……….and the doors opened and Leonard was pulling on his arm saying that they didn’t have long. It was time to grab the things he wanted. He was asking where the bag was. They were on level thirty and somebody was shouting that they had the winner, like the celebration of a successful hunt. Leonard was shouting at somebody that there wasn’t time to do something like that, and that the idea was insane. There was no way they were doing a lap of every floor. The man looked angry and shoved Leonard, but then……….
Zack was standing outside his office block. His reflection was staring back at him in the mirrored glass. He was saying that he was sorry but it had to be this way. That he wasn’t ready. It wasn’t her fault, but he wasn’t ready for it. What was she supposed to do, she was asking. He was saying he would help her. He was saying that he would go with her and be there for her, and that afterwards they would still be together. He just wasn’t ready for the responsibility. She was crying, and he was making his excuses. He told her he would speak to her later. She told him she loved him. He repeated that he would speak to her later.
………Leonard was shouting at somebody to get out the way. He was still holding onto Zack’s arm and pulling him forwards and………
Zack went inside and put his telephone into his pocket. He took the lift up to the thirtieth floor. Leonard was there, younger with fuller cheeks. He asked him if he wanted to talk about it but Zack said that he didn’t, that it was personal. Leonard told him that if he changed his mind he would be there. He made a coffee. He sat at his desk and got out his diary. The office filled with light, streaming in as if every dawn was rising in unison. He ran to Leonard’s office. The floor beneath him rumbled, a sensation that he had never felt before, like the floor was resting on a surface of jelly.
……..then Leonard slammed the door shut.
“Zachary, are you OK?” Leonard was peering down at him, his eyes wide, and his smile fixed and tight. “You looked in a daze there for a moment.” Zack was sitting on the edge of his bed, his room, his home, his life for an unknown and poorly counted number of years.
“I can’t believe it, Leo.” Zack’s hands were resting on his chest, across his heart. He was trying to breathe, his lips pursed together like they were sucking on a straw.
“That’s it, Zachary. Just take a few deep breaths,” Leonard said as he sat crouched in front of him. His face was still red, his eyes swollen and sore. In that vision Zack realised that the only thing that matched his luck was the incredible loss of every other resident, not only in Delta, but the rest of New Omega.
“I’m sorry, Leo.” Tears welled in Zack’s eyes and a single droplet escaped onto his cheek which Leonard brushed away.
“Sorry?” Leonard asked. “Don’t be sorry. Come on now,” he said, resting a comforting arm across his shoulders as he sat at Zack’s side. He was the closest thing Zack had to a friend or a father left. “What could I do with a life in Omega Tower? I’m old. I’m not even sure they let old chaps like me in there. Now come on, they’re coming for you. It’s time to get yourself together. I’ve snatched you a few quiet moments by getting you here for your things, but we have to leave in a few minutes.”
Zack sat nodding, agreeable and thankful for Leonard’s willingness not to show his disappointment. They both knew it existed. He had lost too. A wife, a family, a home. There was nothing left for him except this. This was his reality. But Zack could no longer sympathise with his misfortunes. They were no longer the same. Zack stood up and grabbed his blanket and pillow from the bed and bundled them up before thrusting them into Leonard’s arms.
“You have to take my things, Leo.” This room will be ransacked once word gets out. Nothing will be left. You have to take anything you can.” Zack searched around looking for something of use. A spare overall, too big but available. A jumper, holey but still an extra layer. He opened the satchel and pulled out the iPod and pushed it along with the clothes into a pile in Leonard’s arms. He reached under the mattress, pulled out three ration cards.
“Be careful with these. Don’t go crazy with them. There are enough water rations on here to see you through a month without your own.” He reached into another drawer, pulled out an old wallet. There was a photograph in there. It was Zack and Samantha in the summer, when days were long and life felt even longer. Youth lived in the couple who Zack no longer recognised as himself ever being part of. They were cuddling on top of some steps. “Paris,” Zack said. “Years ago.” He took the picture and tore it in half, separating their heads. He slipped the half with Samantha on it into his pocket, handed the other half to Leonard.
“Why?” Leonard said. “I’m not going to forget you.”
“There is always part of me that stayed outside of this tower, but I thought that part of me had died. Now I can feel it again. But the part of me in here,” he paused to wipe away another tear, “it was only kept alive by you. Part of me will stay here with you, and maybe on some of the darker days you can look at this and remember that. Maybe it will help.”
“It will,” Leonard said, his eyes glassing over. “We have to go,” he said quickly, slipping the photograph in his overall pocket.
“No, stay here.” Leonard looked surprised. “If you come, somebody else will get this stuff. The crowd will probably follow me. Can’t you hear them?” Outside the door there was a chant of Zack’s name, demanding their hero winner. “Take the things next door as soon as we have gone. Leonard nodded.
Zack stepped forwards and crouched down. He opened his arms and wrapped them around Leonard’s body. They held each other, both knowing that something else had ended. Their heads rested on each other’s shoulders, and Zack drank in the smell of him without any care for any disease that he might catch. It wasn’t important anymore.
“You take care, Zachary.” They both stood up. “I don’t know what I would have done without you in those early days. I’ll miss you.”
“Likewise, old man. Don’t lose hope. Maybe your clouds will clear after all.”
“Maybe,” Leonard said, not seeming convinced.
“And if not, I’ll find a way to bring back some sunshine into your life.” He held Leonard’s cheek in his hand, Leonard fighting back the first tears of a goodbye, Zack’s fingers sliding around to grip his neck. He pulled him closer. “There is a way out of here, and this is not the only way.” They both nodded their heads, only one of them really believing it. “I’m coming back for you one day.” He walked to the door, opened it a fraction and the cheering became louder. Leonard sat back down. The cheering faded as Zack closed the door.
He was gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I was born in the town of Warwick in 1981. It is a small historical town in the heart of England, and Ι was the fifth child born into a family of boys. I developed a huge interest in the written world from a young age, and with more than a little help from Roald Dahl found quite the taste for anything gross and gory. Book club at primary school only proved to increase my love of escaping into the world of a book. Whilst six years at secondary school did little to quell the romantic notion of one day sitting in my mountain cabin and smoking a celebratory cigarette as the first novel was born, somewhere within those six years the dream of becoming a writer got put on hold. Still resting quietly in the background were those long and lingering desires to once again rediscover those old aspirations to write.