It has been years since I’ve seen a Snickers bar. But, there it is. A delight that I only imagined in dreams. The dream chocolate was perfect though. Not like this crumpled mess. It had been stepped on, likely years ago when 7-11s like this were worth looting. Now a husk of convenience. The only necessity it provides anymore is four walls and a dilapidated roof still leaking from last night’s rainfall.

I shiver in that drafty box as I snatch up the rare treat from under the endcap. On my hands and knees I revel in my find. Everything good in life it seems was snatched up and devoured by the greedy. However long ago that was. Time is a blur, especially in survival mode. The moments fly by, but the trauma lingers on in slow motion.

The Snickers Bar is my moment. Not this one here, but a different one in a different place. I was younger then. My mother was scared, desperate, determined. I didn’t understand, people were shopping but, instead of waiting in line like I was taught in school, they were just running for the doors. Instead of paying, some were fighting. I didn’t understand. I just wanted candy. The candy is gone now, dust on shelves. Or, if you are lucky, smashed and stale.

I think of Kyle. His gun pointed toward me. Hoping, wishing for a body to enter his sights. Craving the rush of the kill. I have seen him kill.

I have seen him smile.

I do not eat the Snickers Bar right away, but I regret not devouring the thing almost immediately. Kyle has made his appearance. Full camo and an itchy trigger finger, he is the soldier boy he always wanted to be.

“Did you find anything? Did ya check for people? Weapons? Food?”

I tell him that there is cash in the register if he is interested. I deftly tuck my prize away into my pocket as he examines the now useless papers and metals. Not completely useless he reminds me as he pockets the bills for kindling and the pennies for the copper. He would give me the smooshed half. The stepped on bullshit, keeping the good for himself, like he does.

“Are you sure there are no people? No-one holed up in a cellar or anything?”

He fingers his revolver. It’s always loaded and he is not afraid to use it. I carried the gun and covered him one time. I was afraid. If Kyle were subject to the same ambush we were setting, I know I would have failed, and Kyle would be dead. He does not know this. I put on the war face and feigned bravery while nothing happened. And if there were a god I would have thanked him that day.

Now the plan is, if there is danger, I hide while he shoots.

This has worked out for us so far, so I don’t want to shake the boat. This building is just a simple sanctuary from the wind. A simple gas station that does not have a cellar, and I tell Kyle as such. The look of disappointment on his face is a stark reminder of how I have made it this far.

I met Kyle that day when I was separated from my mother. Another boy about my age, we thought we could find our parents together. We never did. However, we each found a brother that day. The city was a battlefield. I heard that they ate the rich that day. I did not see anyone eating anybody on our harrowing journey from the shopping center, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t believe it. People do what they think they need to do. I see a lot of that these days. I do not know how long it took us, or even how we managed to navigate our escape from the city. We made it out, but in that metropolis of mayhem, The War of Resources rages on, and everybody wants some.

I do remember how we found our way to the suburbs.

It was Kyle’s idea to follow the river. I wondered how he knew which direction to follow, but I just trusted his judgment.

I head over to the back of the store and peek out the window in the manager’s office. Dead and desolate. I know better. Someone’s out there, I can feel it. I tell Kyle and he summons his binoculars faster than I can say abracadabra. He loves those binoculars as much as he loves his six-shooter.

He found them in the same place, on the first man he killed. The old man named me a hooligan and a thief. To be fair I was. I was taking corn from his field. He told me, sorry, and there wasn’t enough to share, and that I would have to leave or he would shoot me. That’s when Kyle jumped him. Tackled him. Fumble! Of course I gave Kyle the gun.

Now the gun is ours.

The binoculars were in his house along with ammo and food. We lived there for a blur. Now, here searching for the unseen threat lurking around the post office of days old. Or maybe beyond the crumpled remains of the Applebees, blown up at some point by some anarchist hell bent on making noise in a silent world.

There, I see movement. I nod to Kyle. The plan, the only plan we use because it works so far, the white flag. The false flag. Tentatively as I put my hands up slowly leaving the shelter I know my role in this. I know I’m bait. I would have the gun if I were braver, stronger. But I’m not. I am the talker, the ‘we come in peace’ liar.

As I stand in the rain pouring out lies, my rival deceiver mimics the lies of my own. What does he mean he doesn’t want trouble? That he’s just passing through? Who does this guy think he is? You can’t fool a fool. You can’t con a con. Obviously this is an ambush, and this guy thinks we are going to just walk right into it, and I realize to my horror that we did indeed walk into our own ambush. Deceived by my own deception, I am the fool who falls for a fool.

The gunshots ring in the air as I spin to see my friend go down in a heap, the savage that hit him standing over him with a bat. I’m being warned to not move or they will hurt Kyle again. His beloved weapon skitters across the pavement stopping at my feet as if the God that refuses to exist just manifested himself into a tool for self defense. Fuck Kyle, I wield it as a knight brandishes his sword in the battles of myth and legend. Though, mine is not more legendary than the other two. Which are currently pointed right at me.

Is it good or bad luck that they did not finish off Kyle right then and there? I am then informed that dropping my gun will prevent further hostilities. That they won’t hurt me. That’s what they all say. Hell, It’s what I say right before Kyle shoots them.

Used to shoot them, I lament, because I know this is over.

There is only one way out of this Mexican standoff. We are all going to eventually shoot because there is nothing in this world picked clean and raided bare that can make truth out of the lies our lives have become. Is there really no going back to how it once was? Are we all too broken? Too tormented by what we put each other through that we can never trust again?

“Wait,” I yell pulling the half smashed Snickers Bar from my pocket. “Do you like chocolate?”

I empty the barrel of the revolver.