I Am

I Am

N. Lafont

03/06/22

I
A Corpse

Ring, ring.
Smoke-stained, musty air dried and stung the throat.
The hot summer didn't seethe here, where light was dim and concrete floor scraped my fingers.
Yet, the wet summer reach here, where dust drifted in the storage room
and grime pooled and flooded in.

Ring, ring.
Something streamed from my head and dripped from my chin,
it scalded my chest, seeped through my jacket.
An aching came, it thrummed in waves.
Coursing from cranium to nail.


Ring, ring.
I hear voices panic, the twang and mumble;
Oklahoma in his boisterous tone,
Hometown Louisiana in timid little hers.
The phone alarm roused me, it brought one eye open.

Ring, ring.
But a crackled groan tore from me,
as much as the pain bleeding from my head did.
They turned, they armed themselves at my distorted voice.
I only had one eye to look with, they had bat readied and revolver aimed.

But I spoke, and my creaking hum echoed
in the back of my gas station.
I said Hello, welcome to Shell
I am the manager here, but I am Nobody;
nobody important.

II
A Nobody

I wiped the red from my head,
then from the cinder block on the floor. Pointless, when stained and dripping bilge water.
They ushered me outside, past the front door's broken glass,
past the wet layer sloshing past with shuffle and step,
then we found ourselves outside.

The scorching light had long receded in that prolonged rest of mine,
but I could still see people out and about.
They crowded around radios blasting blues and tunes, but others hobbled and stumbled about.
Blindly. Aimlessly. Searching.
But their faces tore, bled and hung ragged. Mottled with blowflies.

She stood fearful, watching from behind the broken gasoline pump, screen shattered.
He raised a wire-laced bat over his shoulder, lively with malice.
Yet, they both spoke of dead, hungry men.
The tourist and the coward, they enlightened me.
The dirty flood, once crimson and now brown, had brought them and their plague.

They came to my gas station to prepare to flee, off to safer places;
but within the South, for dead men would not endure here.
The heat and vapor would rot them, their smell would corrode each breath soon.
The two invited me. It would be our road trip, I would bring snacks.
With nowhere and no one else, I accepted.

The can's gasoline sputtered and gurgled, tipped over.
We piled into the dented and scruffy truck.
The words of a lone preacher cracked and howled on the radio.
The doors slammed shut, the engine revved and cleaved through the air.
Heads craned over. I felt the tires rolling beneath us.

III
A Companion

The trees ran past the windows,
leaves blurred and blackened like the dry blood upon my cuffs.
The fall wind dug into the swinging rope and underbrush as we passed,
careening down the empty road with a whoop and scream, from he and she.
Truck teetered, tourist and coward and I, lurching in threadbare seats.

She called out for a slow,
he called back with enjoyment.
Another voice, from the radio, preached on.
Yowling boldly, he sang for resilience in trying times,
oppose the "rot", as he and we called them.

He filled the silence in the void of the dingy car.
That tourist silenced him, however, and turned.
Names, was what he finally wanted.
The two months of evading teeth and claw proved something,
perhaps our longevity.

Barry.
Then, the coward hesitated. She was encouraged by him.
Lisa.
Then, the nobody hung a quiet blanket on them.
But I was hesitant, too.

Odie. Let's call me that.
It's close enough, I decided, and it was simple enough to fit.
He grinned, she nodded.
Barry, Lisa, and Odie,
on our road trip to Florida.

IV
A Somebody

The winter passed, now searing light evaporated rainwater.
The humidity left us in the breath of fragmented death.
Dirty bones finally saw the light, as did we.
The rot's limbs severed at the seams.
They were discarded about, stewing on the street.

Barry made no comment,
Lisa cupped her face,
And I held over doused cloth in alcohol.
We saw it, the rot's rot.
It rotted our noses.

We wandered down the US 1, searching for obscure places to rob.
The Keys sectors were emptied of undying wrath,
but isolated in their safety.
Nothing in, nothing out,
not while rot is about.

But their skin waned,
foolish enough to not hide in palm tree shade.
They all withered away, in flesh and number.
Nonetheless, their remnants remained pungent.
We saw oddly little of them.

My knife remained mercifully clean.
But no longer.
We set foot into the dim, indoor mall,
and immediately heard the cacophony.
It surrounded us.

It ran for us.
The rot clung to our heels.
We slashed, bashed, and blasted.
The bloody blade's reflection showed me panic I once heard.
His arm was wrung in wiry, decrepit fingers. She frantically fired, backing and backing.

I kicked away the dead before me, I turned, I reached for them.
I ran to replace those fingers,
to calm the gunshots.
I grasped it's grimy face, my hilt sunk to it's spine.
I flung away the rot and blood, it's and mine.

A glance, and a few words as my hand stung.
I'm no king, I'm no hero;
I'm only a man, a nobody.
But you gave me somewhere and someone.
So, I'm not nothing anymore... I’m something.
I'm Odysseus.