Survivors of the Z’s- Rhonda Gedling, 27/07/2016, Motel Liz, outside Colorado

Where were we going to go?
What was going to become of us?
OF ME?
Should we go left?
Should we go right?
Should we stay?
What ever I thought wasn’t going to make things any better. The place we were in was safe.
Out of the way
In the middle of nowhere
No crazy eyed person would know we were there
BUT
There was no life there
The food wouldn’t last us
We would’ve had to move on eventually.
OR
We would’ve starved to death which wasn’t something I had planned

The motel was empty and the only people to talk to now was either my mom or myself. I stood and gazed out in the emptiness of the long roads in front.
LEFT
There was nothing for miles
RIGHT
There was nothing for miles
Either way we were running blind in a path galvanised in horror
“Not what I expected,” I muttered
“Huh?”
“Not what I expected”
“I don’t think anybody expected this” She said
“That’s not what I meant”
“What did you mean?”
“I mean I didn’t expect my life to be so fucking shit”
There was a time where I had dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. I would dance as a child in the hostel I was staying at with, Elaine. She would sometimes watch me dance as I waltzed around the room with my eyes closed listening to the music that was either being played or in my head.
Sometimes
She joined in and held my hands. She would pick me up and swing me around the room and we would both smile and laugh.
HAPPINESS
Was a rare phenomenon for us. We didn’t have much. We had to be happy with what we had and that was each other. Dancing was another form of gift I gave myself everyday. A gift that would get me
US
Away from the shitty branch we was given to sit on. Now that shitty branch had collapsed and I was hanging on for dear life.
LIFE
That was nothing more than a muddy endless fucking puddle.
“Moving forward is what we need to do,” she said
“I wanted to be a dancer,” I told, “Elaine and I used to dance around the hostel, thats what we did, every night before bed, we danced and said we loved each other, every night we did that, I used to tell her I wanted to be a ballerina and she used encourage me every day to dance, I gotten quite good at it, I was getting better, but it was hard to get any professional lessons because Elaine hardly had any money to spare, we used to sit and watch classes on the same bench each day and I used to dream about being in there with them, the school was quite posh and it was a privilege to watch how beautiful each girl and boy danced, then…” a tear rippled down, “one day as we sat and watched on the same bench at the same time of day, at four in the afternoon after she finished work, she got up, took my hand and took me inside to dance with them, she had managed to save up the money to get me a lesson, it was the greatest day ever… I was so happy”
“Every day I thought of you,” mom said, “every day I wished I could turn back the clock and hold you both in my arms with a smile, I wished I could talk to you without the feeling of you hating me and me being ashamed at what I had done, at what I had become, I used to dream about being a happy family, dream about all of us sitting at a table having dinner, laughing, having conversations that normal families have, me dropping you off and picking you up from school, your brother growing up in my very eyes, your father never leaving us, everything just being normal with nothing getting in the way”
“But it did, didn’t it”
“I did,” she said, “when your dad left I fell into depression, I was told to get help, but me being me, I was too proud to do that, I thought I could deal with it myself, I thought I could cope with all the shit that was happening, your brother was in the wrong crowd, I had two young girls to deal with, being a single parent got too much for me, so I called upon drugs and then I began dating again, instead of making things better and dealing with things by getting help, I made things worse by dating arseholes, I was alone and felt like I needed to be loved and then…” tears flooded her eyes, “then your brother died and that was that… I collapsed completely”
“Looks like we share the same thing,” I told
“We do?”
“Yes,” I began, “you dreamt of playing happy families and so did I, you wanted it desperately and so did I, least we’ll have something to talk about other than rediscovering the wrongs that led us to this”
“Maybe you’re right, so instead of talking about the what was, lets talk about the what could be?”
“Deal, unless you anger me”
“Fine by me”
Words gave way to silence.
Once more
We stood and stared. Thinking about what to do next.
THEN…
The answer beckoned
“What do we do now?” She asked
“Lets get out of here”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s nothing for us here”
“But where do we go?”
“We’ll figure it out”