Afterland Read online

  All of our neighbors were running out of their houses as well. Suddenly, one of them pointed to the sky and shouted “Look!”

  As everyone reacted, the sound of an entire neighborhood gasping in shock filled the air. An enormous cloud of ash was rising, spreading in our direction, and blocking out the entire horizon. It was so vast and expanding so quickly, it took only several minutes for the sun to dim. It was then that we understood for the first time exactly what scale of disaster we were dealing with.

  The sheer enormity of the thing kept everyone riveted in place for a moment. At this point, I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer and they began to flow freely, accompanied by the terrified sound of my gasps. My mother recovered quickly and pressed me to her chest so that I wouldn’t see the chaos. I listened to the frightened beating of her heart and felt the salt of my tears in my mouth.

  Everybody in our neighborhood had a motorboat at the time. It was clear that we wouldn’t be able to escape by car since the roads were collapsing, so we took our chances with the river. We begin to run towards the boat. We’ll survive if we only make it...But the air is so thick and the ground so fluid...

  In the dream, we never make it to the boat. The mud of the yard begins to swallow us. The ash piles up faster than we can escape it. I can barely breathe. I can’t see. I can’t feel my parents. They’ve probably already been absorbed into the ground. And now, the mud and ash almost swallow me…

  I wake up shuddering and covered in a cold sweat. My hands are over my head and my mouth opened in a scream that never came out. Every day I sink deeper and deeper. Someday, I know I won’t wake up before it consumes us. I can’t stop my shaking. I know that it is only a dream. But it feels so real. I hoped that I would eventually learn to be aware in my dreams and that somehow, that it would make it better. But that didn’t happen. For the entirety of the dream, the Eruption is reality again. And the fear is real. The fear is realer than anything else.

  In actuality, it was different. We did make it to the boat. My mother and I got below deck. All I remember after that was not knowing which way was up and hearing my mother whispering more words. We rode away for hours. When we finally got up on deck, the scene outside was devastating: everything was covered in a thick layer of ash. The sun was blocked out. The highway nearby was at a standstill; what looked like a mountain of cars had collided at an intersection. A corpse floated by. I pressed my face into my mother’s leg as she surveyed the carnage around us. I didn’t want to believe, couldn’t believe that this, whatever it was, had happened, that my world has been reduced to an ashen wasteland, that this could spell the end for me.

  Later, it was found out that some extremely rich and powerful organization had managed to drop a nuclear bomb on every super-volcano on Earth and forced the eruption of most of them. They also hired planes to spread metallic dust throughout the atmosphere. All of it was radioactive. It was all so cold, so calculated, so powerful. I can’t imagine ever having that much control.

  For many months, even breathing was dangerous. We weren’t prepared for the toxic air. And we weren’t prepared for the cold.

  We didn’t think that all the ash and dust could out many of the sun’s rays, ending Summer. We didn’t realize that the agriculture worldwide would be devastated. We watched helplessly as economies collapsed worldwide and metropolises around the world lay in ruins. We did nothing except run as millions were left homeless. Even after thirteen years, the Earth hasn’t shown signs of getting better.

  They called it a volcanic winter.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was a human winter. And we simply weren’t prepared for that kind of power.

  I wrap my blankets tighter around myself and shiver. Most of the year is unpleasant. Winter is brutal. Merciless. A quarter of Hopetown’s population is wiped out. Every Spring, I wonder how the human race hasn’t gone extinct. After the roads are plowed enough for a sled to get through, short straws are drawn for who from the snow cleaning crew will take all the dead bodies out. They don’t even bury them properly, just throw them into a large ditch in the woods. Hundreds of lives are just thrown away. I hate it. I’ve seen the sled ride through Centre Street and I still can’t comprehend how much is lost every winter. I dread the day the sled rides through Hopetown. Even more, I dread the day I’ll be the one riding it.

  The first snow used to be a beautiful experience, that much I remember from before the Eruption. My mother called the snowflakes dancing fairies and we would watch together as the entire neighborhood transformed into a snowy dreamland.

  The snow that falls now isn’t a dance of fairies. It is a march of executioners. The first snow is the unspoken question that everybody is afraid to ask: who’s next? I hate living like that - in a state of constant uncertainty. I don’t want to go to bed each night not knowing for sure that I’ll wake up in the morning. It fills me with a subconscious fear that invades every other part of my being. How can anybody live like that?

  A long time ago, someone said, Live every day as if it was your last. He meant to live each day to the fullest, but when each day could actually be your last… The only way you live is in fear. I want to live each day to the fullest, I really do. I want each day of my life to have a meaning. But in this bleak hellhole of a town, which is just a tiny corner in a bleak hellhole of a world, living life to the fullest is pretending that you’re not here.

  The worst thing about the Tragedy, I think, is that to this day, nobody knows exactly why it happened. We need an explanation, a justification, rather, for all the futures that were obliterated in the Blast.

  But we still know nothing.

  Even the group that did it has remained nameless. It was beyond the power scale of any known terrorist group, but many people theorize that it was an unknown group of terrorists that lay low and formed under the nose of international governments, waiting for the right moment to devastate the world.

