Marching On

They say old soldiers never die, but young soldiers? Even less a chance of their death, for they are healthy. Like Ivan is, for example. A little malnourished considering the current state of things, but not bad. Ivan woke up, now much hungrier. While he could hunt today, for now he should finish off the canned meat. With the seal broken it could spoil soon. He also opened one of the small packages of wheat crackers. While not exactly nutritious, it would fill him up for the time being. 

Now it was the time for scavenging, always an important part of a balanced morning, noon, afternoon… Whatever, I've got to do a lot, thought Ivan. He dragged the curtain off himself and began moving around the nearby forest. 

He looked in the trees, finding sticks and fruit. He looked in the bushes, finding more of the same. He looked at the ground, finding a couple of good stones. He looked in more trees, finding nothing much. Not a particularly successful first day of scavenging, until he ran out just a bit further. A small shack stood defiant among the wilderness, though highly battered it was. 

Ivan burst through the door, ready to check every shelf and cabinet. However, he found what he needed right there- some more cans and more importantly, a pan! A clean surface to cook his food in and potential weapon. Or, if he really wanted to, he could melt down the pan and get some iron once he had a proper furnace. Which he did not. 

Despite the happiness of what he's got, there had to be more in there. He searched the other two rooms and found more pieces of wood and stone, from destroyed furniture or structure. Finally, he found the fireplace poker. That's a weapon! A subpar one, but it would work for now, thought Ivan. Rooting through the place one last time, he concluded that this place was uninhabitable and has nothing more for him to take.

Ivan trudged on home through the tall grass and pleasant sun, thinking of what he would eat for a next meal. Deciding to fry up a little more meat and some grains, he put the ingredients into a pan and started a small but feisty fire. Its warmth and more importantly cooking properties bring only fortune. When the meat began to sizzle, he turned it over, trying not to burn himself.

Which, he failed in doing. Wincing in pain, he applied some ointment he found and a strip of cloth to the burn and continued to make his nightly meal. Taking the pan off the heat once the meat's other side was halfway done, he let it rest on a stone before daring to touch the pan. Finally, it cooled, and he savored the absolute 3.5/10 flavor it brought to his day. 

"Well, this is life or death. Can't be a chef now." He groaned to himself. Nothing tasted good now because if you had something nice like black pepper or fresh vegetables, that's taken by the collectors. Those damn collectors, always meddling in Ivan's affairs. His family? Gone. Very trivial things like good food? Gone. House gone too, nothing left but the clothes on his back. Worse than the fabled Nazis of years gone by. At least they'd give him a quick death by Zyklon-B. 

Lying under the stars for the second night, he looked at them again. The same constellations he was taught about in his old textbook burned bright; there was the Big Dipper, the two bears, that hunter- Apollo, maybe? The rest of them just seemed to float around in space, not really having any purpose to the world and its resting place. Ivan once dreamed of being Yuri Gagarin, as had every Soviet child. What if, instead of the exosphere, the Union went further? Maybe by 2000 they could have. Living on Mars by 2020. But it was all hopeless idealism, he realized as he heard the snapping of some animal.

Retreating further into his little cave, he extinguished the fire and slept until the morrow.