Easy (Part 1)

“I never said it would be easy.”

The sound of her words have barely left the ether that is the space between us when the gentle sound of the power stopping reaches my ears. I can hear the transistors cooling with the loss of energy and I know that I've lost her again. The generators have failed and again, I am alone.

As long as there is gas in the generators there is hope, or so I've told myself these last few weeks. If I can keep the power on for long enough there will be hope; not enough hope to assuage my fears, but more than I've a right to have. More hope for the future and more hope for her.

Walking from my workshop and down the dark corridor though, the little flashlight showing my way before me, her words echo in my mind and I feel the aloneness as a tingling in the air and a depth in my heart. The aloneness that comes when her voice is gone and it is only the idea of her and the dreams that keep me moving. The dreams that I tell myself come from her somehow, through the ether and through the space between us. The dreams are what keep me going as much as the idea of her light out in the darkness.

When I get nearer the door though, I notice that the light is gone from the sky in the window and I look to my watch to find the time is long past when I'd thought. It is night and with the night I hope that the generators have stopped themselves from lack of fuel, from only the lack of my attention to them and not some other force.

I am wrong.

There is a scurrying when I punch the little plastic light by the door and I see the mice moving away from me. Two of them, it seems as if they run together. Even as small, alone, and emaciated as they are I can see they have each other and through that they have strength. One of them looks up at me and pauses, the light of my flashlight glinting off its little pupils and I swear there is an understanding there. He is secure in his companion and I am not.

Looking away I open the door and I see that there are other vermin out, and larger ones. It hasn't been my lack of attention that's killed the generators, it seems, but something else. I silently hope they have found only the generators themselves and not the store of fuel I've hidden away as I click the door softly shut along with the dimming of my light. I hope too that perhaps they haven't seen me; hope is all I have these days, at any given moment.

Quietly listening though on the other side of the door it seems I've been lucky tonight. The steps of many feet move quickly away and I quietly step outside with the quick beating of my heart the only sound to fall upon the snow beneath my feet.

The generators are still there and what's more they are chained securely. It is only the half empty gas can I'd left beside them that are gone, along with the fuel from each tank, siphoned by the thieves. The vermin were thorough tonight but they were quick and they've left my power sources at least. The cache of fuel was beyond them as well and is safe but when the sun rises I shall have to hide it all again and better than I have before. I know that I have been lax in that, so focused on my work these past few weeks.

Focused on my work as well as on the dreams. The dreams of her.