Ben Bedard - The World Without Flags

Instead, I see Pest standing over the corpse of the pig, his gun held to the side, still smoking. The smell of corpses and death mixes with gun powder. The pig’s head has three dark holes in it, one right below the eye socket. Black blood and long tendrils of thin worms pour from it like liquid from a bottle. Shakily, I step forward. Pest turns toward me.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

That’s when I notice his left arm, torn and bleeding where the pig managed to gore him.

By the time we get back to camp, I’m practically carrying Pest. He’s lost a lot of blood. My heart racing, I drag him next to the smoldering camp fire. I try not to think of the infection pumping through him, try not to think about what that means. Pest struggles into a sitting position, his back against a fallen tree. He looks up at me and smiles, but his smile is weak and it flitters across his face, fragile as a butterfly.

“Don’t worry,” he says and then takes a deep breath. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Of course I’m going to worry, you idiot,” I hiss. I get down on my knees and open up his shirt. There’s a long, red gash down his left arm. I grimace when I see his wound is smeared with gray foam. I can almost see the tiny, microscopic little worms wriggling their way into his bloodstream, pumping through his body, reaching up into the temple of his brain. I shudder and turn away. I have to wash it. I have to clean it.

Pest looks down at his arm and his face turns sickly pale. “Oh man,” he breathes. He turns away, but I see it’s too late. He blinks several times and then his eyes roll up in his head. His shoulders twitch as he passes out. I’m relieved that he won’t be awake while I wash his wound. I can’t afford to be gentle.

It takes a long time for the water to boil. My mind is thinking about what to do now that Pest is infected. Will we go on? Will we wait here while he gets sick? Will I have to take care of him too like I take care of Eric? The thought of leading the two of them to the Good Prince fills me with fatigue. I struggle just to take care of Eric, I think. How can I take care of both? And I’m thinking too that it could go an entirely different way. Pest could crack. The disease could be too much for him to take and he’ll crack. Then I’ll have to shoot him. I’ll have to shoot him and the man who saved me. Not once, not twice, but three times!

Did I just think of Pest as a man? He’s just a boy, I tell myself. Just a kid.

But the way he looks. The way his eyes flash with intelligence. His patience. How he always thinks before he acts. How I trust and respect him. It makes me think of him as much older. It’s easy to make that mistake.

But it’s a mistake. He’s just a little boy, years younger than me.

Years, I tell myself.

I’m so upset that I sit back, overwhelmed. I grab my legs and hug them close to my body. Why is all this happening to me? Why does it all have to go wrong all the time? I feel myself shaking, trembling, and I hug myself harder to keep steady.

“Keep it together,” I say out loud. “Keep it together, Birdie.”

Think.

I take a few deep breaths.

“All right,” I say. “All right.” I sniff loudly and realize I’ve been crying again. Tears of pure frustration. I wipe my eyes clean with my shirt. “All right.”

“Unh,” Eric says, his face still pressed into the tree where I left him.

“Not now,” I mutter. “I got things to do.”

Halfway through cleaning Pest’s wound, Queen comes back. She whines and paces, worried. She tries to reach in with her snout and lick at his wound, but I push her away. Then she starts to circle the camp. Her circles grow and then, at some point, I don’t see her anymore.

I’ve decided that sometimes thinking isn’t the best way to handle a situation. Sometimes you just have to deal with what is right in front of you. You have to shut off your mind and focus. I can’t think about what I’m going to do later when Pest turns or when he cracks or if he just dies. There’s no use in thinking about it. Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it then. If I worry too much about the future, I’ll break down.

After I clean his wounds, I drag Pest’s backpack over near the fire and begin to rummage through it. I find a shirt and put it in the boiling water. I bring the water to a boil again and then take out the shirt while it’s still steaming and hang it from a branch. After a few minutes, when it’s cooled enough, I take it down, wring it out as dry as I can, and then begin to reduce it to long strips. I wrap up Pest’s arm as best as I can, and then I sit back. I watch the flames. I listen to Queen out in the woods, pacing, whining. I look at the gun that used to be Eric’s, still is, I guess. Soon I will have to pick it up and load it and get ready because I might have to do it. I might have to shoot him. If he cracks.

But I can’t get myself to do it. I look over at Pest, his round face surrounded by dark curls, his eyes closed almost serenely. He stepped in front of that pig to save me. He put himself in danger to keep me safe, and now he’s suffering from it. I study his face and I’m suddenly struck by it. I feel myself go rigid with the force of it. Why? Why would he do that? He said he owes a lot to Eric, but what does he owe me? I’ve never treated him very well. Actually, I think I’ve treated him very badly. But that didn’t seem to matter to him. Why would he risk his life for me?

“No one asked you to,” I tell him out loud. And then I blush because it’s a mean thing to say to the person who just saved you, even if he is unconscious. I don’t know why I’m so mean to him. I don’t know why I’ve always distrusted him and thought he was a creep. Looking back on it, I can’t think of a single cruel thing he’s ever done to me, except maybe speaking in Spanish. And now it seems he’s sacrificed himself just to keep me safe. Just for a pair of boots for Eric.

I see that I’m crying again. I feel so lonely. So confused. So tired.

I wipe my face. “All right,” I tell myself. “Enough of that.” I sniff wetly. “Seriously, though. Enough.”

I go back to Pest’s backpack and begin to look through it. We have to eat, and, besides, I need to know what my resources are. I need to do a little inventory, so I begin pulling out everything: socks, shirts, an extra pair of pants, a pair of swimming shorts, two different swiss army knives, a little plastic bag of hooks, a spool of fishing line, a hunting knife, a compass, another pair of socks, that’s good, a plastic He-Man, okay, that’s random, a dog-eared copy of Dune: Messiah , nice, sunglasses, binoculars, a pair of heavy duty scissors, a matchbox filled with razor blades, good one, a bundle of green, nylon string, a cigar box filled with oh, good idea, aspirin, cold medicine, a little packet of sewing needles, some other pills that I don’t recognize, and what’s this?

I stop.

It’s my drawing case.

I sit back and open it. All my drawing materials there surrounding a pad of white paper.

I begin to tremble and then look over to Pest. He brought this for me.

I try not to cry. I really try.

I shut the case gently and close the little, brass latch.

I can’t afford these feelings right now. I blink away the tears and put the case down gently on the ground. Then I go back to inventory.

There’s nothing left in the main compartment of the backpack. When I search the other pockets, I find a little notebook in a plastic bag and a leather wallet. I know these are personal, but I open them up anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t. I tell myself I shouldn’t, but even while I’m thinking it, I’m still doing it. I flip through the notebook and stop randomly. It says, “The winter days are the worse. The cold bites like an angry dog. I get tired of the people. I get tired of seeing them every day and having the same, inane conversations. If one more person says cold enough for ya, I’m going to kill them with my bare hands.” I flip again and stop to read: “…still can trust some people. I didn’t think it was true, but Eric has shown me it can still be like this. I have to add this to the list of things I owe him. I don’t have much faith in this world, but all I have left, all I’ve been able to keep, it’s thanks to him.” I want to read more, but finally the voice telling me to stop wins over and I close the diary. I put it back in its plastic envelope even though I am burning with desire to read the whole thing.