The Last to Go by A.D. Lyall

Author:A.D. Lyall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd
Published: 2023-07-12T23:26:07+00:00

The Valley IX

The house felt empty, even to Charlie, and the land did. A strange, diffused light had come over the place, the last of the sunshine mixed with clouds, wistful and heavy. Rus is rubbing off on me, Charlie thought, and decided that wasn’t a bad thing.

Charlie went about his preparations for night-time. He secured the house, closed the few open shutters, raised the bridge with Rus. He almost went to put food into Fiddich’s bowl but caught himself. He kept seeing Fiddich’s shape in the deepening shadows.

There is no meaning in that, he reminded himself, and yet found he wanted meaning right now. He needed to recreate some, for both of them, he decided. Tomorrow he would, or next week. Charlie’s way of being, merging with Rus’s. It was a strange thing.

Rus spoke very little. Charlie followed his lead, not that he had much to say. Neither touched Adam’s whisky, each for his own reason, unspoken to the other. For Charlie, it seemed crass, to drink Adam’s gift when the man was out there, maybe, trying to survive the night.

Charlie joined Rus on the front veranda. They watched the last of the sunset without words, not needing them, or not capable of them. But as time wore on, Rus’s silence began to worry Charlie. He was breaking. He was flat, not only in the affective sense, but flat by his own definition of such things. For him, survival was all that existed right now. Charlie could live with that, had lived with it for a long time, but he couldn’t continue that way when Rus needed more and there was nothing more left.

‘We’ll get through this,’ Charlie said.

‘I know.’ Rus’s response was listless.

Charlie watched the last light fade. Vibrant colours left the sky, clouds thickened in the distance; there might be another storm. Vespertine creatures moved in the twilight and Charlie knew that the crows would be waking. Everything else was still. He loved this time of day, or usually did. He loved the solitude, had embraced the receding of human interaction – as terrifying as the source of it was – but recently, he’d observed the greater loss this could bring.

Rus is definitely rubbing off on me.

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