The Dovecote
(incomplete)

Every morning after the war, Joshua went up to the roof to take care of the dovecote. It wasn't that he felt responsible, but that the chore gave him some slight excuse to get away from the pounding resentment that throbbed through the living spaces below.

He enjoyed it when they needed some care - when the whitewash on the box was peeling, or the occupants required some attention more than simple feeding. After the war, idle hands were simply inexcusable. Even sleep was put to work, excess heat stored to incubate the more-than-ever precious babies, and every minute that Joshua spent caring for the 'cote was a minute he didn't have to be down in the noisy, cold dark below.

He had taken on the task almost two weeks after the war, when he'd realized everyone else was afraid: Afraid to go out into the ever-light sky above and risk breathing the air; afraid to climb the long flights of rickety stairs to the roof of the crumbling building; and most of all – afraid of the 'cote itself.

Joshua had subtly encouraged their fears over the past six years or so, afraid in his turn that this precious hour of solitude would be snatched away from him. Eventually, he knew, someone would have to take his place, but the adults were all busy with their assigned work, and so far the children had shied away from him in the halls. To all of them he was a sort of post-technological shaman, performing disgusting and odious duties so that he could speak the magical incantations and phrases necessary to keep their cold, dark haven safe from the unseen, unnamed terrors they were sure roamed the Outside. They appreciated what he did – they knew it was necessary – but they didn't want to come any closer to it than they had to.

For six long years, Joshua had climbed the stairs every morning, reveling in the searing light and almost scorching heat, knowing they would shorten his life, but not caring. The dovecote was his escape, his friend, and he wouldn't abandon it, even to prolong his life. It wasn't much worth prolonging, anyhow. Beth had been out shopping when the war happened.

Joshua didn't understand the war, but in that, at least, he wasn't alone. Once upon a time, he knew, men had fought wars themselves, and had known why: Land, resources, revenge, religion, ideals… Even if it seemed absurd to Joshua, there was always a cause that those fighting could comprehend.

Each advancement on the battlefield allowed the fighters to stand a little further away from those they fought and to do a little more damage. With each advancement, the cause had become a little less immediate to the fighters, a little more abstract. Eventually, the need for fighters and warriors was eliminated altogether, and the wars became ever more terrible, even as the reasons for them faded into obscurity.

This last war... The war had not only been incomprehensible, it had been entirely unannounced. Joshua didn't want to think about the numbers that must have been killed when the skies caught fire, only those lucky enough to be within the protective radius of a dovecote spared... Though some days, Joshua thought perhaps they were the lucky ones.

Maybe, he muttered, they hadn't intended the war to happen at all, and that was why they fought so much, now.

Joshua had been talking to the dovecote ever since the war. Never before had it answered.

Copyright 2000 by Elizabeth L. Brooks. Not to be reprinted without written permission of the author.