Xavier is an amnesoid. I am Xavier. But the amnesoid isn’t me. Not yet, anyway.

Lights from the fires along the broken highways peel into the hooded figures that doze off beneath the overpasses. Their babies died before dinner. All the babies die before dinner. Death is not independent of longitude, it seems. They are quick to split up whatever rations the babies were consuming.
Xavier pulls out his black book and listens to the wind wisp through the crushed rocks. He opens it as he watches the shadows move, a negative reflection of all the rubble and twisted metal piercing the sky with its tetanus. He scratches off two more names with a pencil that has seen better days.

Noone seems to know what is happening. Noone cares whatever has happened.

The others listen to the radio. There is the voice of a preacher, and it speaks strongly for them. He seems to be weeping, and reassuring them as he tries to reassure himself. “It is all a dream.” His voice is a distant pillow they can float upon. It gives them peace until the morning.
The land is hungry. Two crows peck at the ground just out of Xavier’s range. They have an intense fear of the humans, whose diet depends largely on crows, but these crows do not fear Xavier. They keep an eye on him, as they recognize him from the few other times he has tossed them crumbs. Xavier has nothing more to offer this evening, and after awhile the crows scamper off. They had given up hope on him. Xavier had fell off into unconsciousness some time earlier, unintentionally. He whimpered in his slow exhales. The pencil lay loose in his hand, and during the night a wanderer passed by and took it from him while he slept.

An amnesoid is one who doesn’t remember very clearly. The previous moment is a blur to the common amnesoid, though the present may be as vivid as anyone could imagine. But that’s all you really need to know. Don’t question it. Don’t ask. The higher powers don’t look kindly on questions, especially from the likes of you. Just make sure to keep your lips straight and your face plain. Shut up and follow the guy in front. That’s the only way you’ll come out clean on the other side.

Xavier is a tag-along with this group. They’re friends of his mothers, and he joined up with them after she passed away, only a few months ago. Xavier was a shoegazer of the highest degree, and his inactions were amplified tenfold since his tragedy. He only talks to answer their questions.

It wasn’t always like this here, y’know. It used to be all shades of green and blue. That’s what they say, anyway. I never saw it, personally. And I know you haven’t. We can place blame, if we’d like. It’s all the doing of those that came before us, right? They ruined it all and we weren’t around to do anything about it. Then they died off and left us to search for whatever might be left. Who knows? Who cares?

The morning brings a graying sky and the smell of moistened rust. Xavier wakes to find his pencil is missing, but it doesn’t seem to surprise him. He has two more hidden in his canvas pouch, anyway. He settles his black book into his pouch and takes a knee. He misses the crows, and wishes that he had some crumbs to lure them back. He has been hungry for weeks, but he doesn’t notice it anymore.
In the canvas bag, Xavier has collected all the things that would one day help him save his universe. Among other things, his hammer, which his father had made long ago, with the word “Hope” pounded into one side. It had been an instrumental tool, in helping to dig open crumbled buildings for shelter. It had also been a formidable weapon in protecting he and his mother from thieves and murderers. But Xavier doesn’t remember any of that. He only knows that the hammer is his most important possession.

Sure, there are books, but the teachers died ages ago. There are a few old souls around who have knowledge. They know the words in the books. But senility took them long ago, and it’s only a matter of time before they fall silent underneath the piles of rubble, and their sons and daughters grab up their clothing and divide it among themselves.

Xavier goes out to gather for his companions. Reimbursement for staying with them. He tightens his oversize sneakers. They once belonged to his father, but Xavier doesn’t remember that. As far as he knows, he’s always had these sneakers.
Xavier wishes that he would become lost, with anywhere to go but back. He rests alongside an overturned locomotive. It is bare except for the steel frame and the fastened wheels, which many had tried in vain to rip away. Two crows scamper in from behind a row of leafless trees. They do not “caw” or make any intentional noises. Xavier would consider it very strange to hear a crow caw. Their black feathers gleamed with a bright black in a world where everything was tinged with dust. If his companions were with him, they would take this amazing chance to snatch up rocks and gather the dead crows for dinner. Xavier watches them pick through the dust in vain for insects. They watch Xavier out of the corner of their eye for a crumb to appear, but Xavier only sits meekly, hugging his knees and watching them from the shadows.

