Separation Anxiety

Hindsight is a bitch...

Written and Voiced by Suzanne Akerman
Original music by Ian Botsford

©Kaotix Illustrated

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Title: Separation Anxiety
Read by Suzanne, woman's voice.

I've put it off long enough. I know I need to explain what happened to Jared. When news of the first victim in Washington state broke, we gathered our supplies, packed our vehicles and prepared a shelter on the roof of our apartment complex. We planned to wait out the mass hysteria, separate to meet our families and then bring them all to the Point Defiance Zoo. Jared's parents live in a little farming city called Quincy on the east side of the state, so he had much farther to travel. He left me on the roof after three days with a promise to meet me at the zoo.

Hindsight is a bitch.

We should have gone together. Amidst the chaos, trying to coordinate a rendezvous and journey to Tacoma, the plan seemed efficient and even reasonable. On the fourth day I embarked alone, accompanied only by a brick of anxiety in my gut, increasingly losing faith in our arrangement. But despite my reservations, I followed the plan, knowing that if I didn't, the chances of finding Jared again would be essentially zero.

At best a trip to Quincy was a reckless undertaking and at worst, a death sentence. He told me he knew he would make it there and back to Tacoma with his parents just a day after me. He told me he knew I would be strong enough to get to the zoo alone. When someone you love says something with such passionate confidence, you believe it. You would be your whole tenuous, zombie-infested life on it.

And he never arrived.