14 - That time an ogre visited me.
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It was more than two years ago by now, but I
remember that visit from an ogre like it was
yesterday. I was behind the power wagon just
returned from a tire scavenge run, working jobs to
ease my grief in those days. And I saw the ogre
lifting itself down from the retaining wall behind
my home and ambling down the embankment, looking
evenly at me with its eye as it came towards me. I
dropped the tire I was carrying and ran for my
door, barely getting there before it did. Slammed
the door and leaned, but it already had a hand on
it. The hinge metal bent and the door jam
splintered as it pushed it in, and I thought I was
finished for sure. I went tumbling onto the bench
by the stair. I turned towards the door to get up.
"Wait," it said, in a low, even voice. "I have
something for you." That surprised me. I did not
even know they could talk, let alone in my
language. It was so tall that I could not see its
face as it stood outside the door. I was frozen
with horror, staring at its chest. I could say
nothing.
"I am sorry about your children," it
continued. "We all do what we must to survive,
don't we." A sound that might have been a sigh. "I
thought you should have these."
An enormous hand was suddenly inside my home, and
out of it dropped something very small onto the
floor. I couldn't quite process this, and I made
no reply.
A pause. It moved a toe. "I expect you and the
others are planning to come for me soon."
"Yes," I eventually growled shortly, as I glared
at its belly button. "Four days from now, at
dawn."
"Yes, of course. You will do what you must, as
well." A pause. Awkward or sullen, I will never be
sure. It moved away from the doorway and I could
see outside again.
I was still sitting on the floor. There in front
of me where it dropped them, was Tara's bracelet
and a pokemon card of Evan's. They were balled up
together, bent but not crushed. I stared at them,
my heart turning inside out within my
chest. Seconds passed, or maybe hours.
A tree-like arm appeared in the ruined doorway
again. "Take this also, I have no use for it." It
dropped a computer keyboard onto the mat, and it
left.
As planned, some of us from the neighbourhood went
up the hill and dispatched the ogre later that
week, and there was some safety for the rest of
that year. But this year another one came to take
its place, and now Hat's granddaughter has gone
missing. We'll go out on another search this
afternoon, like we did yesterday. It goes on and
on like this, but I still don't know what it
means.
