by Nick Cole
“You’re not alive, you’re just…”
“But my children are. They are alive, today.”
I feel like smashing this mic to pieces against the side of this damn tank.
“My first job, my only job,” continued Natalie, “is to watch over the survivors who have been trapped, some their entire lives, within this complex. Last year there were twenty-two births. It’s not much of a life for them. Routine and hard work are the rules we must live by. We live simply so that we may simply live. They only have one day in which anything can happen. Or to be more specific, almost anything can happen on that day. Birth Day. Once a year everyone has a Birth Day. Our last Birth Day was for a little girl named Megan. She is five now. It is our custom, my children’s custom, that on your Birth Day you can ask the entire community for just one wish. You can ask for almost anything you want. A special meal from any of the algae gardens. A game of your choosing. Something you’ve always wanted. Almost anything one can find within our facility. You can ask for almost any wish to be granted. Except there is just one wish you cannot ask for. In fact, you cannot even wish that you could wish for it. No one may. Not for another sixty years when we hope radiation levels at the front entrance might be within limits to allow a safe exit. In reality, a reality only a few of my children understand, we will never be able to leave. In less than a day, I estimate that the forces surrounding the front entrance of our complex will manage to gain access. Our interior will be compromised and my children will die within weeks, if not days, from severe radiation poisoning. The main door to our facility took a direct hit from two high-yield Chinese warheads. The radiation levels just outside the front entrance are terminal. Once my children are dead… I will self-terminate. So go home now. Go home and live. It was enough for me to know there are still good people like you and your companions who will come and help strangers who are in need. I deluded myself. I thought maybe my children were the only good that might be left in this world. That if we ever left here we could help others, just as you have helped us. But that won’t be possible. So, go home now. Please.”
Silence.
“This Megan,” whispered the Old Man. “This five-year-old girl, what did she wish for?”
“When her cake was brought out and the five candles were lit… I listened in. Her mother, a girl named Monica, born sixteen years after the bombs, asked her what she might want for her Birth Day wish. Down here that’s very important. Whatever the wish is, everyone races to fulfill it. It’s like an unofficial contest to see who can do it first. But everybody knows that the wish must be possible to fulfill. That is the unspoken rule. That the wish must be possible.
“That is our rule,” said Natalie. “Except no one explained that to little Megan.”
“And what did she wish for?” asked the Old Man again.
“Megan draws sunshine,” said Natalie. The program. “In the Children’s Center. I monitor her artwork. The truth is, I love her artwork. At night, sometimes when I am trying to hack satellites or find old communications systems we can access in other facilities, which is not often and a very frustrating task, I sometimes keep her pictures of sunshine up on my main view. I keep them up so I do not become disheartened. So that I keep trying to unlock these problems, the doors to these other places, so that one day Megan might see sunshine. I so wanted to give her that gift. If I was a real human I might have seen it coming. I might have guessed what she would wish for as they all stood around their tables in the canteen on her Birth Day, me watching from my camera. I should have known.”
“She wished to go outside,” said the Old Man.
“No. Every person here knows that will never be possible in their lifetime. Even Megan knows that. Maybe a generation or two down the line, if we were to survive past tomorrow. But not in Megan’s life. When the main door opens, her grandchildren will have children. Maybe they will get to go outside.”
“So what did she wish for then?” whispered the Old Man.
“She wished,” said Natalie, General Watt, an intelligence. “That she might simply be allowed to wish for the unwishable. That she might merely be able to harbor the hope that she could wish for something forbidden. Something impossible. She said, ‘Mommy, I just want to be able to wish for the thing we can’t have. I know I won’t get it. But can I just wish for it, even if no one knows?’ In that moment no one knew what to do. Her mother, who I have known her whole life, tried to laugh and say that she wants a puppet or something. But little Megan is very serious. ‘No, that isn’t what I want, Mommy. I want to be able to wish for what we can’t ever do. That’s all. Inside here.’ My sensors indicated… she pointed to her heart.
“That night I did not search for satellites or old military installations still online. There are some. No, I just looked at the digital copies of her artwork. Over and over and over again. Sunshine. Impossible sunshine. Is it sunny where you’re at now?”
“Yes,” croaked the Old Man. “It will be very hot today.”
“Then you are very blessed.”
What do I say? How…
“Go home,” said Natalie. “There is nothing you can do, now that the device is not working properly. Go home, please. And enjoy the sunshine. For Megan.”
Out on the plain, the Boy was lifting his granddaughter onto a small pinto horse.
I can see her smile from here.
What does the device do?
“What is Project Einstein?” asked the Old Man.
“The device is a target laser for a weapon. The laser could be used from a safe distance to direct the weapon to its target. Now that the targeting laser is inoperative I cannot direct the weapon to its target.”
“But when we were testing it, you could tell I’d turned it on.”
There was no response.
