The Apocalypse Reader (40 page)

WAITING ROOM UPON waiting room ... None of us knew where to go. I felt like I was killing her with my stupidity. We carried her, each of us taking a side. I had my arm around her back with Calc so I could feel how skinny she really was.

When we found it we put her on the table. She crumpled the paper beneath her like fresh grass. I imagined us all somewhere far away. When the doctor came in, she reached down and revealed her leg.

The dolt-)r didn't have any reaction, but the rest of us hadn't seen anything like this yet.

"Oh, Jule," I murmured.

But then I wished I hadn't said anything cause she looked ashamed, like what had happened to her was her fault. I remembered the glass.

Doctor inspected her silently for a moment, keeping in her opinion which we all desperately wanted to know. She held her leg like a golf club. Then she said, "I'm afraid we're very late with this one."

"I don't understand," Maria said, looking at Jule.

"Just say what you mean," she said.

"We're going to have to remove your leg."

Jule made a new expression that seemed to change the whole shape of her face, like just by the doctor's words she had become a different kind of person.

Maria's face changed too, but slower. "No way," she said once she got it. "No way, we get you out of here."

"You're in the best hands with us," the doctor scolded. She got louder as we left the room. "This is serious!" her voice echoed down the hall.

We were bringing Jule back across thin carpet, maneuvering through dying crowds, shoving our way into the elevator ... and before we even made it down, I had a thought that felt forbidden. Why should she care about her leg when we're all going to die soon anyway?

WE'RE ALL up there, in the lab. Jule stretched out on a thin shelf, Calc and Maria cleaning her, among horseshoes and broken mirrors, a comforting bucket of stolen medicines. Everything looked so dirty, Maria's green dreads reminded me of mold just then, even though she looked pretty. Jule lay like an ancient statue, or a model for one, moving as little as possible. The others brought up the leg and a syringe. Then they said to her, "You do it." She injected herself with something green, then ate some pills that looked metal. Then they all sat around and told her how great they thought she was.

"Jule, you a beautiful woman. You deserve great life and you will once get."

"The goddess of the apocalypse ..."

"We love you, Julia," Calc said easily.

They looked at me.

"Yeah, what they said," I told her from the doorway. The smile I gave her felt physically painful, and her expression didn't change.

I left as soon as they started burning leaves and dancing around her.

Heading down the crooked hall I could see it was almost dark out. In a room I claimed as mine I sobbed alone, watching the sunny day end and not being able to do a thing about it.

FOR A LONG time she stayed anchored to the lab, gazing at the glasscovered sea and crying out when she wanted something. And sometimes she just cried, animal wails we could not comprehend. But mostly she was silent and concentrative, as if working on something inside herself that no one else could reach. She got instructions on how to breathe. We brought her food and things to do. Two more trips to the medical warehouse went by. And after we let her leave her place on the shelf she still stayed, huddled like a worm under the mildew ceiling, till the others brought her out and only then did she realize that she could walk.

No one was in agreement on whether the leaves had anything to do with it, but before the season's change her malady had begun to evaporate. The mark divided into spots that resembled old bruises. We assailed her with science and religion, so like reverse gunfire her wounds cleared up; the colors on her leg went white. For the first time in my life I didn't hate technology. We could all see what the doctor said, that she was going to be alright. She would die intact.

PAST A YELLOW sunrise up from the coast, almost too far away to see a black castle-factory, from miniature abandoned cities, our own ghost town became visible again. The day was silent so far, like allowing for whatever needed to happen.

I was taking care of Jule today, not that she needed taking care of, but she didn't need not to be so I brought her in some pills and oranges, sat with her through far-away test blasts, each of us barely making out the benign puffs that beat like an awkward drum as I cleaned her and wrapped her back up.

"Thanks," she said in a way that made it seem true even though it wasn't an opinion. Then she asked, "What time is it?"

I smiled and said I didn't know.

Only when I left to gather more supplies did it occur to me how far away the future was. No matter the time, it just didn't exist. For me and Jule, we prepared for it, working constantly to prevent another infection with whatever moments we had left. And I knew that I'd been wrong. That it did matter what happened to her, just today, or any day. Everything mattered as long as it was still happening. I gathered the iodine and gauze among the mess, and an empty Easter basket and an old valentine just for the hell of it. I didn't want to let go of anything.

THAT NIGHT I'M on a mattress in the torture room, but I can't sleep so I get up, shuffling through complete darkness into the next few rooms. I stop and stand in each of them, smiling at the cool breeze that finds its way in through poorly covered windows. I feel like I'm somewhere far away, and yet this is my home. This is where I should be. I come to the last room on the floor and stop before I go inside.

Jule is inside masturbating. I hear her facing the other way, jerking and whimpering, crying almost, like she has more on her mind than her body again. She sounds so lonely I wonder if I should go in there, if she would want me to. I think about when I would have wanted someone to, just about anyone at the time so maybe she could accept me, but then there were also times when I just needed to be alone, to where I wouldn't even have acknowledged anyone's presence if they tried. I listen some more and decide that she doesn't want me to, but that I want to so much that I'm going to go in there anyway, despite what she wants. That I don't care what she wants, and how I could convince her that I'm what she wants and how happy we'd be together, until I realize she's not alone after all. There is Calc now too, making noise, probably impregnating someone I should be loving like a sister if at all. And it's better this way, I know. There's nothing I want enough to take it from someone else. Not because it's wrong, because I really don't care enough, about anything. And I think it's fitting then, that I'll die.

THAT MORNING I didn't even have a chance to wake up. I was already sleep-running through the rooms, looking for the others. I must have fallen asleep about five minutes ago.

When I get downstairs Z is there, looking straight up. When he sees me he runs over. He grabs me by the shoulders and shouts.

"They're exploding bombs in the sky!"

I run outside to look up and see but I've already heard the blasts right above us, so that I'm having trouble hearing anything else. It doesn't sound like the recordings, or my nightmares. People everywhere must be surprised. But we saw it coming from miles away.

I'M WORRIED ABOUT Jule, can't find her now. I'm standing on the gray shoreline, bent under an orange sky. Calc is crouched at the very edge, facing the horizon. I want to call out to him but it's too loud. I want to ask him what he's going to do. Instead I watch him stand Olympic with his arms outstretched, hesitating one moment. In that moment he looks back at me, smiling as he dives forward into still water and starts to swim.

CROSSING INTO CAMBODIA

Michael Moorcock