I stared at my clock with a glare reserved for ‘too early in the morning.’ Not only did I have to be stuck like this and without my family, but apparently I had to get up at 5 in the morning. Not that I didn’t feel rested. I’d went to bed so early the night before that I’d gotten the sleep I had needed, but it was still rare I had to get up this early. I stumbled out of bed, quite literally as I toppled forwards when trying to get off of it, ending up front first on the floor.
Someone had to take care of the dogs, though. This is usually when someone else let the dogs out and fed them in the morning. I started with going through the necessary cycles of the morning before checking the bedrooms one more time in some hope that everything was fine now, only to be met with the near-crippling fact that these people who were around me, who were so important to me in my life, were nowhere to be found.
They were gone now and it was hard to come to terms with. More so than even the idea that a large swath of humanity was gone. I wandered their rooms for a moment, looking at the things that reminded me of them. It was once said that one is not truly gone from this world until your name is uttered for the last time. I would try my best to make sure that some memories of them lived on. Perhaps if we ever got any sort of communications back up again after all this was over, we could add a few GNUs for lost loved ones.
My dad had kept a sketch journal. It would have to come. My project taking care of our beehives was something I did with my mother, we had a journal that we kept that covered all we did with them. A little humidor, something of my brothers, he enjoyed the occasional cigar. They would have to come with me. My journal, too, I guess. Hadn’t written in that since I was half my current age, though. Maybe it would be useful now. If nothing else, I could go through the things I had once written about them.
Heading back to my room, I realized I hadn’t had any coffee in almost two days. I gave my hooves a hateful glare before propping myself up onto the shelf where the coffee maker was. At least it was a Keurig. I preferred the pods but had I known this would happen, this thing would have been top of the list. It was easy enough to work even without hands. The hardest part was removing the old k-cup with my mouth (Blech!) and putting in a new one.
Ok. No. Scratch that. The hard part was somehow getting the cup to the kitchen without spilling it. I openly laughed at this. Something I had taken for granted before now was a difficult task. I sufficed with using a box cutter from work in my mouth to hook the handle and one hoof to steady it, hobbling my way back to the kitchen.
Granted, at this point I started to realize how flexible all my bits were during this process. More so than my dogs at least and more so than I thought a horse should be. The weren’t exactly hands, but even the hooves could sort of clinch in and twist far more than expected. We were going to have to design cups for this because like heck I was going to give up coffee.
Once settled in the kitchen, I had to dig out the step ladder to get my hot cocoa down. Don’t judge, I like my cheap-aaaaaa… Cheap-butt, half-butted mochas. And I only dropped a few boxes on my head getting it out, somehow all targeted for the exact center of it. I climbed back down, grumbling words of revenge on those particular packages.
Coffee, Hot Cocoa, and Milk. Drinking it wasn’t easy until I fished a straw out of the cupboard. I just sat there and drank it because there was no way I was getting it elsewhere in the house like this. Fished out some fruit from the fridge, too. Eat all the perishables. Noticed that hard-boiled eggs didn’t bother me like meat did. Not questioning it. Just gonna go with it. If I think too hard on it I’m sure I’ll go crazy before Wolf ever gets here.
I set myself to task after having some brew and breakfast. The computer in the living room was always up. I still had a connection to the internet for now, but that didn’t really matter to me except to make copies of things I still wanted. Download Wikipedia? That was such a strong survival trope I was sure half the survivors out there already did exactly that. Honestly, I would probably waste so much time looking up how to download entire sites and databases I’d never get anything done.
The primary reason I had gotten on was to pull up our camping supply list. An Excel document with a large checklist of all the things we brought with us when camping. I would want much of these items. Typing would be a pain in the butt, though. Sort of. I was already hunt-and-pecking with an item with my mouth. I just needed a way to extend that to my hooves. Sweatbands and pens worked decently enough, filling out additional items on the list.
