The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.

He thought if he lived long enough the world at last would all be lost. Like the dying world the newly blind inhabit, all of it slowly fading from memory.

Sometimes the child would ask him questions about the world that for him was not even a memory.

He couldnt remember where he was. The thought made him smile. Where are we? he said.

The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already?

They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesnt fire? It has to fire. What if it doesnt fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.

There was yet a lingering odor of cows in the barn and he stood there thinking about cows and he realized they were extinct. Was that true? There could be a cow somewhere being fed and cared for.

It was an apple. He picked it up and held it to the light. Hard and brown and shriveled. He wiped it with the cloth and bit into it. Dry and almost tasteless.

We wouldnt ever eat anybody, would we?

we’re carrying the fire.

he thought it was about beauty or about goodness. Things that he’d no longer any way to think about at all.

Do you think we should thank the people? The people?

He could not construct for the child’s pleasure the world he’d lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he.

There is no God. No? There is no God and we are his prophets.

If something had happened and we were survivors and we met on the road then we’d have something to talk about. But we’re not. So we dont.

When I saw that boy I thought that I had died. You thought he was an angel? I didnt know what he was. I never thought to see a child again. I didnt know that would happen. What if I said that he’s a god?

When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up. Do you understand? And you cant give up. I wont let you.

What you put in your head is there forever? Yes. It’s okay Papa. It’s okay? They’re already there. I dont want you to look. They’ll still be there. He stopped and leaned on the cart. He looked

Every day is a lie, he said. But you are dying. That is not a lie.

He was just hungry, Papa. He’s going to die. He’s going to die anyway. He’s so scared, Papa.

You’re not the one who has to worry about everything. The boy said something but he couldnt understand him. What? he said. He looked up, his wet and grimy face. Yes I am, he said. I am the one. .

What’s the bravest thing you ever did? He spat into the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.

The road crossed a dried slough where pipes of ice stood out of the frozen mud like formations in a cave. The remains of an old fire by the side of the road. Beyond that a long concrete causeway. A dead swamp. Dead trees standing out of the gray water trailing gray and relic hagmoss. The silky spills of ash against the curbing. He stood leaning on the gritty concrete rail. Perhaps in the world’s destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence.

You cant. You have to carry the fire.