Tristan and the Apocalypse 3
By Asa Montreaux, pen name Andrew James
Our transit time was quick. There were very few people there to meet us. After we exited the plane, we were carted over to another area nearby, where the car was waiting. There was no driver; I would be driving. There was only directions inside. And keys.
We were halfway to Northern Scotland, slowly nearing Edinburgh, and Maisie said something doesn’t feel right. We have gotten so much responsibility.
Are you sure? We are only driving?
It feels like an impossible mission to drive across this, it essentially is enemy territory. And the how the hell are we supposed to sort things out from this fort house?
You don’t think I can do those kind of things?
I don’t know. I don’t see why you would.
It’s alright. Most of us don’t believe in destiny.
Scotland always scared me. It reminded me of blood battles of the past. The moors, the landscapes, made me think of cold and famine. If someone were to ask me about Scotland, I would complain about the weather, but I really mean to complain about the climate of it, the very soul of it, really.
We have travelled a long ways now. Our mobility, our focus, was already impressive I think. We worked remarkably well together, though the toughest challenges lay ahead, and our deepest character would be tested later on, if one were to feel that our integrity and such would be the essence and the making of what is the result of the war, the battle, the resistance.
*
There was a gate, and I had to get out of the car, and unlock it with one of the keys. I pulled it open. It dragged along grass that had grown in, and then I brought the car through. The drive way was long and wide, and the house stood there, three stories, positively haunted, full of mystique, and honour.
The door was old, and it had trouble turning, but it did give away with ease. It was thick and it was not rotted. The house was thick as well but I think it might have to do as much with the temperatures, as with the threats coming from outside. We hurried in, and found that it wasn’t much different from the other houses we had been in.
It was dark, and it was still cold. There was heat, and after I turned it on it warmed up in a few minutes. I am not sure what we were supposed to do now. Really, I think we were supposed to wait. We were supposed to look for clues. We were survivors. We were rescues. And yet we were undercover. And we would live. And we would be looking for something.
Everything was going to be okay, I thought. It wasn’t as scary as I’d anticipated. It wasn’t as scary as the congressman had said. But I was still sceptical. Maybe, later on, it would be unsafe. Something that we couldn’t handle would come upon us. And I thought about if he knew it would be an internal struggle. Externally it was easy, but internally, it was a whirlwind.
It was funny. There was no activity on the grounds. For the first few days, I didn’t take any walks. There was a town, but it was a long ways away. It was the fourth day and I went on a drive by myself into town. I didn’t really have anywhere to buy anything. But there were a few people on the streets. There were military personnel on the major street, near there vehicles. They stared at me, but I didn’t seem to perk the attention of the handful of civilians, which was odd.
When I got back I hadn’t told Maisie I had gone. She wasn’t worried though. Allister was somewhat worried. A few days later we would go out and try and find some things out. We weren’t supposed to do much for the first couple of weeks. I think we felt safe, and relieved to be here. We didn’t feel threatened. And it was peculiar how none of us seemed to be grieving, despite that we all were absolutely sad about the people who had died.
I always wonder if I can console someone. More than whether I can rely on someone else, I wonder how much I can promise other people. Only so much. I always thought the best thing was just to promise you’d be there always, even though you wouldn’t, because one day you would be there.
Anyways. The days went by, only three or four of them. One day I didn’t know where Maisie was. She went for a walk. She hadn’t gone into town but just through the forest.
Find anyone?
No. Funny you should ask. I was just looking for something.
Interesting. Was it something useful.
No. Not really. Just trees and some fields.
Any animals?
No. I heard some birds.
Well. That’s nice.
In that way we were safe a little farther than the property. I think in some ways all they wanted us to find out was what it was like here. But no. We had more to figure out.
The first time we would go into town was two days later. We got in the car and drove. We parked in front of a cafe. They were running on a ration system, and they had brought food over from other establishments on the street that they were preparing meals from. We weren’t really hungry, but we sat down, and that was how we found some things out. We talked occasionally, but we also listened.
There was more tables than usual to accommodate for the town. There was a couple near us, several tables of three, one woman sitting by herself. Things wouldn’t go back to normal. There had been a bomber plane headed for London but it had blown up in the ocean. The pilot had been brought down. The majority of Europe was alive. There had been a bomb in Italy and in Russia. They said it would take years to reorganize the continent. The EU wasn’t functioning. No one was sure whether the U.S. would be the U.S again. Canada only ringed in their minds as desolate and empty.
It wasn’t very warm outside. The day had been grey in the morning and it still was. It was very quiet outside, and for a ways outside it was quiet. There were several moments were no one was talking inside, and eventually, we all became aware of each other. Though no one thought of us as anything strange, as anything from far away, as anything that wasn’t honest.
Some of the things they said made Allister uncomfortable. Maisie would look at his arms shaking, and he would try to calm down. And Maisie would look down, eating slowly.
We were shocked with what we heard, and we were sorry about what happened.
Driving back to the estate, I felt content that we had found out quite a lot. Things that the congressman hadn’t known. It was hard to communicate with people far away, especially in times of crisis. And it was hard to get them to tell the truth, and harder to get them to tell the whole truth.
Here, we were on the ground, we had found out many things that were helpful for everyone in the new york office. Afterwards, we sat around the table, as if we should be in a meeting, but we were all quite silent, though. In a way, we were mourning. We were thinking of death as we were quiet, and it was interesting in that it didn’t make us feel depressed, but it weirdly made us feel a little more alive. It was more like encountering ghosts, than anything else. It was more like we had found spirits, as opposed to forever not having the alive people around.
That’s what it felt like. After a while I went and read. There was nothing to do afterwards. We weren’t supposed to reach the congressman right away. To keep cover, that’s what it was to do right now.
In the night I awoke. I figured I was a little anxious. Though I heard the wind outside. It swept across the roof of the house. It must have been 80 kilometres an hour. In the moonlight I could see some of the trees in the back wavering wildly in the wind. Sometimes the wind whistled, and I felt it might have been saying things to me, and it told me to be calm, and it told me to watch, it told me to stay outside of myself. I looked at the clock and it was nearing three. I made tea, and let my body wake up downstairs in the kitchen.
I went for a walk, and I went a little farther than Maisie. It was just after dawn, and when I was a ways from the house I wondered why I had felt so safe to come this far. I encountered a change in the atmosphere. My awareness expanded slightly, and my heart beat rose a little. I suppose this wasn’t gorilla warfare, but there had been some strange things happening.
Sometimes I just felt like an English boy taking a walk, thinking of poems. But I looked for things out of the ordinary. I didn’t come across a secret layer. My fear stayed with me. There was something unusual in the field a ways off.
There were fences, tall and barbed, and I couldn’t see what it was that was behind them. The field stretched on off beyond my vision. But I could faintly hear something. Not a buzzing, though something constant. And there was something harrowing going on inside.
I thought this was only a sign I should turn around. I denied my urge to run, trying to not act like I had seen something out of the ordinary, if someone were watching. And as I walked, I thought of what it was I had found, a vast, off bounds area, where something was happening that many people knew nothing of.
