by Jane Smith

Created on: November 12, 2009

THE SLEEPERS

Los was shaken into wakefulness. He gathered up his bundle and staggered to his feet.

'What time is it?'

The answer came to him, but whether it arose from his own head or from the outside, he could not say.

'Just after one, child.'

'It's cold,' he said. 'Cold.' He shuddered. 'What are you? A ghost or a patriot?'

The translucent form of a man cloaked in an overcoat had appeared before him, its outline growing increasingly clear as the boy's mind adjusted. The spectre hovered just above the pavement.

'I'd better hurry,' thought Los. 'But which way?'

He did not think to wonder why, what he was hurrying from, and where to. He knew instinctively that to keep moving was to survive. To sleep was to give in to oblivion.

He searched the form before him, for answers, or a clue. The man stretched out, and his arm extended until it appeared to touch the street sign across the road. The sign pointed left.

Words that had been written there had long since been painted out, as had all of the other signs in this part of the city. At one time the authorities must have agreed that on balance, it was more efficient than removing them, and less costly in terms of wasted platoons. As the buildings had been destroyed and defaced and as time had passed, it had become difficult to tell one part of the city from another. The particular details of the landmarks were always drifting and morphing in the night.

At one time the fighting here had been intense, but now the few survivors that remained were either very old or very young. Most of the young were not yet mature. They had been abandoned, and because food was difficult to obtain with the drops becoming less frequent as time went on, the onset of maturity was delayed even further. Only the strongest or the most cunning survived. Most died before they reached adulthood. Their bodies were quickly taken up and taken away. Nobody dared to speculate where, or what purpose they served.

Family had become a distant memory, or some sort of fevered fantasy.

Nowadays the idea of family had been drained of meaning, or invoked an unsettled feeling in Los that mingled with the kind of fear that audible footsteps evoked. To be solitary was to be in control. Those who had survived lived as he did, sometimes joining with another for the fretful comfort it provided, but mostly alone. It was safer that way. Few actively sought to encounter one another, except for the handful that had been able to reach maturity and who briefly

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