[2030]

The room was bare and quiet. Two wooden chairs and a few cardboard boxes lined the walls. It smelled like leather boots and damp cement.

“Tell me a joke.” 5275 says while wiping away tears with her soot-covered hands. 5275 throws her body into one of the chairs and looks down at her hands at the mix of ash and dark gray tear splatters. She tries to clear her throat and coughs a few times. Feeling the disturbed sediment of ash in her nose and throat settle back into their places.

In a mixture of laughter, pain, and hacking, 5275 turns to Nyx. "I want to laugh. Ugh. I’m done crying. I'm done killing." 5275 looks down at the mix of phlegm and dirt she coughed up. "There’s nothing left here. Nothing. Just bodies. Just... tell me a joke, Nyx.”

Nyx looks at her for a long time, then leans his chair towards her, tilting forward to two wooden legs. A small creek from the timber, but it doesn't dare be louder.

Nyx reaches out and slowly places his hand on the top of her head. He lets his hand sit there as he breathes slowly. He is covered in ash too. His eyebrows and eyelashes disappear in the grayness of his skin.

Nyx slides his hand down, and follows the path of a strand of hair, grabs it, and puts the stay hair behind her ear. Again, another calculated pause, with his hand behind her ear. 5275 keeps her eyes down too afraid to see an unexpected emotion.

There isn’t any love in his movements, but there is tenderness. Like not wanting to scare a deer before you capture it.

As if she had said it out-loud, Nyx suddenly moves his hand back. His whole body follows as he leans backwards in the opposite direction. His first audible breath comes. A quick and heavy sigh.

“Why did God create Yogi Bear?” he says as he stares at the ceiling.

5275 stops looking at her hands and looks up at him. His head tilted up. His neck stretched, Adam's apple protruding, vulnerable.

He looks prepared for me to accost him. He’s damn right.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Why did God create Yogi Bear?! Ugh… This is going to be a horrible joke.” As she covers her face with her hand and coughs again, she leans in and prepares for the worst.

“Because first, he made a boo boo.” A quiet creak and then a thump comes from the chair again as Nyx lets his weight fall on all four legs of the chair.

5275 looks up at him. No more feigned indifference. He was back to his normal upright position. His smile, as cruel and as forceful as ever. Wild eyes. A spark. His grin split his face like an open wound. His smile created tiny painful scars across his face instead of wrinkles of fake warmth. The same fake warmth like those from a distant family member seeing you for the first time in years.

“Can’t you tell a real joke and make me laugh?” 5275 says with a wince. Her mind doesn't capture the joke. She's too busy being cut with his smile. Does anything besides a scowl fit him?

Nyx sighs again. “What’s the purpose of a joke really? To make people forget? To feel something? To relate? I don’t really get jokes, maybe because I think life itself is funny enough without telling lies.”

“Isn’t it funny that you can spend ten months creating a baby, have it grow inside, take its time, suck all of your life force and strength, and then it is born, and it can’t take care of itself? You still need to take care of it after it is born AND you need to keep taking care of it for ten plus years."

"What's funny is this fragile little thing, it can break in an instant. All that effort to grow and it can break in a moment."

"And then what if it does grow? What if it grows up strong and beautiful and smart? Does it need you? No. Does it want you? No. Will it turn around and protect you? Not if it is strong enough. What’s funny is that this once fragile thing can now break you. It can break you with words heavier and more deadly than a lead pipe."

"And what if you can’t make one? What if you can’t make this tiny human grow? Then you are broken. You are not good enough. You, not this tiny, fragile, incapable thing, are broken. So we spend money to have others carry our children. We spend money to pump drugs into us to make our broken wombs habitable. To make our sperm strong enough. To take the entire world around us and make it conform to our wants. To make life give more life."

"You know what is a joke? Life. Life is one fucked up joke with as stupid a punchline as BOO BOO. We are fucking boo boos. Boo boos that are tearing up this Earth. God fucked up when he made us and I think he’ll make something better or deadlier or smarter to destroy us. Or even better. He will make us destroy ourselves."

"There you go, there’s your joke." Nyx heartlessly laughs as he stands up from the chair and walks around the two bodies on the floor.