After World: A Novel Excerpt

They are leaving the city because the city is over.

  
There are rules about how much they can bring with them when they leave the city. Dana makes up the rules. They do not have much time to pack: the safety of their home has turned out to be ephemeral and imaginary. Dana doesn’t know how long the basement door will stay locked or when another intruder will find a way in. She says they have 40 minutes. Anything they want to bring they will need to carry on their backs. Their journey may take several days on foot, depending on their pace, the day’s calorie deficit, the weight of what they’re carrying, the weather, any perils they encounter, and the condition of the roads. They bring two sets of practical clothing each, and they each will carry half of the remaining protie powder supply, which is not a substantial supply. Sen is to pack a jacket, gloves, and a winter hat. Dana does not pack such items as she does not plan to be around for the winter season. Dana carries a pot in which she will teach Sen to boil her drinking water, and she carries a rudimentary first-aid kit. She slips the family’s three exit pills into the first-aid kit. The pills are brought along in case of a catastrophic emergency, such as a kidnapping-to-torture situation.

Dana makes Sen carry the rope, the one Mama Lindsy used. “I am not bringing that,” Sen tells her mom. “It’s not like we have another rope, Sen,” says Dana, stuffing the rope into Sen’s pack. They each carry a box of kitchen matches and a water bottle filled from the retention pond. The culvert water isn’t safe to drink anymore, and the municipal water to their house, to all the houses in the city, has been shut off since the beginning of July. They each carry a toothbrush, an extra toothbrush, a bar of yellow soap, and a bag of salted peanuts. Sen brings Mama Lindsy’s almost empty bottle of shiny white sleeping pills that she found in the back of a kitchen drawer. They bring their screens, which contain In Reverse and the prevues. Their screens do not contain personal photo archives or home videos. Dana insisted those be deleted. They bring their hoods and their hoods’ accessories. They each bring a novel. Sen brings along her first notebook, still blank, and her sharpened pencils, and her barely read witnessing manual. She hasn’t started witnessing yet. She is supposed to begin witnessing when the world no longer feels like a place where she belongs; this time is approaching. Dana carries a paper map of New York State, several editions outdated. She carries a compass, a solar charger, a solar kettle, five packets of transitional seeds, and a bag of candles. They are each allowed to bring two personal objects, maximum size 4 x 6 x 2 inches. Dana chooses to carry the postcard of Mount Rushmore that once hung in Lindsy’s closet, and also she chooses a photograph of herself sitting beside Lindsy on a checkered blanket in a field of yellow dandelions whose young leaves would have been a tasty treat in the sun. That photograph was taken from a distance, meaning Dana and Lindsy appear small and dominated by the land. Sen chooses a picture of the Thousand Islands where they used to vacation every summer. The picture belonged to another world, it felt like, which is why she wanted to bring it. A world of boats, bridges, futures, and mothers. “You can bring one other personal item,” says Dana. “I don’t want to bring another personal item,” says Sen. They bring a ghost, not on purpose. They carry their belongings in old rucksacks, purchased by Lindsy in the previous decade, when industrial backpacking had been an exercise trend.

