Main Street Magazine Spring '23

HE ONES THAT LAST
By Connor Ryan
88
The routes between settlements tend to be rough: old, broken pavement
surrounded by decrepit, unmaintained buildings, occasionally running under
concrete structures unstable enough that most people will sprint past them as
fast as possible, a pebble or two dropping onto their head while they do.
Maeve has gotten far more than used to it. Getting five years of messenger
work under your belt by age twenty can do that to a person. Eventually, you
learn the routes; you stop jumping at every sound; you can pick out the signs
of a structure about to collapse, compared to one that’s just close to it. You
pick out other things, too: color thrown onto the walls that most people are too
scared to get close to.
Most messengers focus on the speed of their travel. In Maeve’s opinion,
speed is only important if a message is really urgent, and most aren’t. Most
messages she carries are just signs of life: Our settlement hasn’t fallen, how
is yours? Sometimes, like today, she’s given a book too, often something she’d
already memorized the pages of, the faded images between its covers; but
even those are fine to take her time with, with the special packaging around
them to keep it safe.
So, she’d rather spend more time out here, with the best-preserved
art from the fallen age, than rush through another delivery.
The settlements are so dull against the routes. The same metal barracks in
every one, the same communal farms, schools, medical tents, whatever they
can manage.
The interesting things are in the details of the falling buildings, the longabandoned
homes, stores, and vehicles. (Oh, what Maeve would give to have