1/2986 by Annelie Wendeberg

found in our village. Zula has it locked up in his bedroom, as far as rumour goes. I can’t even imagine hundreds of thousands of tonnes of it. How could people manufacture all this? And what’s industrial meat production? Meat coming out of machines?
    I snap the book shut and rub my eyes. The part with the bone injury data nags at me, but I can’t figure out why.

    ———

    The sun sinks into the forest, painting trees with fire. I sit in my oak without paying much attention to the spectacle. My eyes are stuck to the snare. My stomach yowls with emptiness and anticipation. The bunch of dandelion leaves didn’t really help against the hunger. Their taste is still stuck to my tongue and all my words constrict around the white and bitter dandelion milk. I can’t think properly.
    A marten sneaks across the clearing, its slender body bow-like and quick. Go away , I urge silently.  
    Darkness falls. The branch beneath me digs into my butt. I pull my legs up and balance on the balls of my feet. The moon is a thin sliver, providing only a little light.
    The crickets begin their song and firebugs dance to the tune. I love the woods. If not for the winter, I wouldn’t understand why people moved away from the forest to live in small rectangular boxes.
    A scream cuts through the night. Judging from its direction and pitch, it sounds very much like a rabbit trapped in my snare. I fall from the tree as I scramble down. My legs have fallen asleep.
    Half limping, half running, I approach the trap. The rabbit’s white tail is flashing. It’s fighting, kicking and squealing in pain or in panic. I jump, my knife unclasped, and then…
    The rabbit shoots across the clearing, gone in an instant.  
    My vibrating fingers search the spot where the sticks and my snare should be, but can’t find them. The poor animal must still have the string around its neck, probably choking to death slowly. There’s no chance I can find it in the dark. I kneel in the soft grass and groan into my hands.
    When I make my way back to my spruce hut, my knees wet and muddy and my hands empty, I decide to never again hunt without proper equipment.
    Then I realise I have nothing to start a fire with, not even dry wood. I couldn’t have cooked the meat and I can’t eat it raw; the risk of catching rabbit fever is too high. The animal would have died in vain.
    Tired and defeated, I slip into my hut and hug Runner’s book to my chest. With hunger rumbling through my stomach and only a shirt, a pair of pants, and a rain jacket covering my skin, I drift into a fitful sleep.

The burning in the pit of my stomach wakes me at sunrise. I pick dandelion greens and eat three handfuls at once, but I’m still hungry. After a trip to the reservoir for a drink and a visit to the blackberry bushes for a few sour, reddish fruits, I return to my makeshift hut and open Runner’s book. It distracts me from the empty feeling that spreads all through my abdomen, chest, and brain.  
    The mentioning of bone injuries kept me thinking until I fell asleep. Then came the dreams of piles of bones, all dented, thick blood leaking from them.  
    I reread the first chapter and can make a little more sense of all the information. If mortality means dead people, morbidity could mean infected people. There’s no alternative explanation that would make more sense. So if 40% were infected and of these, 80% died, then only a third of humanity died because of the pandemic. No other disease is mentioned in the book, at least, none that seems important. Typhus was discussed, as were syphilis and a few others that had caused a number of deaths, but nothing close to ten billion.
    I lie back down and gaze up at the ceiling, tracing the injuries my knife has inflicted on each twig and branch. Bone injuries. What else but hard impact can make bone yield?
    A shudder runs up my arms. Is it possible we killed each other?
    The idea doesn’t make much sense. One person hitting the other, sure. One