The winds are all dark through here. They float past the burning cars and the crashed foundations of buildings that were important once upon a time. We’re in the world’s last broken machine. It’s alive, by the skin of its teeth, but it’s only a matter of time. Everything is only a matter of time. You’d do well to pack up and get out before Hell itself annexes us.

Xavier’s eyes float up to meet a collapsing billboard, with its shredded advertisement rotted and flapping with the wind. A black smoke rides up in the distance, and a singular pole rises from the depths of this distance, showing off its dead flag, hanging motionless at the top. That was the center of the city; the heart of the machine that Xavier and his companions call home. Xavier looked back down, desperate for a fresh vision; back to the crows.
Xavier became startled when he noticed the crows passing their beaks through the stones only a few feet from him. He slowly reached out his hand and opened it, trying to show them how he had nothing to offer. If he did, then they could be sure he’d share it.
The crows looked into his hand and moved closer. Xavier’s heart was racing as the nearest crow reached its head into his outstretched fingers and touched its beak to the palm of Xavier’s hand. The beak opened, and Xavier felt something drop into his hand. The crow looked up at his face and belted out a string of caws that shook Xavier’s expression and wrenched into his memory. He began to remember the first time he heard a crow caw. He remembered being a child and throwing crumbs to the crows as they cawed at each other, just before a group of men ambushed them and crushed their skulls with rocks. Only one managed to fly away, and Xavier remembered his mother picking him up as he wept over the scene, and walking him back to the shelter where his father was tightening a pair of sneakers he had found earlier that day.
A tear dropped from Xavier’s dry red eyes and he looked into the palm of his hand where the crow had placed a golden-brown grain. He smiled and slowly reached out to the crows with his other hand, and he stroked their long black feathers before they scampered and started to fly away, frightened by the sound of an ambushing group of men, who had heard the caws and came running with their stomachs growling.
A rock struck one of the crows and broke its wing, and the doomed crow watched as his friend beat her wings into the distance, before the shadow of a long leg came over his crippled body. His good wing flapped in desperation as he looked up and saw the hammer, tight in the hand, and Xavier’s tall frame towering over him, looking out towards the oncoming group of men.
Four large but scrawny men came down upon Xavier, and they knocked him over into the dust, and kicked him for only as long as it took to crush the crow’s skull with the heel of a boot and run off.
Xavier sat up and watched them flee with the dead bird swinging on the tips of their fingers, and he wept silently. He waited for his mother to come and take him away, but noone came.

With the night comes fear. With fear comes a growing anger. With anger comes power. And with power comes the possibilities of change. When that change comes, then maybe the comfort will return. An amnesoid never gets angry. But a seed is instant power.

Xavier rolled the seed across his hand and looked toward the far horizon as the gray faded to a pungent black. He picked up a few rocks that had been stained with the crow’s blood and threw them into the bottom of the overturned locomotive. They cracked against the hull and left red stains in the dust. Xavier walked towards the back of the train and balanced himself on the rail. He began to backtrack, along the rail, the path which the train had followed into the broken machine long ago.

I’d like to tell you that Xavier got out of the city and planted his seed. I’d like to tell you that the seed eventually became several fields of grain. I’d like to tell you that Xavier saved the world with that one grain.
I may be lost, but I still remember. I’m no amnesoid. Not yet.

Xavier looks back over his shoulder, at the train lying on its side. He stops walking and pulls a black book out of his canvas pouch. He pulls out one of his last two pencils. The flickering from the fires along the broken highway cast the pencil’s shadow into the depths of the opening book. Xavier straightens his hand and rips the crumbling lead through the last name on the list.
He closes the book and lays it between the iron rails as an eruption of caws rips through the night. The sound flies up from the dust of the dark city and joins somewhere in the sky, when it comes for Xavier. He has his hammer in his hand. Pounded into one side of it is the word “Hope”.