Some of it seemed a little unrealistic to me, but I wanted my nice things. The beehives were coming with, to start. They were an easy and simple supply of sugar that has been used far longer than sugarcane or the like. Kept well over time. I would just have to somehow figure out how to work through their boxes without hands. All the other supplies I had already been organizing, the various craft gear I had been gathering. We would have to make things ourselves now. ...We were going to need to get a Lathe at some point (Fun Fact! Lathes are one of the few tools we use that can make copies of itself).
I didn’t have one here, so I left it off the list, printed up when finished. Tossed it on a clipboard and began planning how to go through it. Starting with dumping out plastic containers of items no one would need anymore. My family was bad at packing things anyway. For each, I scrawled the contents (badly) in permanent marker. Bee stuff, beer stuff, crafting supplies, pots and pans, camping supplies. A pile of cleanly organized and marked boxes started to form at the front of the garage.
Only 5 boxes in and the dogs started going ballistic, barking up a storm like I hadn’t heard in a day. I would have just discounted it as the usual ‘dogs bark at moving leaves’ but my hearing had improved with these new ears. I could hear what they hear now between their breaths (sort of). It was the sound of a running engine, wheels on pavement, and stereo system blaring.
Putting my checklist down, I headed out to the front of the house in time to catch a car turning down the street. An older red Pickup truck, 90s Ford by the headlights (and the Ford symbol). In some ways, it reminded me of my first car because you couldn’t separate the rust from the paint.
I sat down on my haunches while I waited for it to pull up. He had his head hanging out, yelling at other people’s dogs as he came down the street. Hearing my ‘callsign’ was reassuring too. Meant that was assuredly Wolf. Much earlier than I had expected, but I was not going to complain about that. Less time on my own in that case.
I made a good attempt to dart down the hill to meet up with him like those few moments would matter. It was only a good attempt because I had actually managed to get a few dozen feet at a gait before crossing my hooves and sliding down the grass front-first like I’d come straight out of a classic cartoon, tail drooped over my face from my undignified position. Good, that meant he couldn’t see how embarrassed I was.
I righted myself as he got out. “Not exactly how we planned on meeting up.” More like ‘not how I planned it.’ “Hi, I am Qesun. I’m a horse right now. Please tell me you are actually Wolf and not just here to eat me.” Despite all of these things being obvious, I had to state them anyway. Or at least they seemed obvious to me. Right place, direct route and all that.
Upon getting out of the truck, he dropped to all fours. He was actually shorter than a human, but that didn’t matter. Those arms were ham shanks in thickness and a backhand from those would probably feel like getting hit by a cinderblock. One of the big, meaty hands was being used to cover up just as large of a yawn.
His blue coat was not something I had been expecting. Then again, considering my own coat at this point I wasn’t really surprised. At least I was not the only one stuck with a ridiculous fur color. My own mind mused a moment while trying to determine if his new body was relatable to any known earth species. Maybe some sort of hound with that nose, but I couldn’t really say which one. Wasn’t something I had a lot of knowledge on, anyway.
“Not unless you’re into that.” He tried to smirk or smile but only got another large yawn forcing its way out.. “But yes, Wolf, at your service." He flourished his arms and bowed, netting a more relaxed smile from me. I was just glad to have someone around, a friend. Someone to help lift some of this burden it felt like was on me. "Gods I’m beat, I can’t believe how much MORE tiring driving is without everyone else on the road.”
I gestured up the incline to the house before heading up towards it, walking up more carefully than I had tried coming down. “No idiots on the road to force you to pay attention. I actually figured you were leaving in the morning. Not last night. I wasn’t expecting you until later.” Not like it would have made a difference.
“I got tired of just waiting for everything to fail, so I just took off. Night driving fueled by jerky and dew. Although-” He interrupted himself with another large yawn. Dear gog those jowls were huge. He was a friend and I still couldn’t help but imagine what he could do to me with that bear trap for a set of teeth. “I may need to requisition your… sitting… thing.” A moment of silence followed, looking like he was gathering his bearings again after having tried falling asleep right there. “For unconscious time.”
