The E Utopia Project by Kudakwashe Muzira

George exclaimed
with rage. “I risk my life to save you and you call me an asshole?”
    Before Sara could say
anything, he pulled her down. She tried to push him away but he pinned her to
the ground with all his might. She gave up her struggle when she realized he
was too strong for her. Weeping, she surrendered herself to his will. There was
nothing that he could do now that could hurt her more than what he did three
years ago.
    He rolled away from her when
he realized she was weeping.
    “Sara, this isn’t the time to
cry?” He looked up, his eyes scanning the sky. “You have to be strong for us to
get through this.”
    Sara looked at the sky and
her gaze followed his till she spotted an aircraft.
    “What’s that?’ she asked,
sobbing.
    “It’s a drone,” George said.
“I think it’s looking for us. We have to lie low.”
    “Is that why you pinned me to
the ground?” she asked.
    “Of course. Why do you think
I did it?”
    “I thought... I thought... I
thought you wanted to...”
    “Jesus!” George exclaimed
with horror. “Did you actually think I wanted to rape you?”
    “I’m sorry, George. I wasn’t
thinking straight.”
    “I risk my life to save you
and this is the way you thank me?”
    “Please forgive me, George.”
    “As Director of GEMA you have
so much gotten used to being around prominent people that you think that all
ordinary folks like me are scum.”
    “George, I said I’m sorry.”
    “Before the rape accusation
you called me an asshole if I remember correctly.”
    “I’m sorry for calling you an
asshole. I overreacted.”
    “Overreacted! That’s an
outrageous understatement.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said
breathlessly. “That was totally uncalled-for.”
    George took off the breathing
machine and handed it to her. She grabbed it and hastily put it on. She needed
the breathing machine more as a mask to hide her blushing face than as a source
of oxygen.
    If anyone had told her that
she would one day ask George for forgiveness, she would have told him that he
was nuts. She was sorry for her wrong assumption about why he pinned her to the
ground, and she was grateful to him for saving her life, but that didn’t mean
that he was back in that special place that he used to occupy in her heart. No
matter what he did for her, he would never occupy that place again. Never, a
voice shouted in her ears.
    The drone made circles above
them for two minutes before it left.
    “Let’s move,” George ordered,
springing to her feet. “I think the drone is searching the area on the other
side of the road. We’ve gone far enough in the woods not to be seen from the
road. Now we turn and go parallel to the road. The Interstate 90 is not far
away from here. If we walk fast we will get to it in minutes.”
    She sprang to her feet and
followed him like a little girl who was trying to catch up with her dad.
    “It’s my turn now!”
    She took off the breathing
machine and handed it to him.
    “What did you do to the
gunman?” He asked, putting on the machine. “Is he your boyfriend or something?”
    “I finished with boyfriends
when you broke up with me,” Sara said, breathing fast.
    “Broke up with you? Sara, you
broke up with me. You simply shut me out.”
    “I didn’t break up with you.”
    “This isn’t the time for us
to do a postmortem of our relationship,” George said, increasing his pace. “If
we don’t get out of here fast, some medical examiner would soon be doing a
postmortem of us.”
    They walked in silence for
more than half a kilometer, exchanging the breathing machine after every fifty
meters or so.
    “Sara, they are looking for you
with drones. What did you get yourself into? Whose toes did you step on?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know?” His eyes
searched the sky for the drone. “Someone shot at you, chased at you and sent a
drone after you and you tell me you don’t know.”
    She stumbled on a tree root
and staggered. She had to hug a tree trunk