best with the tools I had on hand. If it doesn’t meet your standards, lower them.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Maximillian Fitzroy
Race: Human
Age: 35
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 797 words
 

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It feels strange, to think back on the things I’ve left behind. All of those things that the world decided I no longer needed in my life. If I hadn’t been able to bring my viola along somehow, I would have missed it like no one’s business. While not overly large, it still was somewhat larger than what I figured they would want on the transport, but I took a chance.

In the store, I found an electric one. It reminded me of the one I’d looked at for a while but had never gotten. I could never bring myself to, not when all I’d ever known was the viola I’d learned with from the start. For a while, I didn’t want to even think about it. Somehow, I think that I felt I would have been betraying my viola, if I went for the electric one, not that we had any means of really using it to its full potential, still. I’m strange that way, I’m well aware. There’s no changing who I am, and I don’t know that anyone has any right to complain about it.

Not all of my time spent with Wayne was time I regret. Though, on that same note, I try not to think too much about it. The more I think back, the more I see all the little signs that I just hadn’t seen back then. He was a bored kid, and I was his pet project. Without him, I wouldn’t have made it as far as I did in life, so I have no regrets on that front. I also wouldn’t have met the adoring idiot who’s at my side every morning and every night, so I can’t even dream of wanting to change that. I wouldn’t change it, not for the world.

I might not have an easy time putting my emotions into words, but I think that my actions speak fairly loudly for themselves most of the time; that has to count for something.

I remember, there was this one situation that had happened as we’d been slightly younger teens. He used to bring it back to the surface every so often, it made me smile then, it doesn’t make me smile so much anymore. I see things in that situation now, that I never saw then and it’s why I try to not think about the past too much. I think I would end up just being unable to focus on what used to be happy memories. I’d be turning them inside out, trying to find all of the little signs that I never saw. I know that I can’t blame myself for it, hence, I try to not think about these memories.

We were at his house, as was often the case once he’d taken me under his wing. I was there to practice though he was working on a project for school. When his father approached him at the table—a brief break for me to chomp on a quick snack—I remember Wayne telling him that he’d done the best with what he’d had on hand. The whole thing looked ready to fall to pieces though he looked just oh so defiant. I knew he hadn’t put much effort into it, but he liked blaming it on not having all of the tools he needed.

That part of the situation wasn’t so bad, it was the way his father’s eyes moved over me back then—I hadn’t noticed it, but I see it now—that turn the situation around in my memories. Wayne had squared his shoulders, told his father that if it didn’t meet his standards, then he’d have to lower them.

Now, as a teenager, one focused on music as I was because all that mattered was being able to be good enough so that I could manage a better life for myself, I didn’t really catch whatever it was that went on between them. In a way, looking back, I feel as though Wayne was telling his father that to keep his pet project going—that being, me—he needed better tools to work with, otherwise, the results were going to be less than stellar.

In a way, his taking me under his wing did help me get going in the right direction. Without the money, I never would have been taught all I did get taught and I never would have made head viola in the orchestra. In a way, now that I know better, I look back and I have to ask myself… did he constantly bring back that memory because yeah, his facing down his father like that was fairly amusing, or because he was subtly putting me back in my place?

I’ll never know.

I don’t recall asking for anyone’s opinion. In fact, I don’t even care for my own! I’m just going to do it.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Maximillian Fitzroy
Race: Human
Age: 34
Final Word Count: 709 words
 

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Time flies.

My life used to be on such a tight schedule that when the snow first started—though it happened before that, it was when Jarod became a permanent fixture in my life—I didn’t know what to do with myself. For so many years of my life—since the other arse had taken me in—my life had been about a schedule. I would be getting up at a set hour, I would practice, I would eat, practice, study, practice. I think the picture is not very difficult to imagine. I spent a lot of my time practicing but it was also very much on a strict schedule.

When Jarod came into my life, that schedule started to deviate. When the snow came, the schedule that had been my life screeched into a stop but another sort of schedule took its place, mostly so that we could keep track of things and just, well, stay alive.

That was years ago, and life in the bunker was something else as well and just, I’ve done my best to adapt. I can’t claim that I’ve done so perfectly but that I can go out with a small cleaning crew the few times they need it speaks volumes as far as I’m concerned. It’s progress that I’ve made to the best of my ability, and with a lot of help.

Now, I used to worry about what everyone thought of me, I just hid it well. I had to. It kept people away and it kept me safe. Nowadays, I don’t focus quite as much on these things though it never is truly dormant and when I come across someone who clearly has not a care in the world for what others think of them, it makes me pause. I don’t know how they do it, to be so self-assured that the opinion of others just doesn’t matter.