  That isn’t the only version, of course. The identity of the Blasters is speculated constantly. Some say it was a government experiment gone wrong. Some say it was a government experiment gone right. Some blame foreign governments. Every possible group on the planet has been stuck with the blame, but since any research organization that could have told us for sure got wiped out, there remains no definitive answer. Each year the trail gets colder, and we’ll probably never know.

  But I want to know. Knowing whose name to curse would take the blame off of me, somehow, for not doing anything to change it. I know I’m not doing anything because I can’t, but still: is there really nothing I can do? It is my life after all, isn’t it? Still my decision what to do with it.

  Isn’t it?

  Perhaps not. We live under a set of rules, both natural and imposed, that make it impossible for us to leave and difficult to change. I used to spit at the door of the Hopetown senate every time I passed it, but I soon realized that it did nothing for me and only amused the senators. Besides, the fools sitting inside the white walls of the senate were just taking orders from the Continental Governing Body, the tyrannical group of warlords who took over after the old government collapsed. Many have blamed them for the Eruption. Very few have been able to stand up to them, as all uprising that was found was crushed. And besides, nobody really wanted to rebel after the executions. I shiver at the thought.

  Some people still hope. Somewhere out there is the Rebellion, the most powerful anti-CGB group. It is the only organization has gotten anywhere near making a difference. It has been able to foil several of their small control plots and is universally revered by the townspeople of every small town within several hundred kilometers of the coast.

  But those mythical beings are far away from here, and so is the CGB, and all the sad lot of us have left to do is shovel snow and serve drinks and force ourselves to stay awake until our eyes fall out.

  How long can I stay awake? I wonder. The most I’ve slept in the last several months is six hours one night. Eventually, my body will take wha
t it needs. But not now. I don’t want to relive the Tragedy again. I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I...don’t...want….

  My eyes close. I don’t dream of the Blast anymore, but my sleep is still restless. I wake up in three hours and don’t fall asleep anymore. I don’t need much; my mind has taken all that it can deal with.

  It’s still dark outside, but the sun will rise soon. I have approximately three hours until my shift starts. I grab a stale piece of bread from the cellar and a slightly deteriorating book from under my bed, then throw my snowshoes out the window, following them, not to disturb my parents with the loud creaks of the door. I begin to walk to the ocean. The morning air is crisp and cold. I let it run through my body, clearing away the nightmares.

  The only way in and out of the Hopetown is Centre Street. It’s filled with the stench and moans of a hungover population. Why do they get drunk each night if they know that they’ll wake up the next morning miserable?

  Part of me understands exactly why, but I suppress that part as much as I can.

  The Gate is open, as always. It used to concern me: everyone had lost everything. We should keep the Gate closed. Thievery is everywhere. People don’t have anything to live off of anymore. A place like Hopetown seemed a center for crime. It took me several years to realize that the Gate was open because Hopetown, too, had nothing to steal. And if somebody did steal, it was just a tradeoff. One person for another. In a world like this, who doesn’t matter. How many does.

  The open Gate is an invitation: You want to steal something? Come and get it. Then, when the thief would stumble out, the Gate would laugh. I have nothing. I am just like you. And I don’t fear you.

  I walk out of the Gate in a relaxed hurry. I feel its eyes on me. I turn around to look it in the face and spit out the words,“Screw you.” Maybe I do feel a little stupid talking to a Gate, but it’s the best thing in Hopetown to talk to. It doesn’t respond. It doesn’t have to.

  I keep moving towards the ocean. My eyes adapt to the dark quickly and I can hear the waves. When I come closer, I can see that a salmon run is in the middle of its migration. It’s even more spectacular in the dark. Everything is better in the dark. I crush the bread in my fingers and throw the crumbs into the ocean. Small flashes of light rise up, competing with each other for bread. Do their lights go out when they die? That would be symbolic in a twisted sort of way. If all of us are lights, then we would wink out at our death. The real question is, will the shadows that we used to cast remain?

  The tide is high now, and the ocean restless. The glowing salmon are tossed about in the waves. Their light illuminates the white foam in a strange green light. The salmon and I, we have a strange relationship. They fascinate me. The Blast gave them light. How amazing is it that a creature that was ordinary before a disaster can become extraordinary after? The Tragedy broke the human race, but it lifted the salmon above what they could ever have been without the Blast.

  But when I throw them bread, they rush to it, fight over it. Their basic instincts have remained the same, even though they have been transformed. We humans like to think that we’re above the rest of the planet’s species, but no other species has screwed itself over like we have. Now, we are just as low as everyone else - not much more than our basic instinct. Our problem was that we denied our nature, even when it was leaking out of us. We ended up fighting our battles on someone else’s playing field, and when we broke it and fell back down onto the abandoned, unevolved field that was meant for us, we had to build from the ground. The rest of the Earth, at least, isn’t constantly in an identity crisis.