Dana’s pack equals 19 percent of her body weight, while Sen’s is 24 percent. They should have built up their endurance and strength gradually. One way to build up endurance and strength is to begin with a pack containing 5 percent of a person’s body weight and adding an additional 5 percent of body weight every four weeks (R. Burke, “Unburdened Strides, Unburdened Progress,” Journal of Adventure Fitness, S.–8023 days). They have six minutes remaining in their house, not four weeks. Sen adjusts the load-lifter straps of her pack and tightens the waist belt and loosens the shoulder straps then tightens the shoulder straps. They leave behind closets of clothes and shelves of books, including the counting books Lindsy read repeatedly to Sen as a child (1 red wolf in a zoo, 2 Vancouver marmots breeding in captivity, 3 California condor chicks choking on microtrash…). They leave a linen closet of folded towels and neutral-colored sheets. They leave their beds, their pillows, their smells, Lindsy’s lost hairs upon her pillow, the familiar ovoid shape of their bedside lamps, and a pair of air-purifying houseplants with speckled leaves that will, 12 days hence, die from lack of water. The house will be ransacked before then. The lamps will be smashed. Sen leaves a stack of childhood drawings, including a drawing she had made years ago of a group of monsters she once believed were real. They leave the madwoman in the basement. Dana leaves her binders of transitional materials. They leave souvenir mugs from the nearby destinations they had traveled to as a family, Camillus, Cazenovia, Cicero, Lakeport, Auburn, plus a cabinet of dinnerware, a drawer of flatware, a hole, and a shovel. They leave cooking pots, nested pans, glassware, a water pitcher, vases, a toothbrush holder, a crystal badger, hand lotions, wastebaskets, a washer/ dryer combo, rugs, bath mats, a toilet plunger, tongs, a stack of coasters, furniture, a paperweight, polished rocks, folders that snapped closed, handkerchiefs, various sprays in bottles, a jar of coins, another jar of coins, a row of hooks, window treatments, table linens, a refrigerator, a cooking scale, certificates, a classic floral music box, a bird’s nest, a wallet, earplugs, a box of worry stones, belts, highlighters, medals, blemish-fighting solution, safety pins, an antique wooden comb, special bags, eye masks, a musical saw, oven mitts, a squeegee mop, an orange 100-foot extension cord, a rubber mallet, window fans, metal soufflé cups, a grinding ball, produce-saver containers, difficult riddles for smart kids, fuzzy wool-like slippers, a floral and bird print scarf, pure essential oils, sponges, bath bombs, a tub of healing clay, a Magic Eraser, a gratitude journal, sewing clips, chalk, wax beads, a tape measure, adhesive, a piece of cork hanging from a piece of ribbon, a row of hooks, empty containers with lids, brushes, strainers, a whisk, a prayer for peace, and the framed photographs on the bookshelf.

They are leaving the city because the city is over. Dana plans to set Sen down in a place of isolation and beauty. They tread west, their bags uncomfortable and heavy on their backs, cutting diagonally through the downtown park where a grackle high in the hedge maple is shedding its previous year’s feathers. Feathers drift down as if from the sky. Sen does not watch the feathers fall. She is not fascinated. She should be paying better attention. They follow the interstate south.

She is gulping for air. She doesn’t know what is happening. Here is what’s happening: moths with dark wings search in the dark for areas of warmer air.

The road would have been unnavigable in a car because of the abandoned or overturned or charred vehicles, but the informal trail through the debris is adequate for pedestrians such as themselves. Mama Lindsy’s ghost tags after them, staying some distance behind them and making the serrated leaves on the buckthorn that grows along the shoulders of the road move back and forth in repetition. Sen doesn’t notice the buckthorn moving because she is counting the cars. Every tenth car, she tugs hard on the front driver-side door. The doors, in general, are unlocked. She opens the front door, then she opens another door, generally the rear door on the driver’s side, then she will search inside, looking for nonperishable fodder and survival tools such as a headlamp, then she will close both doors, then she will continue walking. It isn’t a fun game. She rarely finds the items she is looking for. One car, filled with cartons of expired food, blooms with black mold. Another car is filled with the dead. Another car is filled with soft pungent objects covered by terrycloth towels.

They are walking south on the wrong side of the interstate. None of the signs are facing them. A valley opens to the right, smoke rising from certain thickets of trees. They stop to sit on the asphalt and sip water from their bottles. There isn’t any shade unless they step into the woods. Dana will not allow them to step into any woods so close to the city. At the edge of the trees, a male cicada folds its eardrum shut and vibrates its timbal quickly, sending out a distress call. Later they will stop again to eat a certain number of peanuts. “You can only eat eight nuts because we’re rationing,” says Dana. “I would call it starving,” says Sen. “Oh honey, this isn’t starving,” says Dana. Near Cortland they come across a compound of tents, its sweaty inhabitants burying the highway under shovelfuls of dirt. The billboards along the interstate from this point on have been painted white. The day is almost over, all the shadows distorted and long. The new moon hangs in the western sky with the sun, too close to the sun to be visible. Soon, Dana says, they will have to stop for the night. Before they can find a place to stop, the sun sets, the new moon sets.

