For anybody who has the patience to read this and thinks they see what I'm trying to do, I'd appreciate any comments or feedback. I haven't written in a really long time, I just dreamed this up today and I'm excited to try and turn it into a story. This is the very first rough draft. I've only glanced over it to spell check. Let me know what you think if you care to share. I don’t know what the day, date or time is. This is our third day in the place we will die in. Anna and Elliot aren’t going to make it. They’re both going to die, and I’ve decided that because I can’t take both of them with me, I’m going to die here with them. I’ve thought about whether or not I should leave one and take the other. I can imagine Elliot wanting me to take one and leave the other behind; for the sake of the species. For the sake of evolution. I tend to think evolution has to do with a lot more than Elliot realizes it does. If I went along with what I think Elliot would think (or at least say out loud), I would take Elliot with me. He’s fitter, stronger, smarter. Then again, I’m alive, and soon he won’t be. Elliot is also the one who would be easier to take. He’s lighter, and his weight is evenly distributed. Anna is heavier and most of her weight is at her top. Anna and I have much more history, we’ve been friends for a long time, and there is something to be said for loyalty, but we’ve been here for so long it’s hard to remember what. I’m going to stay here and die with them. I don’t believe what Elliot says, and I don’t believe that one of them deserves to live more. (I sometimes hope and think that Elliot says that more than he thinks it.) I remember watching a documentary…in a movie theatre millions of miles away…about two mountain climbers who climbed a mountain in Peru, nobody had ever got to the summit and made it back down before. They made it to the top, but on their way down one of them broke their leg. They designed a pulley system in which the one with the broken leg was attached to the one who was still able to climb down himself. The man with the broken leg eventually fell into a deep crevice. His weight was pulling his friend down, and his friend cut the rope on him, so that he wouldn’t be dragged down the mountain. The man with the broken leg went plummeting further into this crevice. This documentary gave me further proof at the time to satisfy my belief that as animals and as beings, our strongest instinct is to survive. Our main concern, when you get down to it, is our own survival, above anything else. Today, the day I’ve decided to wait for my death, to die with two of my fellow beings, I’m not so sure of that. Who am I to decide which one of them dies? Who am I to say that I should live if they don’t? I can’t take both, and I can’t leave one, so I’ll leave neither.
I am holding Elliot. I don’t feel his blood seeping into my clothes anymore. I bandaged his wounds before I bandaged Anna’s. He’s drifting in and out of consciousness. I had always imagined that if people were ever in a situation in which they knew they were going to die, they would be less aware and would care less about what they and what the others around them looked like, but I am even more aware of Elliot’s facial bone structure, how delicate and graceful his nose, cheekbones, jaw and chin. Incredibly French, incredibly beautiful. Even now, as he’s dying, he can’t or won’t show who he really is. Anna is transparent in her death. I see her for who she really is, as I’m sure both Elliot and Anna would see me if they were able to. I felt an overwhelming sense of terror come over me when I realized that I had been right about there being a genuine self, and that your genuine self is revealed when you know you are going to die. What fueled my terror even further, was that even now I can’t see the genuine Elliot. Even now I can’t figure him out.
