Tilapia & Tripoli

"Gods I hate fish." I grimace, scraping scales yet again as my childhood friend tidies up the aquaponics setup in our bunker. She's really into this; I am not.

"It's the most efficient ecosystem, though? Land mammals just take too much energy."

"I get that but...I dunno, maybe we could have raised some micro pigs?"

"I think I already did." She jokes, looking in the other room where her two kids are plugged in again, playing on their aging computer systems. Discarded textbooks - our pathetic attempts at home schooling - lie in a study area adjacent to what proves to be the ultimate distraction, even without an Internet connection. Neither kid has much weight on them, given our limited setup. Yet that wasn't the point of her attempt at humor.

"How many recipes for tilapia have we gone through now?"

"If you want more cookbooks you'll have to hit up the library again. Just fry them in oil like you usually do."

"Right. We're gonna run outta that too soon, I'm gonna have to put it on the list." I grimace, not enjoying the freezing trips to the surface, even with all my gear. Actually especially with all my gear. But there's no way I'll risk leaving these kids without their mother and their father. I never bring him up; just like I never bring up my own loss. "We got enough soap to last another quarter?"

"I think so," she pauses, her mind running a quick inventory. Without her keen sense of planning, I admit I wouldn't have made it this long on my own. I was never the planner in my co-op team. "The seeds you picked up won't be mature enough for awhile still, and I still have to figure out how to squeeze safflower oil anyway."

"You wanted a, what was it, 'pressing' machine?"

"It'd be useful, but honestly I'm not sure how much more space or power we can allocate for one. I think I can rig something myself." The slight excitement in her intelligent eyes gives me a sense of joy. She's faced a lot - a widow raising two kids in the end of times - yet it's still there. That spark. The one I worried might not make it; apparently nuclear fallout is less soul-crushing than high school or college.

I shrug. "I can always swing by the farm supply store anyway. See if I can find anything useful, or better yet mechanical." Electrical appliances have lost their appeal, given our little generator can only power so much at a time.

"We'll make it a few more weeks yet." Her smile weakens a bit, as I realize she's worried. I give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"Hey - you know I go stir crazy down here, right? No worries."

"I know you workout more than you ought to, and your 'slow metabolism' isn't a problem anymore." She glares at me, the skinny black hair falling out of her hair tie. I just shrug.

"Gotta stay strong, otherwise ya'll might vote me off the island."

"Then I'd have nobody else to beat in Tripoli."

"True, your kids hate old school cards but they still beat your ass every time."

"They've beat you too."

"That's not a hard feat, you know. And isn't tonight my turn to pick?" I point to my own stack of board games against the wall, my sad contribution to our bunker setup. Not as cool as the aquaponics setup, which my friend had started up years ago when pandemics were the most of our worries.

"Fine. We'll beat you at whatever game you choose."

"I'm so happy your family took me in out of the kindness of your hearts." I roll my eyes.

She smiles, her eyes softening. "I'm so happy you made it out here before...the bombs." We don't mention the funeral that brought me out. We don't mention that I came alone, or that after the bombs fell the few news reports that got out in the aftermath basically showed my old home in vaporized ash, the West Coast wiped out by the first round of nukes. "I don't know that I could do this alone."

I give her a hug, flexing my carefully developed muscles. "You're right - those girls would eventually break your spirit."

Laughing, she hugs me back. "Maybe they still will."

"Then we'll go down together." I promise. As we embrace our rings bump against each other, silent symbols of our mutual grief.

"Eww."

"What?"

"You smell like fish."

And like that, our grief is set aside for more important things. Like 101 ways to cook tilapia.