disjune
[dis-joon]
1. breakfast
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She plopped a blob of something meat like in front of him. It rested on a round object that was not unlike a plate, and served to keep the meat like substance off the dusty ground.
“What’s this?” He asked.
“Breakfast. What else would it be?” She replied gruffly.
She dropped another plate nearby and sat down in front of it. She grabbed the meat and began to tear into it. His stomach reminded him that he had not eaten that day yet, so he dug in. The meat was cold, stringy and tough. It also tasted like rubber and copper. He was unpleasantly used to the taste though, and so managed to push through it.
“I miss eggs.” He said after a few bites.
“Hm?” His wife-by-association grunted around a mouthful.
“Eggs. You remember those? Now there was a breakfast. Eggs and bacon. Best thing ever, really.”
“Meh. I wasn’t much of a bacon girl. Now a nice veggie omelet, that was good stuff.”
He felt his mouth start to water at the thought of food. Real food. Not whatever mystery substance he was currently eating.
“Yeah, that was good stuff. Veggies, I mean. You never really know what you’ve lost until it’s gone. I mean, if you’d have told me a few years ago that I’d be longing for broccoli, I’d say you’re crazy.”
“I hear that. Although I will say this, having to kill your own food really makes you appreciate it in ways that just buying the stuff doesn’t.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
The conversation came to a slow end. He looked over his kind of wife. The actual relationship of husband and wife had long since died out, of course, but it was convenient to think of her that way, since they had been traveling together for a year and a half.
He found his mind wandering as he ate. For some reason, he thought back to when they had met, ironically because of breakfast. The day they had met, he had just brought down a...something for breakfast. He had, however, made the mistake of eating in a place with other people. People that were decidedly not friendly. She had done something very similar. The resulting fight was an eye opener. Seeing her literally rip a man’s head off with a set of long, sharp metal claws was a thing of beauty. It was almost poetic in its violence. As she watched him smash through three people’s heads with one swing of his hammer, they both came to the same conclusion: They were not sure who would win in a fight. Because of this, they started traveling together. It was the closest thing to love anyone got these days.
“What?” She asked after she swallowed a chunk of meat.
“Nothing, nothing. Just thinking.” He said.
“Right.” She said slowly, drawing the word out a bit more than was needed.
“What?”
“You just never struck me as the thinking type is all.”
“Shows what you know.” he tore another mouthful of meat and swallowed before continuing. “I’m all about thinking. Before all this happened, I spent most of my time thinking. Well, that and playing D&D.”
“Huh. So, you were a nerd, eh?”
“Big time. You?”
“No way. I was one of those girls who only thought about where to get a better deal on shoes and purses.”
“An airhead.”
“No!” She paused a bit before hanging her head. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Huh.”
“Huh.”
“What now?”
“So, if this never happened,” He said, waving his hands around the barren landscape, “then you’d be the kind of person who wouldn’t have given me the time of day.”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, I guess that’s something like an upside, right? I mean, us meeting and all that.”
She smiled lightly. It seemed odd on her hard, solid face. She ran a rough hand along his equally rough face. “Oh honey.” She said tenderly. “I’d trade you for indoor plumbing in a heartbeat.”
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I hate to admit it, but I'd probably be one of the first people to die once the apocalypse happens. I've got no practical skills, and have too many physical issues to really make my way in a world without modern technology. It sucks to think about, but it's true.
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