You're Almost Human, After All

[Casey The Undead*]

((Harper Morgan continued from It's not like it's for real or anything, right?))

Harper walked.

Her feet dragged across the ground, her eyes watered, her throat ached, and she longed to sit down and stop.

But she didn't.

She couldn't exactly say why she insisted on continuing, but the scene she had left kept replaying in her mind. What was she doing? Had she really watched someone die? What was even going on anymore? Her mind was whirling so fast that it broke down, and now she was all grinding gears and clunky machinery. She moved, and walked, and pushed forward. Stopping was bad. She didn't have any other thoughts as she walked. She didn't ponder the meaning of life or the deep philosophical implications of who she was and what she was doing. She walked. It was all she did.

The blacksmith hammer dragged behind her as she walked. She didn't have the energy to pick it up and carry it properly, but she also lacked the energy to unclasp her fingers from it, to let it fall to the ground and be forgotten. She could only walk.

And so, Harper walked.

Time passed. She swore at one point she heard some sort of announcement, some list of the dead or dying, but it faded into the background. She followed along a path for a bit, until she came to a bridge and a river. Her choices, obviously, were limited; she could cross the bridge, or she could travel the river. To her right, she saw thundering cliffs in the distance. Crossing a bridge seemed like too much work, too much to ask for. What was on the other side? This side was comfortable.

She walked along the river.

Eventually, Harper became dimly aware that there was wetness on her cheeks. She stopped, for the first time since she'd left, and brought her hand to her cheek. She was crying, but why? What was the point of crying? Tears wouldn't bring Martha back, wouldn't bury a girl Harper barely knew and only dimly sort of liked. It wouldn't stop the fact that Harper was lost and dying and lonely and empty.

She dropped the hammer, listened to it thud against the ground.

Tired, she thought quietly. I'm just so tired.

Slowly she slumped onto the ground. Her back refused to stay straight, and she curled into herself, burying her face in her hands. It was all so much, too much, and Harper was an overwhelmed person at the smallest things. She never wanted this, never asked for this.

With her feet hanging over the edge, she could feel the water brushing the bottom of her flats. She stared at them, at the current, and a thought came to her. Slowly, she toed off her left shoe, watching it plop into the water and get carried away. She took the right off one with her hand and placed it on the ground next to her. After a moment, she shook her head and moved it, laying on top of the hammer.

Water, she understood, was an easy thing. It flowed and flowed because it had nothing else to do. She wondered what her father would do in this situation. She thought about his neckties that he tied too tightly, that squeezed the fat on his neck, she thought of the sympathetic looks people at Church would send them.

"God," she said aloud, because God was probably much too lazy to read her mind. "God," she repeated. She was a little lost for what to say after that. "I have a question. If I drop into this river, and I live, does that mean that I'm going to win this game? To see my father? Or is it just something else I survived to die later on? And, if I was brought here, maybe I was meant to die?" She ran her fingers across her neck and stared into the water. "If you're sitting at river and the choice is to sink or swim, do you bother with Divine Intervention, or do you just let the River make the choice? If I'm sitting at a river praying to you, and you know I've already made my choice, do you bother to answer?"

She looked to the sky, helplessly. She'd made the decision hours ago, she knew. Living was just so hard. It was so hard, and Harper was so tired. She was desperate, though, desperate and willing, as all those who believe without proof must be in their final hours. She was willing to listen to Divine Intervention, to have a God make sense of her ramblings, to rub her feet and kiss her temples and tell her that there was purpose and reason and glory.

The sky was quiet, and the river kept running, and no one emerged from the darkness.

Harper let out a sob, echoing into the night air. "Where's my reward? Where's my gift? For believing?"

Nothing.

Harper thought of her father, of what he must have been thinking, of what he would say. He would pray. He would pray so hard and so long, and for what? To be left by his wife? To have his daughter die? What was the point of it all?

Harper grabbed her shoe and whipped it across the river. "Where's my burning bush, huh?!" She was screaming through tears, shaking with the force of it.

Useless, useless, useless. She stared into the water again and shook her head. If God was real, he would save her. He would send her home. If he wasn't, she could rest. She could rest, in the darkness, and that would be okay.

Slowly, she pushed herself off the edge and into the water.

The river carried her for hours, but Harper was so, so tired. She sank into the bottom with the weight of it, and by the time she'd reached the end, she was long gone.

F09: HARPER MORGAN, DECEASED.