Out Of Sight

 Reaching the top of the stone-brick belltower, Ashleigh and Lilibet sat, exhausted, admiring the pale blue sky beyond the cracks in the crumbling rooftop. Lili tossed the silvery magic staff off to the side, and it rolled quietly along the planks before coming to a stop against the hip-high wall of the balcony.

       “Guuuh. I thought we were gonna die.”

        Ashleigh rolled her eyes. “You’re such a drama-queen.”

        “Hey!”

      “You are!”

“Am-nooot!”

“Are too!”

“Well at least that means you think I’m a queen.”

She giggled, “I’d figure that’d be obvious.”

A pleasant silence fell between them, and Lili stood, gazing over the edge of the barrier. The rolling green hills of the surrounding fields was so enchanting, nothing like home.

Home was about three hours’ walk from here. Towards the mass of deadened plants and sand, crowned with the grey tiered metropolis which bore a brim of tagged concrete, a stark contrast to the interiors uniformly-gray appearance. Messages bore in various colors on the side, “Stay free!”, “Oppression Within”, “Help Us!”, “Nowhere To Go”, “Down With The Loftlayer” and so on.

But up here, there was none of that. Enormous trees of a nearby wood beautifully obscured the horrific landscape of the Out-City, likely also why this tower’s bell had not been scrapped for parts yet.

“Mm… I like it up here,” Lili said, sinking her head into her arms, folded against the edge.

“It’s a shame we can’t just… live out here,” Ash sighed.

“Well- I mean, we.. might be able to. We could get into gardening.”

“Gardening?”

“You know, like.. growing food, with plants?”

“Horticulture? But that’s like— You need a lot of schooling to do that, don’t you?”

“I don’t think so..? I found a book on it downstairs.”

“What was it called?”

“The American Horticulture Society – Encyclopedia of Gardening.”

“’American’? Is that one of the upper layers?”

“No, I… don’t think it is. The book talks about a lot of plants I’ve never heard of before. I think this was written before the wall went up.”

“Oh my god, how did you even find a book like that?”

“Like I said, it was downstairs.”

“Intact?”

“It was left in a tough glass box, so the mites didn’t get to it.”

“Ohhh.. nice!”

“Yeah. It’s helpful.”

“And it might let us grow our own food?”

“Mhm. If you’re okay trying to live out here in the ruins, of course.”

“Honestly, I.. think I’d love that. Some of these buildings are really cute. And it can’t be too hard to learn how to make these bricks.”

“I think it just takes a chisel, honestly.”

“Seriously, Lil’, you gotta try making stuff with a chisel before you make it sound like a breeze.”

“I’m just saying it’s not complicated.”

“That’s what you said about bread before you made it look like charcoal.”

“How was I supposed to know the palette would burn?!”

“Because, like, wood burns. Duh.”

Lili rolled her eyes, retrieving the staff from the floor. “At least we can get here safely.”

“Mm. A home away from hell.”

“Out of sight.”

“And out of mind.”

Another quiet pause drifted between them.

“A hammock would really help, though,” Ash remarked.

“I was thinking a cot, but a hammock is a great idea.”

“I’ll get my Uncle’s old one. He doesn’t use it any more since the smog pipe near my house burst.”

“I thought they fixed that?”

“Ha! No. Going on year three at this stage and my street still uses makeshift gas masks. Pretty sure Old Henry’s lungs are giving out as a result.”

“Bastards.”

“You can say that again.”

“Bastards,”  Lili repeated.

Ash cracked up. “Right, right. I asked for that, I guess.”