• years from now
• a story older than time
• will play out once more

//

• a girl packs her bag
• and takes the ancient train out to what used to be suburbs
• are now wilds
• left to give back to nature
• too much to tear up to turn into fields
• an offering to mother earth
• repentance
• for humanity's sins

//

• she checks her bag once more.
• the tribute is all there.
• apple juice, a couple pill bottles of estrogen, and a paperback book
• the librarian helped her pick out.
• fairy tales of superheroes
• from the time before.

//

• the train is electric and speedy
• but the station it stops at
• unused and old
• the wind whips around her hair
• as she picks her way down a broken escalator

//

• she walks
• back through streets she used to know
• an old map
• now lost to time
• had all the names.
• the turns are the only thing that matter now.
• the silence is haunting.
• animals peek out from decaying sloops and ruined roofs
• vines choke everything.
• trees grow out of potholes.
• flowers bloom from broken mailboxes.
• it is heartbreakingly beautiful.
• a world so many never got to see.

//

• the girl bawls
• tears like a rainstorm
• on a midsummer afternoon.

//

• she reaches the intersection where she always meets
• that relic warrior
• who can’t seem to settle down.
• she read somewhere
• that the old world used to call environmental patrol
• rangers.
• she thinks that term still fits.

//

• that old fighter
• who can’t come back to the world of the living, the city
• and won’t move on to the farmer’s life, out in the country
• seems trapped in that limbo they used to call the suburbs.
• they lost too much
• when the world burned
• and out of the ashes was born a new one.
• too many comrades and loved ones missing
• to ever be whole again.
• too many years spent fighting and fighting and fighting
• to know how to do anything else.

//

• so now they wander this wasteland of inbetween
• with an antique rifle and a walking stick
• making sure the wildlife is alright.
• protecting
• the only thing they know how to do.

//

• they wander those ruined lands
• paying their respects to the crustpunks and the covens
• and the occasional fellow traveler.

//

• and the girl brings the tribute
• to where she knows the ranger
• will come
• like they do every month
• hoping that a loved one appears out of nowhere
• even though its been years.

//

• only the girl of the new world comes.
• she is the only one that ever does.

//

• there are friends, of course, from before
• but they were able to settle
• to stop fighting
• the ranger doesn’t think they ever will.

//

• an old dog trots by the rangers side
• as they arrive
• to graciously accept the tribute
• for service from before the girl was born.

//

• the ranger smiles
• sadly
• signs thank you
• in a language that only exists in books
• some capacity to talk long since disappeared

//

• the apple juice
• and pills
• and comic books
• disappear into a campers bag

//

• thunder cracks
• and the sky bursts open like a dam
• and the pain of billions is felt
• the friends that didn’t make it
• and the kids that grew up only to fight
• and the poor souls that never got to see this wonderful world.

//

• the ranger and the girl both bawl
• tears like a rainstorm
• on a midsummer afternoon