I know that it’s not that rare of an occurrence, people who are this way, but it still makes me scratch my head a little every single time. There was this boy—a teenager really I guess—who had been dared to eat the particular berries of one bush that was known—at least the knowledge had been spread about—to cause hallucinations. In a way, I feel as though it shouldn’t have been told to the general populace. It gives kids and adults alike an excuse to ‘try this wild new drug’ or something similar to that. It’s how I’ve heard of it at this point.

The boy was surrounded by a group I assume to be his friends, some were telling him not to do it, others were taunting him about it and, in the long run, even as he had a small handful of berries in his hand—the particular bush is just underneath one of the apartment windows—he told the lot of them that he hadn’t asked for anyone’s opinion about what he was about to do. In fact, he didn’t even care for his own opinion and he was just going to chomp on down on those berries, just they watch.

And he did take the berries. And I’m sure the little ‘trip’ he had while on them was something he might or might not even remember at this point. He thankfully didn’t seem to be in any physical harm as the berries took over his mind. He spoke of things from the old world and things I had never heard. After ten or so minutes, I moved away from the window, not really wanting to be seen as the responsible adult in the whole situation. It had nothing to do with me, in the end.

When I came back some hours later, the little group had left and the bush looked in no worse condition than it had been earlier on, so I guess that none of them really felt like giving the berries a try. I can’t blame them, I certainly wouldn’t want to but I know I’m like that. I’m not adventurous and I’m not much one to try new things, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the end. Kids will do what kids want and the same goes for adults.

Don’t make me hold your child. Please. Wait, stop—

 
Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Maximillian Fitzroy
Race: Human
Age: 33
Final Word Count: 679 words
 

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I am not a people’s person. I want to blame that on him. I can’t even say his name anymore. It’s been years but I can’t even say it. I could, I mean, there’s nothing physically stopping me from saying his name but I try to think about him as little as possible. He ruined my life, I almost died because of him and this whole new-world change has given me a chance to start all over so I’ve done that.

At least, I’ve tried.

I’m still not a people’s person. Jarod is enough of a people’s person for the two of us and I wish he’d been there yesterday because it would have saved me from what felt like a panic attack. I’m pretty sure that this is what the whole thing turned out to be and it wasn’t even for my own health that I was worried about; it was for the tiny bundle in my arms.

I should probably backtrack to yesterday morning.

I’d volunteered to go help with a small clean-up crew. They’d found a site about half an hour’s walk away that was in dire need of some basic pick-up and cleaning before anyone else could think of doing any work on the buildings that were left, so I went.

In our group, there was this woman with her newborn—though I think the term ‘newborn’ is a little off because the little guy was holding his own head up and looking around and everywhere as he could—she had him strapped to her back with what looked like a sort of blanket but it did look pretty secure, if you asked me. She did most of the basic work like everyone else, baby strapped on and not minding or complaining at all.

As the afternoon settled, however, she had him in her arms and she was even offering for others to hold him if they wanted. It almost made me think of that one time I’d seen a documentary about socializing pets so they’d handle others well. Not that I said that to anyone, let alone the mother.

I was keeping a respectful distance, not wanting to be part of the little group through which the little thing was going around from arm to arm and yet; somehow, I still ended up with him in my arms. I told her that it wasn’t a smart idea, that I didn’t really want to but she just… I don’t know. Shoved him into my arms or something and looked at me with wide-eyed curiosity.

I’ve had to learn to hide my panic. I know how to breathe; I know how to make it look like I completely have it under control when I don’t. So I held her child, my eyes begging hers to take the squirmy bundle away from me. I’m sure the kid could tell how uncomfortable I was, they sense these things, sixth sense or something or other.

After what felt like an eternity, she took him back, giving me the brightest smile ever and I didn’t return it, I couldn’t. I stayed rooted where I was for minutes before I managed to unroot myself long enough to go talk to the team leader. I told them I wasn’t really feeling so great anymore so I’d be walking back. He offered to send someone with me to make sure I’d get home safe but that wasn’t so much an issue. I told him I was going to be fine and I slowly, carefully made my way back.

I was so slow in making my way back, needing to pause around every bend to push away the darkness trying to invade my brain that it took me twice as long to get to our settlement than it should have.

I spent the rest of the day sitting in the bathroom, just working on breathing exercise.

You have to understand. I don’t hate kids; I even think they’re cute. From a distance. It’s a touch thing, I just can’t deal.

We need to leave before they get here.

