Chapter Twenty-Nine

The only thing I knew about cooking was that we needed a fire. We couldn’t do much with what we had but I knew that we could place sliced vegetables over the fire and let them cook. It was simple, but I still wanted to do it. I moved the container near the sink and started to wash the vegetables, one by one. Nina stood next to me, drying the vegetables with a cloth and placing them back in the same container. When we finished, Nina looked to me, trying to figure out the next step.

“I think I’ll have to let you lead this time,” Nina said, taking another bite out of a cucumber. “Nothing here prepared me on how to cook anything.

“I’ll try,” I said looking for anything that might work as a cutting board. “After wash, slice.” Nina pulled out the knife from her belt and handed it to me.

“This works pretty well to slice things.”

“Clean knife. Dirty knife, stomach illness.” Nina put her hand on her stomach, remembering an experience she wasn’t going to share.

“Right. That explains a lot. It’s difficult to clean things out here. I haven’t met anyone who seemed to care enough to do it, but I think I might have another knife that hasn’t been used.”

“Better than nothing.” She walked into her room and brought back a knife in a plastic case. She opened it and held the knife in front of us.

“Shiny,” we both said. She handed it to me, and I placed it on top of a tomato. I held on to both in the air, unsure of when to start cutting. Nina took my arms and placed them on the table, moving them around. She stood behind me as I felt her breath on my cheek and the warmth of her body on my back. Her closeness felt different this time. It wasn’t just comfort, but a feeling that was strange, yet not unwanted. My face was on fire, watching her move my hands from left to right, trying to find the right position to slice the vegetables. I let her guide my hand to the right place, and she led them to the center of a hidden mat. I stood there, waiting for the right time to move again.

“I don’t want you hurting yourself,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you feel pain. It’ll hurt to look over and see a missing finger.” I blinked and shook my head and turned to the task in front of me. I focused on the tomato and began to push down on the knife. It slid through without crushing the vegetable, creating a small, rounded slice. I felt something rising inside me as a smile formed on its own. I stopped and admired what I just did. It wasn’t a prepackaged meal. It wasn’t my servant serving me a dish at an appointed time. It was me, slicing an ingredient, to prepare for a dish I was going to eat and share with someone I cared about. Nina saw me and smiled back. “Looks like you started cooking!”

I looked back down and tried to replicate it again. One by one, slices fell from the tomato on their side, each one looking better cut than the last. The tomato’s juice ran down my hands and across the mat, creating a mess that I was happy to see. When I finished the last slice, I did a little jump and looked back at Nina. She laughed as she walked over to check over my work.

“This all looks good to me!” she said, taking a slice. Without thinking, I reached in and grabbed an onion, slicing it in the same way as the tomato, and this time going faster. There was more resistance this time, but the knife glided through with a little more force. These were the ones I was most curious about. I’ve had onions with other foods but never on its own, and I was looking forward to trying it out.

“Finished, but,” I said looking up at Nina. I saw her rubbing her eyes with tears running down. I dropped the knife and heading to her. “Nina, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing this time,” she said trying to calm me down. “Those were onions, correct?” I nodded, looking confused. “I remember those too. The book said that when cutting them open, they release something that causes people to cry. Don’t worry, I’m not sad or anything like that. My eyes just burn. But wait, why aren’t you crying? Do onions not affect you because you’re a zombie? That’s unfair!”

“Give up normal life. Trade for onion immunity. Bad deal,” I said with a specific tone in my voice. Nina took the hint and wiped her face.

“I get it, but you have to admit that there are a lot of benefits to your situation,” she said, reaching for another cucumber.

“Biggest benefit,” I said, pointing to my head.

“Oh right. That makes sense. Those other zombies wouldn’t be much help preparing a dish like you, would they.” I was enjoying doing all the chopping, but every time I looked into the container, I felt my hands move slow. There were so many of them in there, and even though I knew we would be slicing them all, I could feel the resistance in my head as I faced the monotonous task ahead of me.

“Vegetables, many,” I said out loud. “Long task. Gets dull.”

“Did you want me to help you?” she said, another bite of cucumber in her mouth.

“No, enjoy doing. No sharing.” Nina laughed as she sat across the table and began watching me.

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“Talk.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?”

“Talk, about your world.” Nina stopped chewing and looked at me. “Hear you talk. Your world. Want to hear.” Nina looked away, wondering if she should pretend not to listen.