The dogs had not stopped barking the whole time. I had just been ignoring them because they were inside. I started showing him inside. “I can help with that,” I said before clamping my own teeth on the door knob (I need to find a better way). “It’s right ove-” I could hardly hear myself over the dogs, let alone him hearing me. “Oh for the Love of Gog! Shut Up the lot of yo-”
RROAOW!
The barks of my dogs were one thing. His was a completely different thing like it had been fired like a shot from a megaphone. My head spun for a moment while it recovered how it hit my ears. It got everyone to shut up. For a moment, the intense urge to just bolt filled my thoughts. ‘Go! Leave!’ I managed to stay put with some effort.. “Er… That was… Um… Awful easy,” I forced out.
“Heee, dogs love me.” He dropped his bag of stuff on the floor of the entry as I lead him back towards the living room.
I wasn’t so sure about love yet so much as ‘don’t mess with the bigger dog.’
“Yea, here, couches,” I stated, waving a hoof at the large ‘L’ shaped couch separating the living room from the rest of the house. “Sure you don’t want a bed? At this point, there are two spares open.”
Let's be practical. As much as those ‘belonged’ to my family, they weren’t using them right now.
"Nah, couch is the right prescription for now." A shadow formed over my head, coming down on me before I could react or fathom what it even was. He patted my head. He had just pat my ffffff... "Thanks."
I glowered at him for that. “Somehow I feel as if this should be in reverse order.” I’m not the dog here, after all!
The line may well have been lost to the air. Crashing on the couch was probably the most literal it ever was going to be, one of his arms flopping over onto the floor.
“...Rest well.”
Work came to the forefront of my mind again with that handled.
Once you get into a routine, you tend to think less about how you are going to do things and just do them. I kind of wished I had paid more attention as the plastic storage crates formed a nice organized pile at the front of the garage. Heck, even my writing wasn’t as atrocious when I didn’t think about it. Kerosene, Lamps, Tools, batteries. I almost wished that I could take the stove, washer, and water heater. That was just impractical, though.
After dealing with all the important things, I gathered things that weren’t as important. My Portable hard drive and laptop, for one. With my studies, I had gathered quite a supply of data, all of it geographically informative. Topographical data, FEMA Flood maps (the newest ones), hydrological data (in a program specifically covering it) and so on. If I really had to help plan for the survival of People in whatever physical format they ended up in, I would want to figure out the best ways and places to put them. Maybe my knowledge could be put to use yet.
I wanted to take my desktop, too, but that was just silly. What was I going to do, play games on it? The laptop had all the programs I needed, all the data. It had also had Civilization installed. I bet I could manage that. Didn’t require precision.
Disks came next. Yes, I already had those programs installed, but if something happened… I didn’t want to think about something happening like that. I started clearing data from the drives in my desktop instead, just to be sure I would have a backup of what data I did have and to start grabbing what other data I could.
An idea struck me.
I immediately went to the USGS (United States Geological Survey) site and looked up Landsat image data. Something had happened in the last day to this world. I didn’t have many hopes on finding out what or why. But if we did want to look into it later, I would want that data. If nothing else, I could use it for other information later. As many images as I could for the last few days.
Land use data was next, the sort that Google and other services used to help you find various services. Parcel data for as many places I could. Just anything related to what I knew.
The day had ticked by while I had struggled with my computer and packed all this away. It was getting late, so I decided to work on dinner. It took a moment for me to figure out how to best work food in this state. It started with a step ladder, one of the taller ones that have the loop/handle going over the top. It gave me something to lean my body against so I could focus more on cooking and less on not falling over. As stood, I think I was just going to wear hair scrunchies all the time now, they were too useful for strapping things to myself. Maybe find myself some wristbands like you might see joggers use.
With only a matter of time before we lost utilities, it was time to use the eggs. Best not to give them time to go off. Ignoring the fact that I had a refrigerator in the camper, anyway. I knew eventually Wolf would wake up, so using a fork in my mouth, I managed to shimmy some bacon into a pan as well. I just had to avoid breathing that greasy meat smell. Or try to pretend it wasn’t there though it didn’t seem to invoke my revulsion near as much just smelling it.