  While I throw the salmon my bread, the sun rises. The ocean refracts the sunlight into small sunbeams dancing across the sand. I pick up a stone and throw it. It skips five times. How much time have I spent skipping stones in my life? I wonder. For a long time, I didn’t have much else to do. I begged my parents to work. For two years, I brought it up every day at dinner. Every time, they brushed me off. It was too dangerous, they said. There are too many accidents, too many things that happen on purpose. And we have enough money anyway, they said. I told them that money wasn’t why I wanted work, even though we could definitely use another income with everything becoming more and more expensive by the year. The taxes are a good thing, they said. It means that our money is going towards the benefit of the city. They would repeat it over and over, although every week, that sentiment became weaker. We all knew that the taxes were going straight into the pockets of the senators.

  Screw the money, I told them. I needed a sense of accomplishment. They asked me if I would feel accomplished if I died under terrible work conditions. I didn’t answer. Because the truth is, I would. But I couldn’t say that, not to my parents.

  So I begged and begged, and in the summer of my fifteenth year when the taxes had risen so high that we were barely able to pay them, they relented. I started work in a bar. My parents protested, but it was the best option I had. My father asked me to work in his furniture shop, but I declined; I knew he didn’t have the time to teach me the trade. My mother said that she could secure me a position at our local hospital; according to her, I have enough of a basic understanding of medicine to become an entry level nurse, which I don’t believe. I’ve seen what the nurses do, and I can’t do a quarter of it. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to be surrounded by death and suffering all the time. There’s enough of that on the streets as it is. And the truth is, I don’t want to work with my parents. I love them more than anything else in the world, but they represent a world that could have been, a world that should have been, a world that wasn’t. I don’t want that to leak into the rest of my life. So bar-keeping it is. I’ve learned to numb myself to it. I never thought a task could be mundane to the extent that it would take my mind off of all my sharper pains.

  After I throw the last crumb, I open the book to the page I folded over. It was one of the few books that survived the blast. Les Miserables. How appropriately ironic. I read out loud to the waves.

  “‘It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One vegetates, that is to say, one develops in a certain meagre fashion, which is, however, sufficient for life. This is the mode in which the existence of Marius Pontmercy was arranged.’”

  It has always been the same, apparently. Hundreds of years have passed, and the human race only regressed back into the eighteen-hundreds. It collapsed under its own weight.

  “‘He had passed the worst straits; the narrow pass was opening out a little in front of him. By dint of toil, perseverance, courage, and will, he had managed to draw from his work about seven hundred francs a year. He had learned German and English; thanks to Courfeyrac, who had put him in communication with his friend the publisher, Marius filled the modest post of utility man in the literature of the publishing house.’”

  At least the Marius character had something to live for, something to fill his days with. What am I supposed to do with my life? What happens when I throw every stone on the beach, read every book under my bed, serve every drink in the world? What happens when I can’t put off my life anymore? What then? There are some parts of my life, parts of myself that I can’t deal with. I’ve managed to bury them for now. But they’re growing inside me. What happens when they become too large to contain? When the dam breaks, I don’t think I’ll be able to repair it.

  I hurl a stone into the ocean as hard as I can.

  What happens then? What do I do then?

  I watch the salmon. If I hadn’t known the reason for their light, I would have found it magical. If I hadn’t known why it was so silent, I would have found it serene. But I do know. I once found it eerie. Then I thought it was sad. Now, it seems that the ocean is mocking us for being afraid of what we do not understand.

  But I sit here alone, listening to the silence, because if nothing else, it’s more magical and more serene than Hopetown. I look at the ocean. For many years, I wished t
hat a ship would come sailing over the horizon, and then all of my suffering would just end. I laugh at that now. Our sufferings are beyond an imaginary ship now. And even if one did sail over, what would we say to those who came on it? Go back before it’s too late.

  I feel an arm on my shoulder.

  “Come home for breakfast.” It is my mother’s voice. I squeeze her hand and muster a smile with the last of my will. I hope it looks convincing, but she can probably see straight through it.

  “Yes, I’m coming. Sorry.” We ski back to Hopetown.

  “Do you like it?” My mother asks, nodding towards the book clutched in my hand.

  “Les Miserables? Yes, it’s very...well, accurate.”

  “Hm. It used to be one of my favorite books as a kid.” Then after a pause, she adds quietly, “But I never thought I’d end up living it,”

  “Nobody did.”

  I cover my nose with my sleeve as we enter Centre Street. The door to our hut creaks as we open it.

  “Molly, there you are. I was worried.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Breakfast is getting cold,” my mother says. “Let’s eat.”

  I wonder if they, too, realized that every single day is exactly the same. Every day, the exact same words, the exact same patterns. It has to stop eventually. I watch my father stir his oatmeal meditatively, dragging it from one side of the plate to the other, until he puts down the spoon.

  “We got a message this morning,” he says darkly, .

  “From whom?” my mother furrows her brow. We don’t get mail often, and when we do, it’s not ever good.

  “The CGB.” My ears perk up and my father sighs. “They’re raising our taxes again.” We sit in silence for a moment. We can barely pay our taxes now. Too much more would completely break us.