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Maximillian Fitzroy
Race: Human
Age: 31
Final Word Count: 610 words

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Usually, I would have said ‘my life before the end of the world’ but that’s not really it, no. Jarod changed my life when he stepped into it and while I was less than pleasant with him at first, with my life as it had been then, I had an excuse. At least, that’s how I see it and I know he doesn’t blame me for that very behaviour, not anymore at least, not ever if I were to trust those words that fall so easily from his lips. Why do they have to be so kissable? I think I could stay locked onto these lips permanently if it were not for other basic needs.

Before he came into my life, I was always stressed out, worried about someone—a single someone, really—doing unspeakable things to me. As it turned out, the one man I thought had been my best friend through it all was behind the whole thing but I suppose it no longer matters, both these individuals are gone along with the vast majority of the population.

When Wayne still was part of the picture, however, before Jarod, before the end, before everything else, I was on guard. I played the cold asshole who thought he was better than everyone else on the planet. I had to. It kept me safe from others for the most part. It didn’t keep me safe from one stalker, who kept on finding me, of course, but that particular scenario was explained after a while, I’d rather not spend too much time thinking about it.

This particular stalker, when he came into my life, Wayne acted the perfect protector. He’d keep me safe, tell me we had to leave X area before the guy in question showed up, he had my life on a schedule that I had learned not to deviate from because it just kept me safe. At least, mostly. I wish I had been able to see far beyond the guise my friend had worn all of these years. From the beginning I had been nothing more than a project to him, someone—no, something—to mould into the shape he wanted, a plaything his money could buy, because that is what happened in the end.

I was the poor child from the wrong side of the track; he was the rich kid who could have anything and everything he wanted. The classic story, really.

On some days, I wish he hadn’t done that. He’d have left me there on that sidewalk, hungry and wishing to discover the beauty of music. My life would likely have been so different I wouldn’t even be able to imagine it, but then, I tell myself I had this life for a reason. I met Jarod, isn’t that enough? Without him, it’s likely that Wayne would have accomplished all he’d set out to do and we’d both be six feet under with the world as it ended.

So I’m grateful for the hell I went through, I am. I met the half of my broken soul, the one who made me whole again. Now I just have to finalize this design I’ve been working on with another resident who’s taken to making jewellery and I think I’ll be set. I should have done this so much sooner but there’s still a small part of me that clings to the past, to the horror of before, to what might be and what could happen. I know we’re in this life together; nothing is going to change that. I don’t really need the presence of a ring or anything else but I want to.

Sandwich

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Maximillian Fitzroy
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 580 words

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There are so many new things I’ve discovered with Jarod in my life, I wouldn’t even really know where to begin. Would I have to begin somewhere?

I could go the deep, dark and undercover way of things, those things best left for the bedroom but that is exactly where they’ll be staying. I have no reasons to be discussing these things, they are private and will remain private. They are mine to discuss, of course, but I have no desire to discuss them at all to being with.

I have learned and discovered new things as far as food is concerned. My diet was limited by what I could afford and I couldn’t afford much. Not that I cared, then. I didn’t know any differently and I didn’t want to discover otherwise. My life was mostly on track, mostly and while I was far from rich, I had a roof over my head, I had food in my stomach most of the time and I had my music.

Music was and still is the most important part of my life, even now that nature seems to have taken right back over. I don’t really play for others anymore, there doesn’t really seem to be a point but I play for myself, I play for us.

So when he did enter my life for more than just a fleeting moment, I found myself discovering more things than I thought I would. From simple substitutions into sandwiches to hot soups to more complicated meal that I think I would still ruin now if I tried, there was just so much.

At times my mind was buzzing from all of what I was trying to remember, I wanted to know all of what I was being fed but now and again I’d look at the food in my plate and I couldn’t tell you what it was.

Half of those times was because I was exhausted beyond belief, the other half was because my brain hadn’t yet matched the image of the delicious food on my plate with the name it was meant to have. All those deliciously foreign meals, for one. I have a way with music but not so much with words, I don’t believe.

I miss those meals, for the most part. Our choice in protein is somewhat limited, as is that of spices and everything else but there still is a lot in the bunkers, it is mostly dried and I know now and again that fresh is so much better but I think that a lot of the spices I’ve come to love wouldn’t grow so well in parts like these.

I mean, I guess we could try and I’m not sure why I didn’t think of that, else than I probably have a black thumb more than a green one and I think everything might die if I try growing anything. I’ll bring the idea up soon, I figure it can’t hurt. It would give us something to do with the large patch of earth that currently seems to have nothing but weeds growing behind the small two-floor building we’ve claimed as our own.

Mind you, I think that was a three floor building before but with all the vines and nature-stuff, I think there’s at least a floor, if not two, swallowed up from every building left in this city. Not that I mind, it just means we don’t have to share with anyone else.