(Journal — Robby, Age 8)

  I think I am 8 now.

  I forgot to write it on the day.

  I am sorry.

  I think my birthday was 6 days ago. I counted back on the OmniPad calender thing but I might be wrong. The days slide around alot now. Cold days. Wet days. Hungry days. That is how i tell what day of the week it is.

  I didnt have a cake.

  I didnt even remember till it was dark.

  That made my chest hurt.

  I am 8.

  My clothes dont fit right. To tight now.

  My pants stop above my ankles now and when I kneel by the fire my knees push out the cloth. The jacket sleeves dont reach my hands anymore so my wrists get red and sore first. I tied string around them but the knots rub my skin.

  I dont care how it looks. Nobody sees me anyways. I dont have to see me so I dont care.

  Looking dumb is better then being cold.

  My shoes still fit. Barely.

  I hope my feet dont grow again for a while.

  Food is almost gone.

  I didnt want to write that. I dont want you to be mad cuz i didnt leave you any. I dont think your comming back now. You wouldnt have missed my birthday.

  I keep hoping I missed something. A can. A bar. Anything. I shake boxes even when I know theyre empty. I line up what’s left and count it again and again like the numbers might change if I look hard enough.

  Hunger feels like being mad all the time.

  It makes my head fuzzy. I forget words. I drop things. I snap at sticks and rocks like they did something wrong. Sometimes I yell and then I say sorry out loud to nobody.

  The traps still dont work.

  I moved them again. Closer to the creek. Then farther away. I checked the wind like the book says. I rubbed dirt on my hands so I wouldnt smell like me. Still nothing.

  Sometimes there are tracks and no animal and that feels worse. Like I was almost good enough.

  I hate almost.

  Spring is here. I think for real this time.

  The snow melted into squisy mud and the creek got louder. The book says this is when things grow so I started looking. I found plants with the right leaves. I checked them three times. I cooked them even when the book said I could eat them raw.

  I eat alot of them.

  My stomach still feels empty after.

  Its like eating green air.

  I dont get sick though. That matters.

  I built a fishing pole!!!

  It looks stupid but it works kinda. A long branch. Some cord. I practiced casting in the grass so I wouldnt scare the fish. The line makes a nice woooooosh sound when it flies out.

  I dont have hooks tho.

  I tried making one from wire. It broke. I tried again and poked my finger. It bleed but not much this time. I sucked it anyway. Just in case.

  The fish still flash in the water like they know.

  I am still doing my school work.

  I know you would want that.

  The OmniPad has books and lessons and I do them every day. Even when Im tired. Even when my head hurts. I do math problems and reading and I dont skip ahead even when I want to. I promise.

  I am keeping up.

  I think Im even ahead in some stuff.

  You would be proud.

  I got a rabit today! They yell a lot when theyre trapped!

  I tricked it! I found a field with corn growing in it. Its not ready to eat yet but i took some anyways. Dont worry nobody saw i was very careful.

  I cut some corn into the trap and got a rabit! It barely fit into my pot is so big! I cut up corn into the pot and is cooking now.

  I Have the rabit skin streeched between sticks…

  i dont want to rub the brains on it…

  i will but i dont want to do it.

  Thats what book says to do and ARKNAD says i have to be brave.

  Ok that wasnt all true.

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  I do the school stuff but sometimes I skip ahead because I was learning how to build a spaceship to find you.

  The OmniPad has books about engines and power and how ships work in space. Not kids books. Big ones. I dont understand all of it but I read it anyway. Is my favorite book now, when i learn new stuff i go back to it and read more.

  If I can build one I can come find you.

  I know thats dumb. But maybe not all the way dumb.

  ARKNAD THE SPACE PIRATE didnt wait for someone to save him. He built his own ship out of trash and lasers and flew it straight into the dark and punched space in the face.

  He says its ok to try. He says its not ok to not try. I think this is right.

  I started learning other things too.

  Mom would want me to spell better so im working on that. I still mess up alot but I try to look words up now instead of guessing. It takes longer but I think thats what you would want.

  Dad would want me to do math. I like math better i think. Math makes sense even when everything else doesnt. Numbers dont leave you. They stay where you put them. They dont lie to you.

  ARKNAD says you need math to build a spaceship too. Thats important.

  I didnt want to go back to town. Town is full of the poo pants guards. I call them that cuz there is no way they can go bathroom in that armor so im sure they poo their pants.

  I waited as long as I could.

  Then one morning I stood up and got dizzy and had to sit back down and I knew if I didnt go soon I wouldnt be able to run when it mattered.