I was somber as I returned home. It seemed to me there were bad guys in this, and not all of this was nature — which we knew — but moreover, this was in part intentional. The world was sick.
I came up the porch and into the house. I went to the kitchen for some water. Maisie was awake now, and she was waiting for me.
I told her that I had been for a walk off in the field, and I told her what I had found.
That’s peculiar, she said. I thought you would find something more subtle. I thought there would be something more subtle out there. That suggested someone had played a part in this.
I was unhappier still. I’ve found that someone had more than only a part in this.
It was that we weren’t having fun after this, and everything was serious. Our lives had become something moving along an arc instead of in some circle, a work week, what have you. We had to be stronger and I didn’t feel so young, lately.
It was peculiar that we were in a new community, and I think we were to have some life here for a short time. Maisie had not rushed out into anything. We mourned and grieved and that is something that will happen in a lifetime. Disaster will happen in a lifetime, and as we moved along through the centuries, disaster seemed to multiply in intensity and rapidity.
I sat down with here. She was looking at me, a little perturbed. I seemed to have been playing a leader and someone tough when things were scary, and I laughed to myself a little. I told myself that was for Allister, but quite possibly it was for myself, my ego, and how I worried about how she perceived me. She looked pale, though she didn’t look flustered, or worried, nor careworn. It occurred to me that I look this way a little. And we had a fiercer look, together, not any older, or wiser of a look, though.
What was happening in the world was ongoing and I think we had shaken in direction, like a sail boat, so that he right away might not have been where we initially headed, and that the congressman, by way of trying to be a responsible authority, had been our wind that guided us in a new direction. Sometimes I felt that the world couldn’t be saved but that it had to be let to change. Sometimes I felt we had to open to the world, that it wasn’t where we thought it was. That it was bigger than the one we knew.
Anyways. She was sitting on the counter and I had been sitting there with her. I moved and walked around the kitchen. I felt some stress in my body. Part of me felt we needed a hell storm of things to do, and another part of me felt happy just this moment.
Sometimes I wanted to say to her, global warming was nothing new, right?
Sometimes there were planes that flew over us. I think we heard every one, because it was so quite. But it would only be once a week, approximately, that we would hear something. I guess they were going west, because it wasn’t okay to be flying east right now. It was possible to drive, if you were on some mission, but planes would be shot down.
Sometimes my heart took little flutters, palpitated, and I’d be taken aback by all the pressure. But then I’d be okay. She looked a little puzzled. I thought about why and I realized I’d been pacing. I stopped, still thinking, then I said I’m going to go upstairs.
I visited Allister’s room, and he was lying in bed. It was getting late, almost afternoon. He’d spent a few days in bed. Feeling alright Allister? I thought you might be getting sick.
No. I’m not feeling so bad, I don’t think.
Okay. Any reason your in bed again?
No reason. I’m feeling bored.
That’s why?
Yes. I feel bored. And I just am feeling in a bad mood. This is all awful.
It is pretty awful. Do you feel you’ll be in a better mood in a few days, or do you feel your becoming depressed?
I’m not sure. I think I’ll feel better.
Okay. Just get some sleep. Try not to think too much. I’ll come and check on you later, alright?
Alright.
I walked out the door. I started to go back downstairs, but I didn’t need to tell Maisie anything right away. I was just going to lie down. Then halfway to the bedroom, my heart fluttered wildly, and then I couldn’t feel my pulse for a few seconds. And I fell to the ground, and then I saw stars, and I hurt my leg, and it curled up with pain, and my head hurt, and suddenly I realized how dark and spooky the house was.
*
When I awoke from my nap. My head still hurt, though I hadn’t hit anything when I fell. I felt drained, a little feverish. I drank some cold water, and just stayed upstairs. I don’t think I had enough energy to read, or to have some chat with Maisie. I just sat there. And everything was okay for a bit.
After a while, I fell asleep again. It must have been several hours that I was on the bed asleep.
Then, there was noise downstairs. I awoke suddenly, and sat up, despite the pain in my head. There was something that was broken. It was glass. There was motion downstairs. Someone was moving around, looking for something. They weren’t being silent, but they weren’t being loud, so as to scare someone off and make them run away. They meant to find someone.
Maisie was in the bathroom. I went out into the hallway, and she had the door opened and she looked at me and I put my index finger to my mouth to say be quiet and she easily agreed. I went down the stairs, and I poked my head around the staircase and there were two men downstairs. One had a gun and the other was fishing around through the counters, looking behind things, etc. They hadn’t looked upstairs yet, but were still scouring the lower floor.
I didn’t know what to do. They looked very angry. They were moving quickly, and in a minute or two they were definitely coming upstairs. They looked slavic. They looked like they might be from Eastern Europe. They were average sized men. In shape, but built to rob and built to escape things, built to kidnap, but not like bouncers. I waited for them to stop moving. They stopped moving and they were trying to decide what to do, if they should go up the stairs, or if they should wait for someone to come out, or if maybe they should go out and see if we were running away from the house. The man with the gun was in the entryway, and he had thought about going to the door, but he had stopped, facing the door. He stood widely, trying to contemplate acutely.
I decided to make a run at him. He didn’t hear me. I was about to tackle him. I didn’t want to kill him, just to get the gun from him. I thought I might find out what it is they wanted. The other person saw me. And he yelled and pointed behind the gunman. He started to turn around. I turned slightly, and pulled down on the ground. He landed on his shoulder. The gun went off. I went for the gun right away. Holding his wrist. He fired another shot, trying to turn it at me. I swatted at his wrist, then I kicked him in the groin, and he dropped it. The other man had run over, and right when I got the gun, he was almost on top of me, and I shot his leg. He fell to the floor in pain. Then I shot the other man in the shoulder. Then I shot him again in the leg.
Allister was coming down the stairs now. He saw what had happened, and he grabbed a chair and beat them while they were on the floor. I think he wanted them to be unconscious but I told him to stop. I said to be careful but go out to the shed and grab some rope to tie them up. They both seemed to subdue as they were still losing blood. I held the gun at them in case they wanted to try to stand up.
When Allister came back, he was able to tie them up. He tied there limbs together. I told him to put there hands behind them. They looked blank at us then. Why are you here? I said.
They didn’t respond.
Why is it that you’re here? You. That had the gun. Did you come here to kill us?
Yes.
Why did no one stop you?
No one saw us. We came through the fields.
What is the reason for this?
We were sent to kill Tristan. We were sent to stop you. To stop you from gathering intelligence.
How flattering.
What is it your a part of.
It is a secret organization. We can’t speak of it.
Just reveal yourselves for me. These are things that will help me. And we can all tell who is the good guy in this. We can all tell who has everyone’s best interests at heart.
I’m sorry. You know I will not. I cannot.
I took the gun and pointed it right in front of his face. You need to tell me.
For what reason? I don’t see anything wrong.
It is called Uea, the other one said.
