Meghan: Pollen fall

I wound a scarf around my mouth and nose, breathing in the sweet, slightly dusty smell of oranges. Quickly, so I didn’t let any of the fall in, I unlocked my door and slipped out. The world had turned silent overnight, muffled in the dusty cover of pollen. My tennis shoes scuffed through the thick layer on the street, leaving a trail of footprints behind me. My footsteps stirred the settled pollen, raising it in swirls of yellow that stuck to my arms and legs, settled in my hair and dusted my eyebrows. I squinted through the clouds, making my way slowly along the empty streets. Cars were parked aimlessly, their windows grimed hopelessly with yellow dust. I stopped to draw swirling patterns on one, only to see them quickly covered as I walked away. I continued on my way, slinging my bag higher on my shoulder and peering around blindly. A lump in the road ahead made me hesitate, and when I heard it coughing thinly I ran towards it. I knelt beside the man curled in the street and cursed his stupidity. People with allergies and lung problems were ordered to stay inside during the fall, what was this idiot doing in the streets? His coughs rattled nastily in his chest and I hesitated, not wanting to lose my scant protection, before I took off my scarf and wrapped it around his mouth and nose. Trying to breathe in the clogged air around me, I hoisted him to his feet and towed him along with me. The store I had been heading for was close by, we could probably make it.
Once inside the nearby convenience store, I gestured to the owner for a cup of water while my companion collapsed on the ground. I snatched my scarf back and growled at him,
“What were you thinking? Why aren’t you inside?”
He paused in his coughing to spit out, “I thought I could make it.”
I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his head back so I could examine the color of his eyes. Brown, both of them, not the slightest trace of a lighter color.
I released him with a sigh, “You have no Walker in you, why would you go out? You could have died.”
“My kid is sick.” He spat something yellow and nasty on the floor and the store owner eyed him in irritation, “I had no choice.”
“Then you ask your neighbor.” I said in exasperation, “Or your neighbor’s neighbor, or whoever your nearest Walker is.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
His jaw clenched, “They’ll have nothing to do with us, I asked them to walk for me, but they said I’d have to pay.”
I twitched my lips in irritation, I had heard of this new practice, but I liked to think that extracting money from helpless asthmatics was beneath me. Most of them gave me blankets they had made, or discounts at their stores during off season, or something like that; it worked out.
“Where do you live? I’ll walk you.” I said, before I could rethink it. He gave me an address and I whistled, impressed that he had made it this far without keeling over. Well technically he had keeled over, but he still made it far. We circled the store and bought the things we had come for; then set out into the pollen fall again. I wasn’t looking forward to the walk, but I could only hope there’d be an errant Walker for me to beat into righteousness at the end of it.



-Meghan