Work Text:
Home always falls quiet after the generator’s quiet whirr grinds to a halt. The lack of electricity plunges the shelter into darkness. The sun has long since settled below the horizon, slumbering in the winter night. Marin props himself against the stairs bannister. The plastic action figure – chipped along the cape, molded muscles scratched from God knows what – sits comfortably in his pocket.
Something creaks. His hands instinctively go to the crowbar at his waist.
“Sorry!” Pavle croaks from the kitchen, voice hollowed by hunger. Marin can almost hear the empty grumbles of Pavle’s stomach. “Getting some water!”
Marin doesn’t reply. He listens: shuffling, padded feet against hard wood, water thudding against a plastic cup, gurgling, shuffling, and then silence.
He takes a deep breath. Bruno would have noticed a raider from his side of the shelter. Marin longs for light, but there are no more candles or oil for lanterns. Tomorrow, he’ll have to descend into the basement and haul up the clunky generator into the light of day. With any luck, it just needs more gas. If not, he’s good with his hands. He can fix it.
(“Oh my,” I said, “this is serious.” The boy’s eyes welled up and I had no heart to turn him down. I just told him, “Come back tomorrow.”)
The wind whispers through the cracks in the shelter, bringing quiet sobs, exhausted sighs on its breath. Bruno’s having a bad night again. Then again, since the damned war started, when have they ever had a good night? It was one disaster after another: a refusal to make burglary tools, a burning home, Naida’s dying screams, then he ended up at this shelter.
Marin touches the action figure in his pocket. He hopes Roman brings back smokes, if only to calm the former rebel. Coffee would be nice. Food would be a godsend: when Roman is fed, everyone in the shelter is safe.
He winces. A week ago, his fingers froze, but his head was burning with fever yet once again. There were no more meds. Marin made it to the hospital somehow, but it was a night that Roman had to spend guarding the shelter instead of scavenging.
“You’re a burden!” Roman had screamed, flinging Pavle off his arm. The football player stumbled down the stairs, recovering just before he hit the wall. “Sitting there, with that stupid toy! We should’ve let you freeze out there!”
And maybe he is a burden. He has been sick, on and off, this entire winter.
Marin’s hand, roughed from years of sandpaper and files, curl around the toy. If only Roman understood. The rebel’s hands are bloodied, but he too must have loved something with all his being. The war must have torn someone away from him.
In some ways, Marin envies Roman and the rest. They have the luxury of ignorance. They still hope their family and friends are alive. Marin fled his burning home, the screams of his dying wife hot in his ears. There is no delusion when you can still taste the smoke and ash at the back of your throat.
But then guilt comes rushing over, smothering the envy like a blanket thrown over a shop fire. Nadia was trapped in a straightjacket of flame and broken glass. Marin remembers throwing open the bedroom door, trying to pick up Nadia – the room suddenly filled with hungry flames – and then Nadia stopped screaming and he was flat on his face on the street outside. No one should remember their loved one’s death. No one should see their home and life burn down before them.
The floorboards creak. Marin raises the crowbar, but years of experience tell him it’s just the floorboards settling. There’s no telltale shift in pressure of an intruder’s feet, nor is there a rattle of glass or a whumph as fire consumes wood and fabric and flesh.
Deep breaths. Marin wishes he had coffee, but that is a luxury. He settles for deep breaths and the action figure. He could do so much to this toy – fix the joints so the arms flex easily, replace the fragile plastic with something more durable. But it belongs to someone else. Marin is merely holding onto it.
(One day a little boy brought his action figure with a broken arm. You can't glue that kind of plastic. I fixed it – trade secret.)
He thumbs the reattached arm. A bit of epoxy, a bit of careful melting, a dab of enamel paint and some delicate sanding. Nadia loved hanging over his shoulder to watch him work. His wife was an accountant, good with numbers and spreadsheets and data, good enough to let him run his workshop while she brought home dinner. God, he misses her smile.
(When he saw it, his smile lit up the whole room.)
Marin runs a finger over the cape. If his workshop hadn’t been burnt down, he could sand off the scrapes. He’d need to paint over the newly sanded area. Nadia could help – she needed to feel life and creation beneath her fingers.
“Money’s too empty,” she had said. “Flat bits of paper, shoved off a printer somewhere. Give me paint and dirt any day.”
“Then why be an accountant?” He had pressed a kiss to her hand. “Why marry a poor handyman, who has nothing to offer?”
“That handyman might be very handsome. It balances out, even if I always pay for dinner.” She laughed and kissed him back. “I’m glad you have the workshop. It’s good to have something you love, something you can feel right in front of you.”
Marin wishes he had some tangible proof that his wife once lived and loved. When the Molotov sailed through the bedroom window, every single shred of the life he had built – from the gold ring he had forged for her hand to the spreadsheets tacked onto the office door – went up in flames. He wishes he had gone too. Instead, he was tossed into the streets, like some old and broken pot.
(I don't know what became of him. The toy I found in the street after all went to hell.)
And now Marin remains. A handyman – someone useful, for once – in the middle of a warzone. A toy – once a child’s plaything, now a piece of vendor trash – kept safely in his pocket.
As footsteps tread up the path to the shelter, the night lightens to azure. Marin grips the crowbar with one hand until his knuckles whiten, touches the toy again with the other.
He stares down the front door, and readies for tomorrow.