And what is that.
It is not important. It is too much to explain.
What should we do with them, Maisie?
I have no idea what we should do with them. Will more of them come.
No. The one who I was pointing the gun at said. You are supposed to be dead already.
We’ll have to keep them here. And we’ll have to move one from here soon. It won’t be safe here if someone discovers we are still alive… Allister, close up some of the bleeding. We have another week, a week and a half to decide what to do, and then we’ll leave. I think we have fulfilled enough of the congressman’s plans. We should close up all the blinds. Keep the noise down. Lock the doors. Double bolt them. Stay upstairs. We’ll have someone watch these two. I think we’ll be having to go east.
It was funny that when we were in an area that was supposed to be safe, we felt so watched, more than we could feel looked after. We stayed inside, and we sat upstairs thinking of what it is we should be doing.
They won’t fly us back from here, I said.
I feel that too. But why won’t they?
There not on our side. I think we are meant to accomplish more than the congressman has assigned us. Regardless of what has happened in the world, we’re meant to do something meaningful.
I don’t know what going over could hurt, as they have come across for us, and it is as if there is no difference. In our lack of flight I think we are mistaken for displaying compliance.
And in our flight?
We will escape, Maisie said
And we helped put an end to this. We’re tougher than we thought.
The hostages didn’t speak. They lay there stolidly, devoid of any more intelligence for us. One had to remember that the whole of the world was in a state, and that it was not just us that was shaken, but our enemy as well.
Ten days passed. Allister, I said. Give them some food. And we’ll leave them here. They’ll figure it out.
We drove again, away from the city, and no one was suspicious of us going this way. No one was watching. We drove and we drove away from London, and the highways weren’t patrolled up here. We drove towards the East coast, and when we could see the sea, we drove South, toward Brighton.
We found that there was no one there. We didn’t go right into the city. But we did stop along the shore, and I stood above the cliffs, and there was fog that hugged the sea, as whitecaps encountered the shores.
We hung out there for a while. Maisie rested her head on my chest. We felt very sad after all of the things we had been seeing. The wind blew madly. Though I was certain it wouldn’t lift me from my feet. And yet I think she meant to do nothing less than anchor me.
In some way we gathered our confidence, and we drove into the city. We walked into another hotel, and took the stairs up several flights. We made ourselves at home. It seemed we would be safe here. And I wondered if there wasn’t a way across the channel without having to return to London in these times.
It was spooky outside. We stayed inside for several days. We took separate rooms, the whole floor, and Maisie told me things when we were alone together that I hadn’t known before. Spooky things, stories that filled you with unease and a sense of youthful vulnerability. Sometimes I wanted to save the world by being closer with her. But I didn’t care for a happy ending. I wanted to be happy in all of our moments. People always are mistaking life for beginnings and endings.
We walked to the pier. The roller coaster was halfway submerged in water. There were still seagulls around. We climbed the ferris wheel, all the way to the top. It was a little scary. The structure seemed sound. The carts were locked. Nothing was going to move.
It’s really cold up here, Allister said.
This place is happier than the places we’ve been. But it isn’t very happy next to where we’ve come from. Do you think it is colder here than Vancouver right now, Allister? I asked.
I think so. I think there will be frost everywhere this evening. And more than just that. It is going to snow soon.
I thought that too. We should be okay just with blankets. It has been pretty warm inside.
Anyways. Maisie hasn’t been sleeping.
Maisie hasn’t been sleeping?
I haven’t been sleeping?
I think Maisie is worried. But not just about the state of things. About something in particular. But I don’t think she will tell me.
There is nothing wrong, little boy. I’m perfectly rested.
You have dark circles.
I have not dark circles.
Around your eyes.
There are none around my eyes or around Venus now quiet.
At that point. I kept up so I could climb on to the cart in front of us. It was a little risky. I turned around and smiled. I guess we won’t need to put any pictures of this on Facebook?
Don’t think so.
Even if I hang off of this with one hand?
No. Not even then.
I made a superfluous frown, and then I climbed inside the pod. I shook it lightly as if I was a slight breeze of the water. They were watching me, unperturbed. It was getting later in the day.
Then, the pod fell. It plummeted from the top of the ferris wheel to the ground. It hit the lowest pod, and then slid to the ground, making another loud thud. Maisie screamed. Allister lurched forward, shocked. They were held still for a second, there heart rates in limbo. Then they began climbing down, as quickly as they could. All the windows shattered, and there was glass everywhere. There was a huge dent in the cart. I was still inside it, and I was unconscious.
*
When I awoke I was in a small hospital. We were in London. It was two weeks later. One of the first things I felt was pain in my head. And then I felt a huge pain in my back.
It didn’t subside. My vision was blurry for several minutes. I couldn’t really feel my right leg. It was in a big cast. It didn’t take me long to remember what happened, though I couldn’t find a way to describe what had gone wrong.
I was alone for a few hours. There was no button I could buzz. I could have yelled, though I was afraid my throat would hurt, maybe my whole body. I was not sure what would happen.
After a doctor entered and he was relieved. I was awake and it looked like I would recover. He said the leg would take two months, though I would be able to move with crutches soon. They would leave me alone for the day then my friends would be in later on. They were informed I was conscious and improving.
While I lay there, and didn’t experience much except my body in pain. I thought that here we could get some info on the whereabouts of some of the people we hoped to find, info on who it was that survived. I could move my hands and I looked at my wrists as I flexed them, turned my forearms. In this moment I didn’t feel anything very special, and that’s when you find life out a little. There was no emotion that I went through. I just felt thankful to be alive, and it made me want to live my life well.
Allister came in when it had been dark for a while. He looked upset, like the fact we could nearly die and come back to life only amplified how tenuous life was for us, and I felt that not only was I more aware of the fact I was alive, but I think he was aware of life as the pulses in his heart, a life line. The accident wasn’t only about me, but it was about everyone involved. And it could have been not an accident, and maybe that’s even scarier.
Is the pain really bad?
It is pretty bad.
The doctor said you will be okay.
He told me. Has anyone wanted to speak to you?
Yes. Daphne has been looking for you. They have her in New York. I think we’ll fly back. But not right away.
Excellent. What else?
Well there is bad news. Maisie’s family has passed away. And they can’t find Dad yet.
Really?
I think so. That’s what happened.
I thought this was very bad. And it was weird that I thought that Maisie had barely seen her family for quite some time. Before this. And I had thought I wasn’t sure who it was that was her family anymore. But I thought that she would be sad. And I felt very sorry for her.
Allister sat with me for the evening. The states was becoming more organized. There were obviously a few more survivors than was thought initially. There were no communications, and now there are some. There were about one hundred million survivors, they thought.
There was a serious terrorist threat in Canada, and it was too hard to tell what was going on there now. There were several rogue forces that still wanted to take more lives.
We might not have to go east, now?
I think they will send several groups. It won’t just be us. So, yes, that’s what I heard, Allister said. It won’t be just us.
