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He stepped outside into the humid air of early June.
“I’m going to talk to Mr. Hatley, see if anyone else has seen Emilia or Fernando. Stay inside the house.” He left promptly and disappeared across the street.
The heat from the day had begun to burn off, but our small house was filled with it, and I felt like I was slowly roasting away in an oven. I stayed at the window, desperate for the meager breeze that crept in through the screen, and I watched for my father to return. The sound of a million cicadas singing and crickets chirruping and frogs croaking filled the early evening; the distinct call of a Whippoorwill sounded in a melodious song as the night settled in. I always loved the call of the Whippoorwill. It filled my mind with peace, made me forget about the chaotic world that went on all around us.
“I wish the world had never ended,” Sosie spoke up from her favorite chair by another window, pulling me from my peaceful thoughts.
I sighed, uncrossed my arms.
“The world didn’t end, Sosie,” I said. “Just life as we ever knew it.”
“Isn’t that basically the same thing?”
I shook my head.
“No,” I answered. But also like my father, I often hid what I really felt. Yes, it’s basically the same thing, Sosie…
“Well, end of the world or not,” Sosie said, “I’m glad I have my little sister to brave it with.”
I looked over, smiled softly at her.
“Me too,” I said. “Without you, the end of the world would be terribly boring.”
Sosie laughed lightly, tossed her blonde hair back with the delicate gesture of her hand. “But of course it would,” she said dramatically. “I’m the life of this party, didn’t you know?” She grinned.
I smiled back at my sister, a mask covering the dismal thoughts that lay beneath it.
Civilization ended on a hot July day when I was only eleven-years-old; the day people died off quickly from The Sickness that spread too fast and too far for anyone to contain it. Civilization as everyone knew it, was over, taken back to a time in history that no one in the modern world fed by privilege and luxury and complacency, could fathom.
After The Fall, there was no such thing as magic water that spilled forth from a magic faucet. There were no stocked warehouses with giant automatic doors, and shopping carts that people could fill to the brim with food they might never get around to eating. There were no more hospitals to treat the sick, or police officers to save lives, or churches to nurture souls. When civilization fell, it fell like an intricate maze of dominoes. Electricity—gone. Clean running water—gone. Disneyland and television and the Internet and Saturday trips to the park with our mother and Friday nights with our father at the movies—gone, gone, gone, gone. Everything we ever knew, vanished within months following The Outbreak.
And with the loss of society, also came the loss of freedom: Raiders formed in the Big Cities, and they marched across the countryside like a hailstorm, pillaging food and supplies; they tore able-bodied boys and men from their families, and forced them to fight in corrupt armies for corrupt leaders who preached corrupt beliefs. And women not past childbearing age were taken into the cities and made to reproduce—made to reproduce.
“Don’t ever let a man take from you what isn’t his to take,” my mother warned shortly before her death. “They’re taking everything else. You’re all you have left; yourselves and each other.”
I grew up bearing the weight of the truth about my mother’s death, never wanting my sister to know. Sosie couldn’t handle the truth; it would destroy what little there was left of her, destroy her utterly, push her over the edge. Sosie was a damaged soul. Weak. Broken. Broken by the loss of her sight, the loss of everything she had ever known and loved about life before The Fall. Broken by our mother’s death. Sosie Fenwick was a landmine just waiting to be stepped on. If I had ever told her the truth about our mother, it would have been what finally set her off.
So, with my secrets and my mask of bravery and my motherly efforts that often fell short, I went on living—existing—in a dangerous world much bigger than I would ever be. Life in the mountains, hidden away from the raiders and the Big City leaders and the chaos and the death and the slavery, was, in a sense, peaceful. Life went on. But every day that succeeded it left me feeling the dread of inevitability. I knew that our quiet, secretive life in the mountains would not last forever. Every night when I closed my eyes, I imagined it. And every morning when I opened them, I expected it.
“Thank you for the fish,” Sosie said with a smile in her voice.
I looked up, the terrible images running through my thoughts still there. They were always there.
“Anything for you,” I said, returning the smile. “Even if you’re an impossible girl sometimes.” I grinned.
Sosie laughed. But her playful mood was short-lived.
“I hate it that I can’t do the things you can do,” she said. “I feel so worthless.”
“You’re not worthless,” I scolded. “Don’t ever say that. You do plenty.” It was important I made sure Sosie always felt valuable, needed.
“And I have to say,” I went on, “you recite the most beautiful poetry, and for a little while you make me forget about all of this. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You like my poetry?” Sosie’s voice held an undertone of surprise.
“Of course I do! You wait and see”—I pointed at her—“your name will be mentioned with the likes of Baudelaire and Poe and Angelou someday—long after you’re dead, of course.” I chuckled.
Sosie’s cheeks flushed, and she couldn’t keep the smile from her face, though she made an effort. Compliments were never easy for Sosie, who stayed down on herself because of her handicap. Feeling sorry for herself was her only flaw, I thought.