“If your world is anything like the one in the books I have around here, which it sounds like it is, I don’t think this world is going to impress you.”

“Not physical world. Your world. Books. Shelves. Papers. Room. Everything. Strange world. But, your world.” Nina looked up, unsure of where to start.

“I found this place while I was out wandering, long before I met you. I think I was about your height. I was tired back then. There were so many things that happened to me, and all I wanted to do was find something that didn’t push me away.”

“Find, people?”

“It had been a long time since I talked to another person before I moved here. It didn’t help the tired feeling. But when I stopped up there, I felt something similar to relief. It was strange. I sat down and felt like I could rest, something I hadn’t felt anywhere else I stopped at. I looked around, and it wasn’t long until I found the door. If you really pay attention to it, it sticks out. I moved around all the things surrounding it, and even though I was scared, I went ahead and opened the door.

All I could see what the dark staring back at me. It was different than the clouds above. I was used to that darkness. This darkness scared me. I didn’t know what was down there. The thoughts of a zombie lying down there, waiting for me to step down before reaching for my leg and dragging me down paralyzed me! But it was something different. Maybe it was that sensation, or maybe it was the tired feeling, but something pushed me to head down. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was on the ladder.

Every step I took made my heart beat faster. I was waiting for something to grab me and pull me down. I think I almost started to cry. But I kept pushing and soon I was on the floor. I couldn’t see anything but my stumbling in the dark pushed me into one of the switches for the lights. They turned on and I saw the room that you see now. At first, I didn’t know what to do with everything around me. I didn’t even know what they were. But I felt as if I was being taken over by something. I couldn’t read the books back then, much less understand what they were saying. But I wanted to know how. I would flip through the pages of different books, over and over until I could memorize what I saw. I couldn’t say any of those words out loud, but I wanted to know. It wasn’t until I figured out how to use that strange box that I could finally hear someone else talk.” I raised my eyebrow as she finished.

“People, talk, how? You, didn’t know.” Nina smiled, trying to hide her embarrassment.

“Talk like you. Short. Sweet” She laughed as I glared back at her.

“Not funny.”

“Teasing,” she said with a wink.

“The box was incredible. I wanted to show you everything it showed me, but it hasn’t worked for a while.”

“No problem. Recognize it. Too familiar.” Nina smiled alongside me, trying to understand what I was saying.

“In that box was a person. It was Dr. Sayako. I would push the buttons, and she would start talking, a lot like how I talk to you now. That’s how I learned to talk, and that’s how I learned a little about what happened to cause the world I lived in. I can’t remember what started it all, but I learned that things changed fast. I could notice it as I watched more of Dr. Sayako in the box. She started out smiling. You can tell that she was worried, but there was something else that made me feel that things would be okay. But with each different appearance she had, the smile and feeling went away. She had bags under her eyes. Her hair and clothing were all over the place. I remember her saying that she wanted to ‘give up.’ But she didn’t. She had more appearances. It wasn’t until the very last time I saw her, that I wanted her to give up too. There wasn’t anything in her anymore. Her eyes were blank, and her body was just doing motions. And I still remember the last words she said to me. ‘I failed. I couldn’t do it. There was too much to fix, and not enough to do the fixing. When you watch this, know that I did everything I could. I gave up everything else to fix what I could. And now I will give up everything that’s left. Don’t hate me. I only did what I could.’” I could feel the pain in Nina’s eyes. “Back then, I didn’t know what those words meant. I knew what they sounded like, but I didn’t know why she said them. It wasn’t until I watched them again, the last bit of life that the box gave me, that I understood.”

I stopped slicing and turned towards Nina.

“Dr. Sayako. Strong person,” I said. “Spirit. In all people. In you too. Choose to continue. Know when to stop. Few people know.” Nina smiled at those words.

“Anyone could tell she was strong. I didn’t just learn words from her. I felt her ‘spirit’. I modeled myself after her. I wanted to be like her. It’s why I go out every day to look for others. It’s why I have a knife and a crossbow, so that when one fails, I still have the other.” She paused. “And it’s why, ever since I found you, I continue to stay by you. So that when you feel like you can’t, you can find someone who can.” I found myself smiling as my face turned red.

“Strength, contagious,” I said.

“And I’m happy for it.” She looked back the vegetables in front of me. “But what I’m not happy is you not slicing those vegetables!” She laughed as she took another bite of the cucumber next to her. I laughed alongside her, as I combined the happiness I felt in front of me, with the happiness that Nina shared with me.