Maisie came in later in the evening. My heart sunk, I didn’t know what to say to her about what had happened, I mean about the news they gave to her. Her eyes were swollen from crying. You’re okay, she said.
I seem to be. It’s nice to see you. I think when I woke up I felt the fear that I had been dying. Otherwise all I feel is tightness and haziness from all the morphine.
That sounds quite okay for your injuries.
Are you going to be okay?
I’m not sure.
We’ll always be here for you. You’re part of your family. And I’m sorry. And I’m so hurt. I’m so sorry. One day things are going to be okay. I don’t know what to say.
She was sunken in sadness. She sat with us. In the night Allister fell asleep on the couch. Maisie sat up with me for quite a while. They’d given her a room, and eventually she went off to fall asleep. And I lay there, soon I found sleep as well, though nothing felt so easy, and my dreams were full of anxiety.
*
I was there without moving for another week. Then I was allowed to arise and take a small walk along the hallway. It was painful and it felt like walking for the first time ever. I felt wounded that I wouldn’t be my most high flying self during these times. I was sorry things would be this way. I’d had too much time without stir and my heart was restless. The doctor said I should go lie down and I was reluctant to stop, taking my time to turn around and walk back to the hospital room. It was quite cold inside and that helped with my sickness. They allowed me to lay without blanket and things. And I couldn’t wait to get the gown they had given me off.
Allister had been around the area some and people were a little more comfortable. You were allowed to leave your home now, though you weren’t supposed to walk around, just trips of necessity. People seemed to see a haze in the air, as if the whole world had taken on a new quality, the dirt, gunpowder, smoke, filling the world around us. He’d seen two gun fights, though they’d been well contained by the police, and there hadn’t been any deaths reported in a few weeks.
He said the only instructions he’d been giving were to stay here. It was going to be safe for the next foreseeable amount of time. Maybe we’ll have to stay here, he said.
I don’t know if we want to go back to the states after all of this.
It’s pretty crazy. Things are going to be very sad there. And very different.
Yes. How about the crazy weather? Will there be more?
I don’t think there will be more that they could consider part of the hurricane. But there will be. In a year or two. It might get worse.
I was quite shocked at all that had been changed. Maybe we need to see nothing but that we needed to leave. And I felt hollow thinking about where it was I was from in the first place.
*
Lying in bed, I was more at ease than I had expected. My body adjusted well to these different circumstances. There wasn’t much to do but to pay attention to my vital signs, and it gave me some small hope to see myself change to what my conditions were. I could handle not getting to move around. My heart rate stayed settled despite no exercise. I didn’t have any spots of rubbing from being in any one place to long. When I sat up, no blood rushed to my head. Sometimes Maisie would sit with me for hours. I was still myself and when it was quite we would lock the door. I felt very close to her all the time. Still I was very sad and there were many things I missed.
Allister would bring things back. He would spend our money on things to pass the time. We bought dvd’s and things. We watched movies about disasters, and it was funny how many ideas they had given us while this had been happening. Perversely this was no new ice age and that was an unexpected relief.
As I got better I realized I had been suffering from exhaustion. People get sick when there tired, and maybe that is what I had went through. An extreme tiredness. Maybe that is when people develop serious diseases, which often are complications of simple illnesses. Apparently much of the flooded water was returning to the waterways now. More people could be seen outside of their homes or places of refuge now. They are much more reserved now, but things still and the same ring of life going on about. After a month I could feel my leg getting better. At that point I could get up and walk around, and I went outside, and walked in the grounds with Maisie. There hadn’t been much for her to help with, and she had just been having to stay inside, help with me, and we mourned for her family. They had contacted my Dad and he was in Hong Kong, safe and alive. Agnes had passed away, and we had still not been able to make contact or find Daphne.
I spoke with people around about what it was we needed to do. It seemed as if we did not need to start completely anew. That much of the world’s structure was safe, though very reorganized. The history of us was part of what we were, and I’m not sure we knew how to do things in a much different way.
Safety, cities better built to withstand storms, prevent flooding, much bigger steps to fight global warning. Most of the time I felt I would never be a scientist who could fight this, but I think the job of politicians and thinkers as to what it is we need to invent, and where it is we need to invest money, what courses of action we need to take, where obviously, all very important, and as I got older, these would be the things I could do, that I would need to do, to keep making the world around us a much more secure place.
We would stay here for the foreseeable future. My restlessness seemed to express itself through my mind, and I needed to write. At first I started again with my journals, but I had so many thoughts. I started to write about our experiences. After what we had been through it would be possible to contribute something to the world, and maybe this is what it was I was supposed to do after my life had blown up.
I’d written two hundred pages. I’d been writing a novel and it was an ambition of mine for a long time, and it was time to do it. I kept it a secret, doing it when I was alone, keeping the papers in a drawer beside the bed. Maisie didn’t know. It was fun trying to hide what it was I’d been doing, especially because it wasn’t something I could be in trouble for. Also I was writing about her, something she knew I would do, and she knew when I started I didn’t tell her, and I wondered about nearly imperceptible clues that would signal this moment had come, but there probably were none.
Sometimes she looked at me funny. Nothing more though.
One day Allister asked me if he would have to go back to school.
No, I said. I’m sure you’ll finish from home one day not too far from now.
Okay, he said.
I wrote more of my novel. I wrote another fifty pages, and then I didn’t know what to write for a while. The only writer’s block I’d experienced so far meant that it was time to take a break for a while. I think people went through thinking that literature was much more than just some books sometimes, and that was the other kind of writer’s block. As if some of us would have more than a few great stories to tell.
I was trying to think of what it was I would write from my bed, when there was a knock on my door. I said to come in, and it opened, and in the doorway was the congressman.
I was happy to see him. I think he had much news for me. There was something particularly he wanted to tell me. They had located Daphne. He had a video feed on his laptop of what it was she was doing.
She looked thin and a little worn, and she was listening attentively to a companion sitting across from her. They were deciding something about the city. She was still in Toronto. The congressman said she survived underground. Now she was in a house near the university. She was sitting on the second floor. Continue to prevent entry and exit, she said. We don’t know who wants to come in, and we don’t know what they want. That they are here, without the intention of seeking help, saying they have come for another safe place, but that they are here for business, seems to imply that they had a hand in this, that they saw it coming, she said. We should patrol the border as to prevent this kind of person from jeopardizing what safety we have.
He looked as if he agreed with what she said. There was only a small number of people that were assembled.
He did have a point of criticism. This is in spite of the fact you want to go down to New York, though, Daphne. You say we need to make inroads, and perhaps we do, but how could we know that you don’t have some other motives? Why, why is it that you think I want to have you there, when things are more dangerous there than ever before?
This is important. And if you cannot trust me, then there is no hope at all.
He seemed to have no more to say right then, and she got up and left the room. There were several people there. The commotion was just like before, in that people were trying to run things here, all around the world. She wanted to tell them to act differently. She went outside and walked across the road, went another block, to a cafe. She ordered food, and she sat down to eat, and I think she was thinking of me. I wanted to be there with her, and chat about all the things that had happened, all the things that had happened to us. I couldn’t wait until I saw her.