We might have to try something fun tonight. Something to ease the stress of ‘everything is fffffuu-- messed up.’
That thought was interrupted when what sounded like a vacuum in reverse started bursting from Wolf in the living room. It wasn’t quite like waking a slumbering giant because he was only ‘giant’ relative to me. I kept focused on my cooking because I was having enough issues just holding the spatula.
“Izzat, is that bacon?” were the first words muttered from my companion in hours.
“Yep.” Short and simple, meant I didn’t have to leave food unattended as long. Even if I did want to make a remark about having captured and cooked Miz Izzet while he slumbered.
The dog-ape that was now my friend rose from the couch slowly, eyes focused on the kitchen. They weren’t locked on me, but they unnerved me for a moment. It abated as I took an interest in them, milky green rather than white for the cornea. That or the iris on whatever he became was just huge. That left a slit for a pupil as the only other feature. His hunched build really did favor the upper half of his body when it came to muscle mass.
“Sleep over, food time.” He began stretching himself out, a number of little bone-pops emanating from him. The one pop from his shoulder nearly had me reaching for mine. “EVERYTHING smells more vibrant now. That bacon is like dancing pops of pure joy.” Sniffing at the air again, he gave me a quizzical stare.
“Good, it’s all yours,” I stated flatly. “I couldn’t even stand the stuff when I was normal. Now I can’t seem to stomach any meats.” It’s true. I’m sorry, folks. I was one of those horrible people in the world before now that didn’t like bacon.
“I mourn your meat-based loss.” He studied me over for a moment. Or probably more accurately, he was probably studying my set up that was letting me get away with this as much as I was. “...d’you, ahh, want me to help with that?” he finally asked.
“Ah Aff fa eerm ha fa ho fhish..." I stopped that thought for a sec as I realized I was trying to talk around my spatula. Ptuey! It clattered into the pan, perhaps helping me to voice my irritation with having to work everything with my mouth right now (though I was beginning to notice how oddly adept it was at it). “I’m learning,” came my slightly more annoyed response.
He backed away, holding up his paws. I knew he meant well, but I wasn’t about to get babied or whatever just because I didn’t have hands anymore. I’m a big horse, I can take care of myself!
Even after sitting down at the table, he still watched me cook. For a minute, the only noises were the birds chirping in the back yard and me clanking away at the stove.
“This is so surreal,” he finally added.
"I wish it was.” I stared at the hooves in front of me, the utensils that had been rigged to them. I could go on about missing my hands more, but I’ll just let people assume that fact from here on out. “...but after sleeping on it, we seemed to have left the 'sur' prefix back in yesterday and we've just been left with what is real." That was the part that I would have to deal with, the reality of it.
He flopped back onto the chair he was in, one arm hanging over the back and the other holding one of his massive palms to his face. “Ugh, this is going to suck..." I wondered idly for a moment if he could lay in all the positions my own dogs did, twisted in ways that made pretzels look like amateurs.
"Talk to the hand. Oh, right, none to talk to.” I started moving the food to the plates. Eggs and hashbrowns for both, and then bacon piled onto his. I then proceeded to stare at the plates. I had used paper plates, which in retrospect was a poor decision. How was I supposed to move these to the table? “Um, speaking of which... You want to, uh, move these to the table for me. As much learning as I would like to do, I just don't see a trick for these yet."
“Oh, yeah, sure.” He dropped himself out of his chair and joined me in the kitchen. Before he even grabbed the plates, one of the pieces of bacon on his plate immediately found its way to his mouth. Only once it had been placed there did his hands scoop up a plate each, the plates being dwarfed by the hands holding them.
Normally there wouldn’t even be room on the table to eat. It’s normally covered in a half-dozen family projects. But those got put up because they were supplies we might want in the long run to preserve food and make things a little less bland. I didn’t head to the table immediately myself, instead heading to the living room and grabbing the two hair scrunchies again. After sitting down in the chair in a remarkably upright matter, I shifted them both onto my right foreleg and shoved the handle of a fork under them.
