It was no use. Her last stand was futile and she knew it.
The vibrations that ran across each tile in her rampart told her that she would no longer be able to fend off the invaders. Once they broke in, that would be her end. There was no alternative outcome. No last minute rescue. Only certain death.
She wasn’t even fighting anymore. If she was truly honest with herself, she had ceased fighting a long time ago. For the last few years, it was all she could do to survive the world that was ridden by the alien illness with no known cure. Her body was old, older than its sixty years of age. Her joints had creaked with every motion she attempted and her frame was curdled with a generous amount of flab. Her eyes saw more than she ever wanted to though she had lost perfect sight an age ago.
When had her last meal been? Had it been a day or two? Longer? She couldn’t recall. It was one of the many indignities of growing ancient which had been visited upon her, like many of those belonging to her generation from the independence era. The sheer act of inhaling and exhaling had become ever more difficult with each passing moment, though she was certain that must have had something to do with either the strange sickness or some other despicable plot of the enemy.
In any case, she knew that fighting was not something she had been capable of for some years now. It was all she could do to remain vigilant and build up her defenses. Although the infernal plague from beyond was a fairly recent threat, it was but the latest salvo from the unseen enemy.
Unseen to all but her, of course. Once, she would have regarded it impossible that her fellow men and women were oblivious to the concealed threat that was slowly engulfing them. But then again, she knew their senses had been dulled by their indolent, comfortable lives. None of them had received the enlightenment that was intertwined with great sorrow.
The enlightenment was the only good thing that had come out of her long marriage. She thought there might have been another in the score and a half they had been together but her memory had been fuzzy lately. She couldn’t remember exactly when that had begun.
The vibrations against the walls were getting stronger and louder. It would not be long now. She knew it. Even though she had fortified the place, it was neither big nor wide enough that she ever had any chance of putting up significant resistance. She had tried though. There had been so much unnecessary waste around her everywhere she went. She had collected many a piece which she put towards building her defenses. There were also parts and components which she had been confident of fashioning into a makeshift weapon of some variety. It was a pity that they had been discarded.
But then again, that happened all the time though, didn’t it? Everything gets used and discarded. People are no exception. She knew it all too well.
As another heavy knock threatened to topple the towers of paper and plastic and other components, she retreated to the corner of the room furthest from the most likely point where the enemy would breach her defenses. She was resigned to it now. It felt as though every bit of tension was leaving her body, consigning her to utter defeat. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
In her mind, she saw herself rising to her swollen, unwieldy feet fuelled by a sudden burst of courage and driven to make the intruders suffer in one last stand. In the darkened room, her eyes remained shut and her face scrunched together to create a mask of anguish with a touch of regret. Her mind sought to ease her pain by showing her a scene of triumphant finality as she raced into an enormous circle which had appeared before her. It seemed to be burning so bright that it blighted everything else out of existence.
Her breath slowed. She felt a single warm tear running the jagged track of her left cheek. There was a twitching at the corners of her lips, as though she was trying to smile.
Then there was nothing.
Mrs Kong was glad the police had finally come. So was everyone else on the eighth floor of Block 619. The stench from the unit next door was unbearable. For years, the neighbours had seen the clutter build up in the unit inhabited by the old lady. Mrs Kong tried to remember her name but couldn’t. She could only remember the spike in the old lady’s collection activities had begun after the old man who had lived with her – presumably the husband – had passed away several years back.
It was a sad state of affairs. Life was tough enough as it was with the lockdown and the stupid pandemic. Not that any of it had stopped the old lady from pushing her trolley around the estate, always picking up more stuff. Some of it made it into the house. The rest remained with the trolley, blocking the corridor. Mrs Kong recognised it as a fire hazard and was sure she was not alone.
She wasn’t unsympathetic to the old lady. In fact she had gotten so worried at not seeing the hag leave her flat for several days on end that she had gone over to knock on the door. She might have gotten a bit violent with the knocking, but at the time, she had worried that her neighbour was hard of hearing.
She did not think it would have done any harm.
.
Be First to Comment