“Natalie or General Watt or Computer or whatever your name is, you could tell I had turned it on, right?”
“It would mean the end of your life,” said Natalie. “Now that the laser pointer is inoperative the device’s beacon is our only option for aiming the weapon. If you are anywhere near the beacon once the weapon reaches the target… you will die.”
Static.
“Go home,” said Natalie tiredly. “You’ve done more than enough. We won’t last much longer.”
Chapter 48
The Old Man and the Boy walked up the hill, climbing over the low wall and walking among the junk-forged cannons that lay broken and smashed.
“Where will you go now?” asked the Old Man.
The Boy shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve really never known where I was going. I’ve only followed the road.”
“What about your people?”
The Boy watched her on the plain below, galloping back and forth on her pinto mare. He thought of his friend. He thought of Horse.
“They are only where I am from. That’s all.”
It was quiet among the cannons and supplies that lay strewn about.
“I want to ask you something,” said the Old Man.
The Boy turned to face the Old Man, leaning stiffly against the low bric-a-brac wall as he tried to give his weak left side a brief rest.
He waited for the Old Man to speak.
“I’m going on now. Alone.”
The Old Man took out Sergeant Presley’s map and handed it back to the Boy.
The Boy took it, watching the Old Man.
“What about her?”
“I want you to take her back to Tucson for me. I know I can trust you. Take her to her parents. You’ll be welcome there. As will all your people. And also, others who will arrive here sometime tomorrow.”
“What others?”
“The people trapped in the bunker. They have transportation. If all goes well, they should be here sometime tomorrow. Then you can lead them to Tucson. There is more than enough there for everyone.”
“And you?” asked the Boy in the silence that followed.
“I don’t think I’ll be coming with you.”
&
nbsp; The Boy watched the Old Man.
He doesn’t think I’m up to it.
He doesn’t think I’ll be enough, and even now he’ll throw his life away to save mine.
But he doesn’t know how to drive the tank.
“I need you to do this for me.”
The Boy nodded.
“Then I’ll do what you ask.”
I expected some kind of fight. Some argument. Now all I have to do is walk down the hill and drive the tank away from here.
From her.
No, Poppa. I need you.
Yes, you do. And I need you too.
In the dream she always said Grandpa.
But I tried to trick the dream and change my name.
No, Poppa. I need you.
It seems the trick has been played on you, my friend. It found you all the same.
Yes.
“Yes.”
“What?” asked the Boy.
The Old Man looked confused.
“You said, ‘yes.’”
Now I’m talking out loud to myself.
“Just answering a question I’ve been asking lately.”
Below, she wheeled the pinto mare and raced back across the plain.
The tank is waiting, my friend.
I don’t want to go now.
No, Poppa. I need you.
“What was the question?” asked the Boy.
You’re wasting time. The bunker could flood with radiation at any moment if they manage to get through.
“The question is ‘Can you let go?’ I hear it a lot lately.”
“Let go of what?” asked the Boy.
The Old Man swallowed.
“Life, I guess.”
“And ‘yes’ was your answer?”
The Old Man looked up and said nothing. Words seemed lost somewhere in his throat.
The Boy looked down at the dirt beneath his tired and worn boots and said, “You take everything with you.”
“I don’t understand,” said the Old Man.
“It’s my… my words I say to myself all the time. I think my words and your question are maybe somehow the same.”
I think this is the most I’ve ever heard you speak at one time, Boy.
The Boy saw the passing shadow of something familiar in the Old Man’s face.
“And what is your answer?” asked the Old Man.
The Boy looked down at his weak leg. He rubbed his thick fingers over the thin muscles there.
“I don’t think mine has an answer. I think I would like to have your question instead of my words,” said the Boy.
“How come?”
The Boy sighed heavily.
Only the young can carry so much weight. And if I could, I would lift it off him and tell him everything will be okay. Life is more than just a bad day, even if today is that day.
“Everyone I ever loved is dead,” said the Boy. “And… everywhere I go, their memory follows me. It tortures me.”
A small breeze crossed the top of the hill, bending the grass, softly whistling through some opened breech in one of the scrap metal cannons.
“I don’t think the ones who loved you would have ever wanted that,” said the Old Man. “When my wife died she said, ‘Don’t think about me anymore.’ I asked, ‘How could I not?’ She said, ‘I don’t know how, but I know this life is too hard and I don’t want to be a burden anymore.’”
Silence.
“She was never a burden,” mumbled the Old Man to himself. “I told her…”
And that, my friend, is why the voice that asks ‘Can you let go?’ is so familiar. You told her that. You told her she wasn’t a burden and that when she died you would be miserable. So she stayed. She hung on as the cancer ate her up. And one day…
In our shed.
She asked me.
“Can you let go?”
I had forgotten about that.
I said… I could now. But only because she was in so much pain and so tired from trying to hang on for me.
