Page 53 - North Star Literary & Art Magazine

fertilizer, the height it fell from wouldn’t be enough to bash my brains in. It would’ve been a pitiful attempt anyways.
The only reason I knew that a significant amount of time had gone by was the alarm that was my stomach. It growled like a dog about to pounce, and I was faced with the realization that I had no food. I had to laugh at such a sick joke.
My eyes scanned the surroundings through the tears that had built up, debris from the explosion scattered all over, sweaters and toys I had pulled out in my search for death, cardboard boxes thrown to the side... but no food.
I crawled my way over to the crumbled stone that had fallen from the ceiling, clutching it in my hand. I tested the sharpness, pressing my thumb deeply against the ragged edges and was given a gift with a cut in my skin.
A way out.
“...lo?”
My heart jumped to my throat, the stone escaping my trembling hands. That
sound, like the crumpling of a bag of chips... it was coming from the radio wasn’t it? “...lo? ...an ....ear?”
I bolted over to the radio, making a desperate grab at the microphone, “Yes? Hello, are you still there?”
I counted the seconds with my heartbeat. One
Two
Three
“...ello? Are... there?”
The microphone became my floating door and I was Rose, desperately clutching it even in the face of losing all I had to love. “Yes! Yes, I’m here! Please, I’m trapped, I don’t have food, I’m hungry! Please, I need help!”
And there it was again, that damnable hissing, that infuriating response of noth- ing at all.
I sobbed, “Please! Come back, please! I’m scared!”
Like the bombs, millions of joules escaped my mouth with the scream that tore through me, shredding my heart. I fell asleep clinging to the radio, begging, sobbing, “please, please, please.”
My lungs woke me, producing such a harsh cough that I thought I had drowned. But there was no water in sight, the stain of my salty tears was the only evidence that there ever was any. Not that it was drinkable.
God, I was thirsty. And my hunger; that hadn’t gone away while I slept. In fact, it was worse. There seemed to be something monstrous living in my stomach, digging its sharp claws against my insides, crawling up my shredding throat, moving into the back of my tongue.
I felt dead, as much as someone alive can. My body hurt to move, and my head felt like I had actually gone through with beating it against the wall. The sharp stone I had tossed aside in my shock yesterday
couldn’t properly communicate.
was it yesterday? or was it an hour? god I miss the sun
was back in my grasp... but my brain
NORTH STAR 51