We were halfway to Northern Scotland, slowly nearing Edinburgh, and Maisie said something doesn’t feel right. We have gotten so much responsibility.
Are you sure? We are only driving?
It feels like an impossible mission to drive across this, it essentially is enemy territory. And the how the hell are we supposed to sort things out from this fort house?
You don’t think I can do those kind of things?
I don’t know. I don’t see why you would.
It’s alright. Most of us don’t believe in destiny.
Scotland always scared me. It reminded me of blood battles of the past. The moors, the landscapes, made me think of cold and famine. If someone were to ask me about Scotland, I would complain about the weather, but I really mean to complain about the climate of it, the very soul of it, really.
We have travelled a long ways now. Our mobility, our focus, was already impressive I think. We worked remarkably well together, though the toughest challenges lay ahead, and our deepest character would be tested later on, if one were to feel that our integrity and such would be the essence and the making of what is the result of the war, the battle, the resistance.
*
There was a gate, and I had to get out of the car, and unlock it with one of the keys. I pulled it open. It dragged along grass that had grown in, and then I brought the car through. The drive way was long and wide, and the house stood there, three stories, positively haunted, full of mystique, and honour.
The door was old, and it had trouble turning, but it did give away with ease. It was thick and it was not rotted. The house was thick as well but I think it might have to do as much with the temperatures, as with the threats coming from outside. We hurried in, and found that it wasn’t much different from the other houses we had been in.
It was dark, and it was still cold. There was heat, and after I turned it on it warmed up in a few minutes. I am not sure what we were supposed to do now. Really, I think we were supposed to wait. We were supposed to look for clues. We were survivors. We were rescues. And yet we were undercover. And we would live. And we would be looking for something.
Everything was going to be okay, I thought. It wasn’t as scary as I’d anticipated. It wasn’t as scary as the congressman had said. But I was still sceptical. Maybe, later on, it would be unsafe. Something that we couldn’t handle would come upon us. And I thought about if he knew it would be an internal struggle. Externally it was easy, but internally, it was a whirlwind.
It was funny. There was no activity on the grounds. For the first few days, I didn’t take any walks. There was a town, but it was a long ways away. It was the fourth day and I went on a drive by myself into town. I didn’t really have anywhere to buy anything. But there were a few people on the streets. There were military personnel on the major street, near there vehicles. They stared at me, but I didn’t seem to perk the attention of the handful of civilians, which was odd.
When I got back I hadn’t told Maisie I had gone. She wasn’t worried though. Allister was somewhat worried. A few days later we would go out and try and find some things out. We weren’t supposed to do much for the first couple of weeks. I think we felt safe, and relieved to be here. We didn’t feel threatened. And it was peculiar how none of us seemed to be grieving, despite that we all were absolutely sad about the people who had died.
I always wonder if I can console someone. More than whether I can rely on someone else, I wonder how much I can promise other people. Only so much. I always thought the best thing was just to promise you’d be there always, even though you wouldn’t, because one day you would be there.
Anyways. The days went by, only three or four of them. One day I didn’t know where Maisie was. She went for a walk. She hadn’t gone into town but just through the forest.
Find anyone?
No. Funny you should ask. I was just looking for something.
Interesting. Was it something useful.
No. Not really. Just trees and some fields.
Any animals?
No. I heard some birds.
Well. That’s nice.
In that way we were safe a little farther than the property. I think in some ways all they wanted us to find out was what it was like here. But no. We had more to figure out.
The first time we would go into town was two days later. We got in the car and drove. We parked in front of a cafe. They were running on a ration system, and they had brought food over from other establishments on the street that they were preparing meals from. We weren’t really hungry, but we sat down, and that was how we found some things out. We talked occasionally, but we also listened.
There was more tables than usual to accommodate for the town. There was a couple near us, several tables of three, one woman sitting by herself. Things wouldn’t go back to normal. There had been a bomber plane headed for London but it had blown up in the ocean. The pilot had been brought down. The majority of Europe was alive. There had been a bomb in Italy and in Russia. They said it would take years to reorganize the continent. The EU wasn’t functioning. No one was sure whether the U.S. would be the U.S again. Canada only ringed in their minds as desolate and empty.
It wasn’t very warm outside. The day had been grey in the morning and it still was. It was very quiet outside, and for a ways outside it was quiet. There were several moments were no one was talking inside, and eventually, we all became aware of each other. Though no one thought of us as anything strange, as anything from far away, as anything that wasn’t honest.
Some of the things they said made Allister uncomfortable. Maisie would look at his arms shaking, and he would try to calm down. And Maisie would look down, eating slowly.
We were shocked with what we heard, and we were sorry about what happened.
Driving back to the estate, I felt content that we had found out quite a lot. Things that the congressman hadn’t known. It was hard to communicate with people far away, especially in times of crisis. And it was hard to get them to tell the truth, and harder to get them to tell the whole truth.
Here, we were on the ground, we had found out many things that were helpful for everyone in the new york office. Afterwards, we sat around the table, as if we should be in a meeting, but we were all quite silent, though. In a way, we were mourning. We were thinking of death as we were quiet, and it was interesting in that it didn’t make us feel depressed, but it weirdly made us feel a little more alive. It was more like encountering ghosts, than anything else. It was more like we had found spirits, as opposed to forever not having the alive people around.
That’s what it felt like. After a while I went and read. There was nothing to do afterwards. We weren’t supposed to reach the congressman right away. To keep cover, that’s what it was to do right now.
In the night I awoke. I figured I was a little anxious. Though I heard the wind outside. It swept across the roof of the house. It must have been 80 kilometres an hour. In the moonlight I could see some of the trees in the back wavering wildly in the wind. Sometimes the wind whistled, and I felt it might have been saying things to me, and it told me to be calm, and it told me to watch, it told me to stay outside of myself. I looked at the clock and it was nearing three. I made tea, and let my body wake up downstairs in the kitchen.
I went for a walk, and I went a little farther than Maisie. It was just after dawn, and when I was a ways from the house I wondered why I had felt so safe to come this far. I encountered a change in the atmosphere. My awareness expanded slightly, and my heart beat rose a little. I suppose this wasn’t gorilla warfare, but there had been some strange things happening.
Sometimes I just felt like an English boy taking a walk, thinking of poems. But I looked for things out of the ordinary. I didn’t come across a secret layer. My fear stayed with me. There was something unusual in the field a ways off.
There were fences, tall and barbed, and I couldn’t see what it was that was behind them. The field stretched on off beyond my vision. But I could faintly hear something. Not a buzzing, though something constant. And there was something harrowing going on inside.
I thought this was only a sign I should turn around. I denied my urge to run, trying to not act like I had seen something out of the ordinary, if someone were watching. And as I walked, I thought of what it was I had found, a vast, off bounds area, where something was happening that many people knew nothing of.
