The Waste Land

"You know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter..."

T.S. Eliot

*

In the dead land, they met on the road. She had been distracted—which was unlike her—by a highway sign, leaning drunkenly from the weed-choked berm, so weathered and windworn as to be indecipherable, anonymous. He had surprised her there, bounding down from the rocks and scrub of the hills above the road. He stuck a shotgun in her face—a rusty, pockmarked excuse for a weapon—and they stood for a moment or two, sizing each other up. He was a sorry specimen, she thought: a weedy, lank-haired, sallow-faced tatterdemalion, dusty and desperate and slowly dying, just like the whole fucking world. But he had a gun and she only had her knife. Eight feet or less—that's what she needed to rush and stab before a brain could tell a finger to pull a trigger. But he was ten feet away, and he was no Marauder. Reluctantly she let the knife sleep on and he was 'gentlemanly' enough to lower the gun and offer to walk together a spell.

If they didn't want to kill her, they wanted to fuck her. And he didn't kill her.

He said his name was Darren. He asked her name, where she was from, where she was going. She only replied to the latter:

"West."

They tramped along until the sun dipped into red. Her traveling companion, squinting into the ruddy glow, casually mentioned the need to find a place to camp. She had picked one out half an hour prior, but she played along, and led him towards her predestined site. It was low, but nestled in the crook of an overhanging cliff, in the shadow of the red rock, shielded by shorter, jagged outcroppings, invisible from the road.

The sun had burnt down to a crimson bruise in a starless indigo sky, but the smoky fire they had built from dead scrub threw light around their rocky bivouac. He proffered two cans of pinto beans, scarfed his, and now watched her as she speared the beans on the tip of her knife, one by one, and gingerly deposited them in her mouth.

"That's quite the toothpick," he said.

Damn right. Eight-inch clip blade, polished to a mirror, elegantly pointed, sawback spine, with brass guards and a grained mahogany grip. The whole knife curved, the blade convex, the handle concave, like a woman's profile, she thought. Curvaceous and deadly.

He lay propped on his arm, leering at her, like a hyena. She finished the beans, wiped her knife clean, and replaced it in its embroidered leather sheathe.

"Take that thing off," he said. "Ain't no Marauders here. Ain't nothing here."

He had laid aside his own bandolier and ratty windbreaker. She eyed him, unclasping her web belt, then eased out of her vest.

To his credit, Darren didn't bother speaking, just gave a low whistle at her lithe frame. It was almost charming. She folded the vest and sat back on it, legs out, and beckoned him over. He crawled, supine, licking his lips. He feverishly unlaced her boots and she slid off her dungarees. He moved his mouth toward hers but she took hold of his greasy hair and pressed his face between her legs. As he slurped and slobbered, she watched the flames dance over the rocks. She felt primeval.

Darren ruined the moment by fumbling at his belt buckle. After a struggle, he kicked off his trousers and lumbered onto her, and, unreproved, manipulated himself into her. She let him in. Despite the fire, the night was chilling, and she appreciated the warmth. She closed her eyes and smelled sweat and dust and burning sage. He nuzzled his face into her bare shoulder and wheezed with each thrust.

Still, she thought, he felt okay inside her, and they had a fire, and her belly was full—or no longer empty—so she lay back and let him go on. It seemed to her that his vanity required no response and made a welcome of the indifference. He took her ankles in her hands, bending her slender legs back, and lunged into her mightily. "Fuck, baby, fuck," he kept muttering. He tore off his sweat-stained tank top, grunting, his emaciated torso shuddering as he pressed into her.

"Oh, fuck, baby," he mumbled. "You fucking wasteland queen..."

The wind gusted and she shivered. She wanted to be closer to the fire. She clasped his shoulders and eased him off of her and onto his back. He did not protest. She straddled him and pressed him back inside her. Her knife in its sheath, an arm's reach away, caught the firelight, winking at her. She smiled.

"You'll never leave me."

Fuck. She hadn't meant to say that out loud. Too much time spent alone.

Darren noticed these first words his companion had spoken since their meeting. "I won't leave you, baby, not ever," he gasped. To show his commitment, he grabbed at her breasts through her camisole, dislodging her tarnished necklace chain. The diamond ring at the end tinkled and gleamed, bouncing against her chest.

He caught it in his dirty fingers. "What's this here?"

"All I have left," she breathed. She collapsed forward, against him, catching his hand in hers, while her other hand reached out towards the embroidered leather...

His eyes are too close together, she thought. She watched those eyes narrow in confusion, then bulge. He couldn't react as the warm blood oozed from the ear-to-ear gash yawning across his throat. He stared at her, then at the knife, held out, dripping and glinting. His body shivered and his breath raked through this new gaping orifice. Still, she would let him enjoy these last few moments, if he could muster it. His arm fell to his side and the ring shivered on its chain. Now it was her mantra:

"You left me. You left me. You left me..."