Lack of hands just means tool using species just have to be creative. The table was silent short of the clatter of silverware and the creaking of Wolf’s chair as he shook his legs in the chair. Uncomfortable? Nervous? Everything was, in its own way, stressful at the moment, I couldn’t blame him if that was the case.
He finally broke the silence. “I'm ... not really feeling like preparing tonight, you know?"
I gave that a moment’s contemplation before speaking. "To be fair, that's what I've been doing all day. We might as well enjoy what is left of civilization before it begins shutting down around us."
"Hah, what's left of it before we all become road warriors..."
He stopped chewing mid-thought, giving the bite he had been working on a quick swallow while the idea in his head finished churning. “Wait…”
I’d realized what the thought was before he finished it. Post-Apocalyptic? Road Warriors? “...Have you seen Mad Max yet?”
He gave a big, toothy grin in response. I’d have to remind him later not to grin like that if we found others so not to scare them off.
“We have an Imax Theater here. I could show you our one and only tourist attraction." I held my hooves up in the air and fanned them out above me as if I was drawing a rainbow in the air above me, tossing the most exaggerated look of wonder onto my face as I could manage. "The US Space and Rocket Center." I even imagined that as a title card hovering before the imaginary rainbow.
"Then tonight we ride, shiny and chrome!” he bellowed out, a wide smile plastered onto his face as he looked down at me. His eyes were wide with a certain exaggerated insanity. “And we won’t even need to walk.”
I raised an eyebrow at him as I smirked myself. Or I think I did. Goodness knows how it looked on my face. “How are you at operating a projector with reels as large as some small cars?”
One giant paw enfolded another and popped like a wine bottle uncorking. “I’m sure I can figure it out.”
It was a short ride. With no one else on the road, what would have been a 20-minute drive ended up being half that. It wasn’t like we had to observe traffic laws. I had the great idea of telling him to park on the far end of the parking lot so we could start by Pluto. In retrospect, that was a mistake on my part as that meant I got to ‘practice’ more walking. It was something more akin to ‘stumbling up to the door.’
It was heart-rending going up to the dark building. It was still and quiet, the sounds of birds and wind replacing the noises that would have once risen from the nearby. We would probably be some of the last folks to see it while it was still running. To do so required breaking in. It didn’t bother me, though. This would all be overgrown and falling apart in 20 years anyway. There was no point in putting in thought towards conservation as there would be no one to conserve it.
The lobby was a glass building mostly, various displays of Legos and Erectors around built into models. The gift shop stuff sat on shelves in two of the three corners and then into the next building down. We ended up taking two lefts instead, which lead down the hall to the lobby for the Imax. While he managed with the projector (mostly reading the manual), I dealt with getting the popcorn machine loaded and going.
This involved balancing the bucket of unpopped kernels on my head. This took a few tries, one of which resulted on me somehow managing to dump it over my head. The fact that the hardest part was loading it was frustrating to me. And then I started collecting snacks. Malted milk balls, Reese's pieces, the whole nine yards. The biggest sizes of Coke, too. Not like we had to pay anyone.
Wolf whistled from the projector room, looking out through the window for it into the viewing room. A screen nearly 70 feet tall. I think the best he had seen before this was half that. This was a monster.
I looked like even more of a clown trying to get all of that up the stairs in the room then I had just tried to get in. It felt like I was teetering a line between tragedy, comedy gold, and sticking it to reality.
I made it, thankfully. All Wolf had from me that time was my disappointment. He didn’t think he could eat chocolates again. To be fair, it hadn’t even occurred to me that could be a problem for myself. He’d been surprised when I ate it with little regards for my changed anatomy. Perhaps I should be more careful with my intake. Maybe try something different. If my diet had changed, maybe I could eat more things? Like Grass?
Wouldn’t kill me to try, I suppose.
What happened after was pretty simple: we just enjoyed ourselves. Took in one last gulp of the civilization we knew before it faded away. Perhaps in the most ironic way we could, by watching our depiction of a world where it was already gone.
There wasn’t much more to remember than that. I fell asleep in the car on the way back, the weight of night pulling me down again. The abyss wherein dreams lay.