I was somber as I returned home. It seemed to me there were bad guys in this, and not all of this was nature — which we knew — but moreover, this was in part intentional. The world was sick.
I came up the porch and into the house. I went to the kitchen for some water. Maisie was awake now, and she was waiting for me.
I told her that I had been for a walk off in the field, and I told her what I had found.
That’s peculiar, she said. I thought you would find something more subtle. I thought there would be something more subtle out there. That suggested someone had played a part in this.
I was unhappier still. I’ve found that someone had more than only a part in this.
It was that we weren’t having fun after this, and everything was serious. Our lives had become something moving along an arc instead of in some circle, a work week, what have you. We had to be stronger and I didn’t feel so young, lately.
It was peculiar that we were in a new community, and I think we were to have some life here for a short time. Maisie had not rushed out into anything. We mourned and grieved and that is something that will happen in a lifetime. Disaster will happen in a lifetime, and as we moved along through the centuries, disaster seemed to multiply in intensity and rapidity.
I sat down with here. She was looking at me, a little perturbed. I seemed to have been playing a leader and someone tough when things were scary, and I laughed to myself a little. I told myself that was for Allister, but quite possibly it was for myself, my ego, and how I worried about how she perceived me. She looked pale, though she didn’t look flustered, or worried, nor careworn. It occurred to me that I look this way a little. And we had a fiercer look, together, not any older, or wiser of a look, though.
What was happening in the world was ongoing and I think we had shaken in direction, like a sail boat, so that he right away might not have been where we initially headed, and that the congressman, by way of trying to be a responsible authority, had been our wind that guided us in a new direction. Sometimes I felt that the world couldn’t be saved but that it had to be let to change. Sometimes I felt we had to open to the world, that it wasn’t where we thought it was. That it was bigger than the one we knew.
Anyways. She was sitting on the counter and I had been sitting there with her. I moved and walked around the kitchen. I felt some stress in my body. Part of me felt we needed a hell storm of things to do, and another part of me felt happy just this moment.
Sometimes I wanted to say to her, global warming was nothing new, right?
Sometimes there were planes that flew over us. I think we heard every one, because it was so quite. But it would only be once a week, approximately, that we would hear something. I guess they were going west, because it wasn’t okay to be flying east right now. It was possible to drive, if you were on some mission, but planes would be shot down.
Sometimes my heart took little flutters, palpitated, and I’d be taken aback by all the pressure. But then I’d be okay. She looked a little puzzled. I thought about why and I realized I’d been pacing. I stopped, still thinking, then I said I’m going to go upstairs.
I visited Allister’s room, and he was lying in bed. It was getting late, almost afternoon. He’d spent a few days in bed. Feeling alright Allister? I thought you might be getting sick.
No. I’m not feeling so bad, I don’t think.
Okay. Any reason your in bed again?
No reason. I’m feeling bored.
That’s why?
Yes. I feel bored. And I just am feeling in a bad mood. This is all awful.
It is pretty awful. Do you feel you’ll be in a better mood in a few days, or do you feel your becoming depressed?
I’m not sure. I think I’ll feel better.
Okay. Just get some sleep. Try not to think too much. I’ll come and check on you later, alright?
Alright.
I walked out the door. I started to go back downstairs, but I didn’t need to tell Maisie anything right away. I was just going to lie down. Then halfway to the bedroom, my heart fluttered wildly, and then I couldn’t feel my pulse for a few seconds. And I fell to the ground, and then I saw stars, and I hurt my leg, and it curled up with pain, and my head hurt, and suddenly I realized how dark and spooky the house was.
*
When I awoke from my nap. My head still hurt, though I hadn’t hit anything when I fell. I felt drained, a little feverish. I drank some cold water, and just stayed upstairs. I don’t think I had enough energy to read, or to have some chat with Maisie. I just sat there. And everything was okay for a bit.
After a while, I fell asleep again. It must have been several hours that I was on the bed asleep.
Then, there was noise downstairs. I awoke suddenly, and sat up, despite the pain in my head. There was something that was broken. It was glass. There was motion downstairs. Someone was moving around, looking for something. They weren’t being silent, but they weren’t being loud, so as to scare someone off and make them run away. They meant to find someone.
Maisie was in the bathroom. I went out into the hallway, and she had the door opened and she looked at me and I put my index finger to my mouth to say be quiet and she easily agreed. I went down the stairs, and I poked my head around the staircase and there were two men downstairs. One had a gun and the other was fishing around through the counters, looking behind things, etc. They hadn’t looked upstairs yet, but were still scouring the lower floor.
I didn’t know what to do. They looked very angry. They were moving quickly, and in a minute or two they were definitely coming upstairs. They looked slavic. They looked like they might be from Eastern Europe. They were average sized men. In shape, but built to rob and built to escape things, built to kidnap, but not like bouncers. I waited for them to stop moving. They stopped moving and they were trying to decide what to do, if they should go up the stairs, or if they should wait for someone to come out, or if maybe they should go out and see if we were running away from the house. The man with the gun was in the entryway, and he had thought about going to the door, but he had stopped, facing the door. He stood widely, trying to contemplate acutely.
I decided to make a run at him. He didn’t hear me. I was about to tackle him. I didn’t want to kill him, just to get the gun from him. I thought I might find out what it is they wanted. The other person saw me. And he yelled and pointed behind the gunman. He started to turn around. I turned slightly, and pulled down on the ground. He landed on his shoulder. The gun went off. I went for the gun right away. Holding his wrist. He fired another shot, trying to turn it at me. I swatted at his wrist, then I kicked him in the groin, and he dropped it. The other man had run over, and right when I got the gun, he was almost on top of me, and I shot his leg. He fell to the floor in pain. Then I shot the other man in the shoulder. Then I shot him again in the leg.
Allister was coming down the stairs now. He saw what had happened, and he grabbed a chair and beat them while they were on the floor. I think he wanted them to be unconscious but I told him to stop. I said to be careful but go out to the shed and grab some rope to tie them up. They both seemed to subdue as they were still losing blood. I held the gun at them in case they wanted to try to stand up.
When Allister came back, he was able to tie them up. He tied there limbs together. I told him to put there hands behind them. They looked blank at us then. Why are you here? I said.
They didn’t respond.
Why is it that you’re here? You. That had the gun. Did you come here to kill us?
Yes.
Why did no one stop you?
No one saw us. We came through the fields.
What is the reason for this?
We were sent to kill Tristan. We were sent to stop you. To stop you from gathering intelligence.
How flattering.
What is it your a part of.
It is a secret organization. We can’t speak of it.
Just reveal yourselves for me. These are things that will help me. And we can all tell who is the good guy in this. We can all tell who has everyone’s best interests at heart.
I’m sorry. You know I will not. I cannot.
I took the gun and pointed it right in front of his face. You need to tell me.
For what reason? I don’t see anything wrong.
It is called Uea, the other one said.
And what is that.
It is not important. It is too much to explain.
What should we do with them, Maisie?
I have no idea what we should do with them. Will more of them come.