  Hunger wins. Hunger wins a lot of fights. ARKNAD never has to fight hunger.

  I went early again. Gray morning. No birds yet. Just enough rain to keep everyone inside. People don’t like the rain. I like it, i smell better after it rains. And theres less people to have to hide from. So i like the rain just little rain tho not the pooring rain.

  I hate the town. I hate that it still works. I hate that the machines remember how to feed people when people didnt remember me.

  Swipe hand. Drop food. Run.

  My tracker screamed like always.

  One of the guardians turned its head this time. The blue lights shifted. I felt it in my bones.

  I ran anyway.

  I always run.

  I started collecting extra food, I sneak all over town swiping my hand on machines and grabbing what I can then i run away. I’m trying not to eat it.

  This is for if something bad happens and i cant go to town. The boy scout book says to be prepared. That means having extra food just in case Thats important.

  I went twice more this week.

  I hate that too.

  The second time I almost tripped because my shoes were too tight. My heart went crazy and I didnt stop running till my chest burned like fire.

  I hid for a long time in a pile of trash just like ARKNAD had to do once.

  I am not brave anymore.

  I am careful.

  Im sorry.

  I found the pellet gun!!

  It was still in the groceries.

  That made me mad.

  Real mad.

  I dumped everything out of the car. Everything! Bags. Boxes. Wrappers. I yelled at them for hiding it from me. For waiting. For being stupid.

  There was nothing else.

  I put it all back because animals will eat it if I dont. Even empty bags smell like food.

  The gun fits my hands.

  I practice aiming at stumps. The sound scares birds away but I think it could work if I get better.

  ARKNAD says every captain needs a gun.

  I wish Dad was here to teach me how to shoot it right. But you put sever little tin cans of ammo so i have lots of shots. I know dad, dont kill if i wont eat it. I remember i promise.

  I borrowed clothes today.

  I didnt want to write that but its true.

  There was a line behind one of the houses on the edge of town. Shirts and pants flapping slow in the wind. I watched for a long time first.

  No one came out.

  I took a shirt and pants and a jacket. Just one. I left my old jacket folded where the shirt was. It didnt fit me anymore anyway.

  Borrowing isnt stealing if you really need it. I think.

  The jacket is warm.

  I still feel hungry even after I eat.

  Plants. Fish I cant catch. Food I borrow and make last as long as I can.

  I think hunger lives inside me now. Like it moved in.

  ARKNAD says hunger makes you sharp. He says it teaches you where the weak spots are. He also says when he gets rich hes going to eat seven dinners in a row just to prove a point.

  I think thats funny.

  I dont laugh out loud much anymore but I smiled anyways.

  Im still here.

  I am 8.

  — Robby

  The car smelled like dirt, stale food and old plastic.

  Robby sat sideways in the driver’s seat, feet tucked up, borrowed jacket pulled tight around him. The dash lights glow soft and weak, like they’re tired too. Robby reached into the glove box on the right side of the car. He pulled out the perfume bottle, and did one quick spritz of perfume into the car before he put it back.

  There was not much left in the bottle, fading as the memories of his mother and father fade as well. The scent helps to remember, but that remembering sometimes hurts. So Robby reached over and clicked on the radio to drown the memory out again.

  The radio crackles.

  “…supply routes remain contested… evacuation priority has shifted… repeat, do not…”

  He turned the dial slowly.

  “…vote of no confidence of United Earth president Alfred Ramirez has left the UE leadership in …”

  He turned the dial again.

  Music came through, warped and thin. A song about someplace warm. Then a voice sang about love like it’s a thing you can always go back to.

  Robby pressed his forehead to the glass on the driver's side door.

  For a little while, he pretended the song was a message. That it’s for him. That it's his mother singing a love song to him, reminding him to be strong. If he listened hard enough maybe she would sing his name, but it never happened.

  The solar charge ran out sooner that day. Maybe he should clean it again, it looked a little dusty. He scolded himself for not keeping it clean, Dad would be mad at him for avoiding doing things. He had to be better, nobody else to depend on at all.

  When the radio clicked off, the silence felt heavier than before.

  Robby stayed in the car until his legs got stiff, then slipped out and walked back toward the creek, counting his steps, thinking about math, and spaceships, and how ARKNAD would say this is just the boring part before things get good.

  The fort waits for him in the dark.

  Robby hears the squeal of a rabbit in the dark as he slips into his fort. Another rabbit in his snare, it will be there in the morning. Walking around in the dark is dangerous, he drifts off to sleep happily dreaming about the rabbit stew he’ll be eating in the morning.