The Unknown - Chapter 9e by nova

Chapter 9e

"So you have a name?" I asked him.

"No."

"Hmmm...How do you get your mail"?

He looked at me blankly for a second,barked a one syllable laugh, and said, "That worlds gone Gardener. Long gone."

He and I looked at each other and what passed between us was what I called "The Knowledge." Every once in a while you would be talking, sometimes in a group, sometimes not, usually there would only be two of us old enough to understand, and somebody would say something about the old world. You and the other survivor from then would lock eyes for a second and exchange the look. That look said "We know. We were there. The rest of you don't. It's just tales from a world you can't even comprehend, but we do. We were there." Usually it was followed by a flicker of sadness, of pain, of old memories that still retained their sharp edge, and then it was locked away. A ripple that passed unnoticed unless you had "The Knowledge."

"Yeah. Now that we had our moment" I told him lets talk about today. What the fuck were you doing here?"

"Looking for you."

I checked his shirt out, perhaps I had gone a little to do deep prodding him. Time to skip over superfluous stuff.

"Anymore of you?"

"Yeah. We ain't alone either. Some weird shit is going on here. Should have stayed home this time." He paused, sighed a low, "Oh man" and shut his eyes for a couple of beats.

"Hey. How many?"

He open his eyes, I could see he was slipping away, shock was already there, death was slipping through the door into his room.

"Go in peace no name."

He blinked and was gone. I watched his skin color change as his life slipped away and wondered why the hell I had said that.