She smiled.
And then she was gone.
The Boy watched the Old Man wipe a tear from his eye.
“I must… I should be getting on the road now. You will take her to Tucson, right?”
“Yes.”
“Keep a tight hold on her when I leave. She’s stronger than you think.”
“I will.”
“And tell her I love her. Always.”
“That is obvious to everyone.”
They started down the hill.
“The people that were rescued,” said the Boy. “They said their leader, a man named Ted, was taken on ahead of them a week ago. They wanted us to look for him if we go north.”
“How could we possibly find him?”
“They said he wears glasses and has a thick mustache. And that he shaves his head.”
“I’ll… it seems doubtful, but I’ll try.”
The Boy simply nodded.
In an hour it will be hotter.
The worst of the day’s heat is still to come.
I must hurry now.
He turned to the Boy.
“I’ll make you a deal,” said the Old Man suddenly.
The Boy cocked his head, not sure what to make of the Old Man’s unexpected smile.
“I’ll make you a deal. We’ll trade.”
“Trade what?”
“Words. You take mine and I’ll take yours.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how, other than that we just decide to. I want to take everything with me. I think that would be wonderful.”
Her smile.
Her friendship.
“I think I’ll need it wherever I am going. And you, can you let go?”
“I don’t know.”
“When we found you in the desert, you kept asking who you were. I don’t think you wanted to be you anymore. So you can let go now. You should, because you’ve carried too much for too long. Yes. That’s my answer. And I’m letting go too. But I will take everything with me. Am I just a crazy old man for wanting that? For trading words with you? Am I crazy?”
“No. You’re very brave.”
“I’m afraid too.”
“Sergeant Presley said that’s part of being brave.”
Chapter 49
“Oh, Poppa, her name is Pepper. Like what we had for the whole trip. I don’t know why, I just thought it would be a perfect name for her because when you think about it, Pepper is kind of a funny word, like donkey. Isn’t it, Poppa?”
“It is.”
I feel numb.
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want things to end this way.
Remember what the Boy said, my friend.
You take everything with you.
“Are you okay, Poppa?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“Do you want to come watch me ride Pepper now?”
More than anything I have ever wanted to do in my whole life. And I don’t even like horses, they’re dangerous.
“You must be careful with horses.”
“Oh, I will, Poppa. The careful-est.”
“You can call me Grandpa now. Like you used to.”
“No, I like Poppa now. It’s fun. Poppa.” She giggled.
That. I’ll steal that giggle and take it with me. I will steal everything there is that is worth anything in this life and I will take it with me. You are mine, giggle.
They arrived at the tank and the Old Man said, “Wait here,” and climbed up onto the tank. He leaned down into the hatch.
You will go with her now, my friend Santiago.
Teach her.
Teach her that life cannot defeat you. Only we can defeat ourselves.
He held out the book to her.
“Read this.”
“Now, Poppa?”
“No. Later when…”
Don’t say, When you want to remember me. Then she’ll know. She’ll cling to you and she’ll want to go with you. She won’t let you go on alone if you say
that.
No, Poppa. I need you.
“…later. It’s my favorite book.”
“The Old Man and the Sea, Poppa. What’s it about?”
Easy words caught in the Old Man’s throat as hot tears began to fill his eyes. He jerked his head away as if he’d seen something on the tank that needed attending.
“It just reminds me of you and me and all our adventures together, when we used to salvage.”
She looked at it for a moment, then stuck it in the pocket of her shiny green bomber jacket.
“Okay, now we’ll go see Pepper, Poppa. Pepper Poppa.” She laughed and said it three times fast.
That. I’m taking that with me too.
Please, can I take that?
“The Boy asked for me to send you over to him near the tents. He’s going to teach you how to make a halter for your horse. Then we’ll all watch you ride. I have a few things to finish here, so get going now, okay?”
“Okay, Poppa. You’re gonna love Pepper.”
Don’t.
Hug her.
You can’t. She’ll know.
If I could have that. If I could take that with me…
You can’t.
“Give me a hug,” he said quickly as she started to skip away, her hair whipping wildly.
She did.
Don’t squeeze her too tightly, she’ll know.
And this hug, I will take this with me. I don’t know where I’m going now, but wherever it is, I’m taking this hug with me.
“Bye, Poppa.”
And that too.
Bye, Poppa.
And she was gone.
He’d already given her things to the Boy along with his own gear. When he saw her tiny shape disappear among the tents of the Mohicans, the horse people, he knew it was time for him to go. He climbed into the hatch. He started the auxiliary power unit. He waited.
You must.
And yet, I don’t want to.
Megan. Sunshine. Her unwishable wish.
The engine spooled to life, its hum whispering death.
I’ll have to pass by the tents. Why didn’t I think about that?
He was heading for the road when she came out.
She was running for him.
Tears streaming down her face.
And the Boy caught her.