“Checkmate!” July grinned and Thomas leaned back with his arms crossed. July collected the pieces and set them up again. “You’re getting better.”
July had needed weeks in the care of the Caravan’s doctors to recover from the amputation, unfortunately however he was only granted a few days. For five days he rested; Phoebe brought him food, the doctor checked on his stump, and Thomas came and chatted with him or brought him books. On the sixth day Phoebe told them that the Caravan would be continuing West. Tom paid a carpenter to build a prosthetic leg which he fitted perfectly to July, though the doctor advised that it was far too early to use it. The Caravan’s leader, a mysterious figure known only as The Unforgiven One, summoned July on the seventh day. The Unforgiven One wore a rusted mask that revealed black eyes and nothing else, his dark hair was thickly braided and wrapped in garments, and he was frighteningly tall, and questioned July thoroughly about the Bible they had found – he believed that the Valley no longer had a place for gods or kings. The rumours say he was there when the world ended.
Tom knocked over his king. “Well apparently not.” He stood up and walked to their very large bookshelf. “Who knew reading so many philosophy books would make you such a masterful tactician.”
Three months had passed and July and Thomas had gone home to a bunker that they believed to be the dead centre of The Valley. They assumed, based on the lead-lined walls, the heavy steel door and the vast storage of unused rations, that The Bunker had been designed to protect against the nuclear fallout of The War; but whomever it was meant for obviously wasn’t lucky enough to use it. Tom had been quite happy with it, but for July simply having a place to live was not nearly enough.
They became scavengers, searching all through the cities and towns of The Valley, they found the couch and more of their furniture in an old estate, as well as a pile of bones and noose. July had kept the skull for an art project where he spent several days delicately painting it with bright colours; Thomas found this morbid however July felt that the man deserved a legacy. Their favourite places to loot were museums, libraries, video shops and record stores; with survival now being the top priority no one seemed to care about these things anymore, and yet July just couldn’t get enough. He’d say “What’s the point of living if you’re not going to enjoy it.”
July was quite the artist himself as a writer and a painter, however he preferred to study the greater minds of a time that he – or anyone nowadays – could only hope to understand. Some of July’s happiest memories include fixing an old TV and watching Star Wars for the first time, and listening to Credence Clearwater Revival in a half-destroyed shop.
“Huh,” said July, now considering his collection of philosophical works, “if only the ‘leaders’ of The Valley had done the same, this war of theirs might have finished by now.”
Thomas stopped. “I don’t follow.”
July made a show of clearing his throat and said: “War, like chess, is a game; one that when played with enough skill, becomes an art.”
Thomas inclined his head, thinking. “Who said that one?”
“That one I came up with myself. But check out what I read this morning.” He hopped over to his bunk and grabbed an old paperback. “No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.”
“More Machiavelli?”
July tossed the book aside and dived onto the bed, placing his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling. “When I read him I wonder what he’d do if he were alive now.”
“He’d do a better job of leading than these idiots. Anyway, we got one crate of salvage left, want to help me go through it?”
July already closed his eyes and waved him away. “Nah, you go for it, I’m comfortable here.”
Thomas glanced at July’s leg. “Is it still hurting?”
“I never understood how that phantom limb pain could be real,” July rubbed his knee. “It’s real.”
The bunker slowly filled with silence, broken by the sounds of clanking metal as Thomas sorted through the crate. Despite the phantom pain, a gentle warmth blanketed July’s body. He remained in that position, staring at the ceiling, for half-an-hour or so, letting his mind wander, thinking about all the places he had visited and the things he’d seen. The incident of the crash replayed in his mind over and over and he wondered whether it was all worth it; what if it had been worse, what if Tom had been killed? He and Tom were collectively alone in the universe, they only had each other, and Biscuit, who was curled up in her bed. Finally, July thought about the game of chess he’d just had, and the state of chaos that ravaged The Valley, his home, for as long as he could remember. A war that long was bound to be run by idiots.
He smiled, and into the silence, he said, “What if, I mean, hypothetically, we were in control of everything? You and me.”
Thomas tossed an old clock aside and raised his head. “What, you mean being in charge of The Valley? Well, for a start the world would make a lot more sense. Wouldn’t be easy though.”
“Leadership’s never easy, it’s a burden few suffer so that the many can live freely. Theoretically though, I think it’s doable.” He gestured towards the bookshelf. “We have the means.”
Thomas laughed. “For a madman. A pile of books is hardly a means for world-domination, which is exactly what this is, by the way.”
July sat up. “Yeah, I guess it is, but don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
“And you’re saying your plan is that with a pile of books you can change the world?”
“Maybe, it’s a start, god knows the rest of me is useless.” He ignored Thomas’ grave look and went on. “But it’s not about changing the world, it’s about leaving a mark, leaving something behind that says in that moment we were on top.”
Thomas paused, he seemed to be day dreaming, he blinked a few times. “That does sound pretty nice. Okay, say hypothetically you did try and take over, you’d need a campaign, people to follow you, you’d have to systematically eliminate each of the six factions controlling The Valley; people, I might add, that are fanatic and dangerous. So, what’s step one?”
There was something spectacular about the way Thomas’ mind worked, it was just like his own. July leaned forward and thoughtfully placed a hand on his chin. He wasn’t about to be silenced like this. And then it came to him. “Writing a book.”
“Right…” Tom said, sarcastically. “You know I was thinking something more dramatic, like some sort of statement.”
“Well, yeah, but you should never underestimate the potential for a book to change the world. The Bible for one, or even Origin of Species, or The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, The Feminine Mystique; something powerful and convincing, to sell an idea, continue the evolution of thought to the next level. People know that whatever we once believed in has failed, so we use that to our advantage.”
The conversation slowly died away after that, the thoughts left their minds, and they both went to bed. But July didn’t sleep. His leg still ached and he lay there in the long hours of the night with the feint urge to do something, eventually, he decided, to write. He climbed out of bed and hopped across the room, making himself a coffee and sitting down at his old typewriter. Biscuit stirred and raised his head, July apologised for waking him and turned to his unwritten work. The Deathly Quill.
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