Afterland (3 page)

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 what 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 that 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.

“How...how much? We can handle a little extra,” my mother says quietly. But my father shakes his head.

“Not this time around. They’re raising it ten percent.” I slam my spoon down on the table.

“
Ten percent
? Are they crazy? That’s- that’s obscene!”

“Be quiet, Molly, you don’t want them to hear. Yes, maybe it is a little high, and-”

“A
little
?”

“-and we might have to sell...well a lot of things, and-”

“What if we don’t pay?”

“You know perfectly well what happens.” My father says. And I do.

Execution.

“There must be towns outside of CGB control.
Somewhere
we can go, someplace that-” I say, standing up and pushing my chair aside.

“There aren’t,” he cuts me off.

“How do you know that?” I ask, but before he can answer, my mother intervenes.

“Listen, Molly, I know it will be tough, but-”

“But
nothing
! They can’t do that! How many people in Hopetown can afford a ten percent increase in taxes? None! This is
thousands
of people that we’re talking about! Thousands of people that will starve or die because all their money is being sucked up, and for what? What is it paying for? Our health? Our town? It’s paying for the senators to get drunk. It’s all for nothing!”

“There’s nothing we can do, Molly.”

“And why not, Mom?”

“Because they have that right and that power. There is
nothing
we can do.”

“The
right?
” I sputter. “Really? They have the
right?
They have the right to make us starve? Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen if we don’t stand
do
something about this!”

My mother stands up and looks me in the eye.

“Would you rather be on the run for the rest of your life? Would you rather have nothing except for the feeling of hatred and the thirst for revenge? Would you rather find yourself alone and abandoned and realize that you wasted your entire life on an empty whim that ended up helping nobody? Do you want to find yourself in five years questioning and regretting every decision you ever made, wondering why you chose that path and cursing your own name? Would you rather die alone and completely empty inside, having left nothing behind except for stories of what not to do? Because
that
and
only
that is what awaits you if you do.” The vehemence in my mother’s usually gentle voice stuns me into submission.