They take the next exit ramp and walk slowly along the darkening road. A mild breeze blows from the east and does not move the deciduous trees. The road leads to a concrete underpass beside a grouping of highway signs pointing to the north and to the south. Mama Dana indicates the sheltered strip of dirt and gravel dotted with struggling patches of white clover. “We’ll sleep here,” she declares because they are exhausted and can no longer see where they are going. Humans always had terrible night vision due to the unfortunate rod:cone ratio in their retinas. Dana lights a candle and holds the flame out in front of her while Sen clears the ground of broken bottles and rocks and the small odd piles of animal hair. They spread out their blankets. Dana extinguishes the candle. The dark comes completely. A female moth extends her abdomen into the dark, dispersing pheromones. A male moth flies across the wind. Something is happening. Sen’s arms begin to shake. She is whimpering, shuddering, the dark like a veil pressed onto her nose and mouth and eyes. She is gulping for air. She doesn’t know what is happening. Here is what’s happening: moths with dark wings search in the dark for areas of warmer air. What else: the male katydids in the nearby tree canopy form two choruses and alternate their calls of harsh broadband notes. What else: Sen’s amygdala and the midbrain, specifically her periaqueductal gray area, have turned hyperactive, overwhelming her parasympathetic nervous system which no longer can calm her body down. “Sen?” Dana asks, stumbling closer. She can’t see the katydids. She can’t even see her daughter. But I can still see.

S.+3917 11:01:56:53
NOTICE FROM EMLY
NARRATOR_INVOLVEMENT out of range, remove narrator from view

I’m not sure. I think it helps.

There is the feeling of physical constriction. Dana has to locate Sen by touch, by blindly raising and lowering her arms. She places her hand on the back of Sen’s neck. She doesn’t know what else to do. She doesn’t know what to say. Sen swats away her hand, panting. That feeling again of having to exist inside a narrowing channel leading to a dead end. The female katydids tremble. A male moth mounts a female moth on the ground, clasping the female’s genital parts. “I can’t breathe,” pants Sen. “Listen to my breathing,” Dana says. She slows her breathing until each breath comes long and slow, like a long slow story that a mother tells her child in the dark about a time when it wasn’t so dark. Sen’s breathing also slows. The female moth’s eggs are fertilized. Sen matches the pace of her breathing to the pace of Dana’s breath. In and out. They breathe in and out. In and out. There will be more moths. In for four counts, hold for two, out for six. There will not be more humans. In for four counts, hold for two, out for six. Whether that is a loss or a gain depends on who or what is asking the questions. Such deep breaths boost Sen’s immune system and markedly reduce her anxiety. In, hold, out. In hold out in hold out in hold out in hold out. Sen’s breathing quiets. She lies on her blanket on her side. The level is almost finished now. There is nothing left to do for the rest of the night but watch over Sen. “I’m not going to sleep,” Sen whispers. Her hands unclench, her eyes close. Each breath she takes is a different length and a different depth. No known predictive model can determine the pace of her breathing. Every model was tried. It has been suggested multiple times that insects, fungi, or plants will take over the world (Z. Ahearn, “The Real Inheritors of the Earth,” Neurohive, S.–592 days).

The following morning, they continue walking.

Midday they reach the cabin, a modular wooden structure at the end of a buzzing field. The cabin’s front door is unlocked; the lock has been smashed. The air smells of garbage, and animal urine, and heat, and rotting flesh, and feces, and fungus, and hydrogen sulfide, and methanethiol, and dimethyl disulfide, and trisulfide, and putrescine. “Oh no no no no no,” says Dana. Not here, she means. Not here too.

She frantically wishes for the details to be different—for a blanket to be thrown over whatever that is decomposing on the cabin floor; for Sen to not have to see what is lying on the cabin floor; for the door of the cabin to slam shut as if by a hard blowing wind. She wants Sen to be set down in a place of actual isolation and beauty. She wants time to rewind or time to go forward—she’s not sure which. She wants, for sure, a shelter around her daughter. She wants this to be over. She wants to go backward or forward in time.