No. The one who I was pointing the gun at said. You are supposed to be dead already.
We’ll have to keep them here. And we’ll have to move one from here soon. It won’t be safe here if someone discovers we are still alive… Allister, close up some of the bleeding. We have another week, a week and a half to decide what to do, and then we’ll leave. I think we have fulfilled enough of the congressman’s plans. We should close up all the blinds. Keep the noise down. Lock the doors. Double bolt them. Stay upstairs. We’ll have someone watch these two. I think we’ll be having to go east.
It was funny that when we were in an area that was supposed to be safe, we felt so watched, more than we could feel looked after. We stayed inside, and we sat upstairs thinking of what it is we should be doing.
They won’t fly us back from here, I said.
I feel that too. But why won’t they?
There not on our side. I think we are meant to accomplish more than the congressman has assigned us. Regardless of what has happened in the world, we’re meant to do something meaningful.
I don’t know what going over could hurt, as they have come across for us, and it is as if there is no difference. In our lack of flight I think we are mistaken for displaying compliance.
And in our flight?
We will escape, Maisie said
And we helped put an end to this. We’re tougher than we thought.
The hostages didn’t speak. They lay there stolidly, devoid of any more intelligence for us. One had to remember that the whole of the world was in a state, and that it was not just us that was shaken, but our enemy as well.
Ten days passed. Allister, I said. Give them some food. And we’ll leave them here. They’ll figure it out.
We drove again, away from the city, and no one was suspicious of us going this way. No one was watching. We drove and we drove away from London, and the highways weren’t patrolled up here. We drove towards the East coast, and when we could see the sea, we drove South, toward Brighton.
We found that there was no one there. We didn’t go right into the city. But we did stop along the shore, and I stood above the cliffs, and there was fog that hugged the sea, as whitecaps encountered the shores.
We hung out there for a while. Maisie rested her head on my chest. We felt very sad after all of the things we had been seeing. The wind blew madly. Though I was certain it wouldn’t lift me from my feet. And yet I think she meant to do nothing less than anchor me.
In some way we gathered our confidence, and we drove into the city. We walked into another hotel, and took the stairs up several flights. We made ourselves at home. It seemed we would be safe here. And I wondered if there wasn’t a way across the channel without having to return to London in these times.
It was spooky outside. We stayed inside for several days. We took separate rooms, the whole floor, and Maisie told me things when we were alone together that I hadn’t known before. Spooky things, stories that filled you with unease and a sense of youthful vulnerability. Sometimes I wanted to save the world by being closer with her. But I didn’t care for a happy ending. I wanted to be happy in all of our moments. People always are mistaking life for beginnings and endings.
We walked to the pier. The roller coaster was halfway submerged in water. There were still seagulls around. We climbed the ferris wheel, all the way to the top. It was a little scary. The structure seemed sound. The carts were locked. Nothing was going to move.
It’s really cold up here, Allister said.
This place is happier than the places we’ve been. But it isn’t very happy next to where we’ve come from. Do you think it is colder here than Vancouver right now, Allister? I asked.
I think so. I think there will be frost everywhere this evening. And more than just that. It is going to snow soon.
I thought that too. We should be okay just with blankets. It has been pretty warm inside.
Anyways. Maisie hasn’t been sleeping.
Maisie hasn’t been sleeping?
I haven’t been sleeping?
I think Maisie is worried. But not just about the state of things. About something in particular. But I don’t think she will tell me.
There is nothing wrong, little boy. I’m perfectly rested.
You have dark circles.
I have not dark circles.
Around your eyes.
There are none around my eyes or around Venus now quiet.
At that point. I kept up so I could climb on to the cart in front of us. It was a little risky. I turned around and smiled. I guess we won’t need to put any pictures of this on Facebook?
Don’t think so.
Even if I hang off of this with one hand?
No. Not even then.
I made a superfluous frown, and then I climbed inside the pod. I shook it lightly as if I was a slight breeze of the water. They were watching me, unperturbed. It was getting later in the day.
Then, the pod fell. It plummeted from the top of the ferris wheel to the ground. It hit the lowest pod, and then slid to the ground, making another loud thud. Maisie screamed. Allister lurched forward, shocked. They were held still for a second, there heart rates in limbo. Then they began climbing down, as quickly as they could. All the windows shattered, and there was glass everywhere. There was a huge dent in the cart. I was still inside it, and I was unconscious.
*
When I awoke I was in a small hospital. We were in London. It was two weeks later. One of the first things I felt was pain in my head. And then I felt a huge pain in my back.
It didn’t subside. My vision was blurry for several minutes. I couldn’t really feel my right leg. It was in a big cast. It didn’t take me long to remember what happened, though I couldn’t find a way to describe what had gone wrong.
I was alone for a few hours. There was no button I could buzz. I could have yelled, though I was afraid my throat would hurt, maybe my whole body. I was not sure what would happen.
After a doctor entered and he was relieved. I was awake and it looked like I would recover. He said the leg would take two months, though I would be able to move with crutches soon. They would leave me alone for the day then my friends would be in later on. They were informed I was conscious and improving.
While I lay there, and didn’t experience much except my body in pain. I thought that here we could get some info on the whereabouts of some of the people we hoped to find, info on who it was that survived. I could move my hands and I looked at my wrists as I flexed them, turned my forearms. In this moment I didn’t feel anything very special, and that’s when you find life out a little. There was no emotion that I went through. I just felt thankful to be alive, and it made me want to live my life well.
Allister came in when it had been dark for a while. He looked upset, like the fact we could nearly die and come back to life only amplified how tenuous life was for us, and I felt that not only was I more aware of the fact I was alive, but I think he was aware of life as the pulses in his heart, a life line. The accident wasn’t only about me, but it was about everyone involved. And it could have been not an accident, and maybe that’s even scarier.
Is the pain really bad?
It is pretty bad.
The doctor said you will be okay.
He told me. Has anyone wanted to speak to you?
Yes. Daphne has been looking for you. They have her in New York. I think we’ll fly back. But not right away.
Excellent. What else?
Well there is bad news. Maisie’s family has passed away. And they can’t find Dad yet.
Really?
I think so. That’s what happened.
I thought this was very bad. And it was weird that I thought that Maisie had barely seen her family for quite some time. Before this. And I had thought I wasn’t sure who it was that was her family anymore. But I thought that she would be sad. And I felt very sorry for her.
Allister sat with me for the evening. The states was becoming more organized. There were obviously a few more survivors than was thought initially. There were no communications, and now there are some. There were about one hundred million survivors, they thought.
There was a serious terrorist threat in Canada, and it was too hard to tell what was going on there now. There were several rogue forces that still wanted to take more lives.
We might not have to go east, now?
I think they will send several groups. It won’t just be us. So, yes, that’s what I heard, Allister said. It won’t be just us.
Maisie came in later in the evening. My heart sunk, I didn’t know what to say to her about what had happened, I mean about the news they gave to her. Her eyes were swollen from crying. You’re okay, she said.
