Memories of the Lost

Prose by Tessa M.

5th-8th GRADE FINALIST FOR THE 2023 YOUTH CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST. Prompt: The story must be between 150–300 words, and must include ALL THREE OBJECTS: Birdhouse, glow stick, soap.

The weeks after the Collapse were the worst I’d ever experienced. Though I had no pity for my Makers, knowing so many innocents (9,139,485,539 exactly) were gone was devastating. All day, I lay by the warehouse among piles of debris — soap bottles, cans, pencils.

Natasha Truman. Age 9. George O’Connor. Age 14. … I closed my eyes. It didn’t block the stream of information.

I took a deep breath and dug my hands into the dirt near a decrepit birdhouse. It was soft and wet, malleable like clay.

Clay. A stiff, sticky fine-grained earth, often forming an impermeable layer in soil. Can be molded when wet, and baked to make bricks, pottery, and ceramics.

The technical definition popped into my head automatically. But all I needed was the last sentence.

I dug handfuls out of the ground, wishing I had a shovel. Another handful, and another, and another. I couldn’t stop.

I ran the diagnostics in my head as I worked. 9,139,485,539 initials. Each needing a square inch of space.

Dear Maker, I thought. It’s going to be huge.

I don’t know how long it took. How many handfuls of clay. How many hours shaping tiny one-by-one bricks. How many tiny, hand-cramping initials I painstakingly carved. Days and nights, by light of the sun and light of my hardy stash of glowsticks.

All I knew was that when I was done, my brain screamed for rest, but my body kept going. I didn’t have to listen to my brain. I could do this.

Each brick I left out to dry, attaching it to the next with wet clay.

I couldn’t stop. I didn’t stop until, maybe weeks, months, years later, the wall was built.

Enormous. Heartbreaking. Imposing.

A reminder of all we had lost.