I seem to be. It’s nice to see you. I think when I woke up I felt the fear that I had been dying. Otherwise all I feel is tightness and haziness from all the morphine.
That sounds quite okay for your injuries.
Are you going to be okay?
I’m not sure.
We’ll always be here for you. You’re part of your family. And I’m sorry. And I’m so hurt. I’m so sorry. One day things are going to be okay. I don’t know what to say.
She was sunken in sadness. She sat with us. In the night Allister fell asleep on the couch. Maisie sat up with me for quite a while. They’d given her a room, and eventually she went off to fall asleep. And I lay there, soon I found sleep as well, though nothing felt so easy, and my dreams were full of anxiety.
*
I was there without moving for another week. Then I was allowed to arise and take a small walk along the hallway. It was painful and it felt like walking for the first time ever. I felt wounded that I wouldn’t be my most high flying self during these times. I was sorry things would be this way. I’d had too much time without stir and my heart was restless. The doctor said I should go lie down and I was reluctant to stop, taking my time to turn around and walk back to the hospital room. It was quite cold inside and that helped with my sickness. They allowed me to lay without blanket and things. And I couldn’t wait to get the gown they had given me off.
Allister had been around the area some and people were a little more comfortable. You were allowed to leave your home now, though you weren’t supposed to walk around, just trips of necessity. People seemed to see a haze in the air, as if the whole world had taken on a new quality, the dirt, gunpowder, smoke, filling the world around us. He’d seen two gun fights, though they’d been well contained by the police, and there hadn’t been any deaths reported in a few weeks.
He said the only instructions he’d been giving were to stay here. It was going to be safe for the next foreseeable amount of time. Maybe we’ll have to stay here, he said.
I don’t know if we want to go back to the states after all of this.
It’s pretty crazy. Things are going to be very sad there. And very different.
Yes. How about the crazy weather? Will there be more?
I don’t think there will be more that they could consider part of the hurricane. But there will be. In a year or two. It might get worse.
I was quite shocked at all that had been changed. Maybe we need to see nothing but that we needed to leave. And I felt hollow thinking about where it was I was from in the first place.
*
Lying in bed, I was more at ease than I had expected. My body adjusted well to these different circumstances. There wasn’t much to do but to pay attention to my vital signs, and it gave me some small hope to see myself change to what my conditions were. I could handle not getting to move around. My heart rate stayed settled despite no exercise. I didn’t have any spots of rubbing from being in any one place to long. When I sat up, no blood rushed to my head. Sometimes Maisie would sit with me for hours. I was still myself and when it was quite we would lock the door. I felt very close to her all the time. Still I was very sad and there were many things I missed.
Allister would bring things back. He would spend our money on things to pass the time. We bought dvd’s and things. We watched movies about disasters, and it was funny how many ideas they had given us while this had been happening. Perversely this was no new ice age and that was an unexpected relief.
As I got better I realized I had been suffering from exhaustion. People get sick when there tired, and maybe that is what I had went through. An extreme tiredness. Maybe that is when people develop serious diseases, which often are complications of simple illnesses. Apparently much of the flooded water was returning to the waterways now. More people could be seen outside of their homes or places of refuge now. They are much more reserved now, but things still and the same ring of life going on about. After a month I could feel my leg getting better. At that point I could get up and walk around, and I went outside, and walked in the grounds with Maisie. There hadn’t been much for her to help with, and she had just been having to stay inside, help with me, and we mourned for her family. They had contacted my Dad and he was in Hong Kong, safe and alive. Agnes had passed away, and we had still not been able to make contact or find Daphne.
I spoke with people around about what it was we needed to do. It seemed as if we did not need to start completely anew. That much of the world’s structure was safe, though very reorganized. The history of us was part of what we were, and I’m not sure we knew how to do things in a much different way.
Safety, cities better built to withstand storms, prevent flooding, much bigger steps to fight global warning. Most of the time I felt I would never be a scientist who could fight this, but I think the job of politicians and thinkers as to what it is we need to invent, and where it is we need to invest money, what courses of action we need to take, where obviously, all very important, and as I got older, these would be the things I could do, that I would need to do, to keep making the world around us a much more secure place.
We would stay here for the foreseeable future. My restlessness seemed to express itself through my mind, and I needed to write. At first I started again with my journals, but I had so many thoughts. I started to write about our experiences. After what we had been through it would be possible to contribute something to the world, and maybe this is what it was I was supposed to do after my life had blown up.
I’d written two hundred pages. I’d been writing a novel and it was an ambition of mine for a long time, and it was time to do it. I kept it a secret, doing it when I was alone, keeping the papers in a drawer beside the bed. Maisie didn’t know. It was fun trying to hide what it was I’d been doing, especially because it wasn’t something I could be in trouble for. Also I was writing about her, something she knew I would do, and she knew when I started I didn’t tell her, and I wondered about nearly imperceptible clues that would signal this moment had come, but there probably were none.
Sometimes she looked at me funny. Nothing more though.
One day Allister asked me if he would have to go back to school.
No, I said. I’m sure you’ll finish from home one day not too far from now.
Okay, he said.
I wrote more of my novel. I wrote another fifty pages, and then I didn’t know what to write for a while. The only writer’s block I’d experienced so far meant that it was time to take a break for a while. I think people went through thinking that literature was much more than just some books sometimes, and that was the other kind of writer’s block. As if some of us would have more than a few great stories to tell.
I was trying to think of what it was I would write from my bed, when there was a knock on my door. I said to come in, and it opened, and in the doorway was the congressman.
I was happy to see him. I think he had much news for me. There was something particularly he wanted to tell me. They had located Daphne. He had a video feed on his laptop of what it was she was doing.
She looked thin and a little worn, and she was listening attentively to a companion sitting across from her. They were deciding something about the city. She was still in Toronto. The congressman said she survived underground. Now she was in a house near the university. She was sitting on the second floor. Continue to prevent entry and exit, she said. We don’t know who wants to come in, and we don’t know what they want. That they are here, without the intention of seeking help, saying they have come for another safe place, but that they are here for business, seems to imply that they had a hand in this, that they saw it coming, she said. We should patrol the border as to prevent this kind of person from jeopardizing what safety we have.
He looked as if he agreed with what she said. There was only a small number of people that were assembled.
He did have a point of criticism. This is in spite of the fact you want to go down to New York, though, Daphne. You say we need to make inroads, and perhaps we do, but how could we know that you don’t have some other motives? Why, why is it that you think I want to have you there, when things are more dangerous there than ever before?
This is important. And if you cannot trust me, then there is no hope at all.
He seemed to have no more to say right then, and she got up and left the room. There were several people there. The commotion was just like before, in that people were trying to run things here, all around the world. She wanted to tell them to act differently. She went outside and walked across the road, went another block, to a cafe. She ordered food, and she sat down to eat, and I think she was thinking of me. I wanted to be there with her, and chat about all the things that had happened, all the things that had happened to us. I couldn’t wait until I saw her.
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