by P. S. Lurie
We, The Grateful Few
P.S. Lurie
THE DAY OF THE GREAT CULL
Ruskin
Someone is killing me.
I try to inhale but a pair of hands blocks my airways and my lungs burn on empty. I’m being choked to death, a cruel way to rouse me from a hopeful dream about flying above the flooded world, waking me only to end my life.
My arms flail out before my tired eyes can break open and see who sneaked up on me in my sleep. I try to knock away the fingers that are clinched around my nose but the grip is strong. I can’t scream because the other hand is clasped over my mouth.
With no electricity, my eyes strain in the lowlight of the moon outside my bedroom window but I make out who is leaning over me in the attack: my older brother, Jason.
“What the hell are you doing?” My words are trapped but even in their muffled state the intonation is clear enough for Jason to figure out what I’m trying to say.
“You have to be quiet.” He looks pointedly towards the bag that he has placed at the end of my bed. “Pack what you want to take. We’re going in five minutes.”
I allow my body to go limp and, as he lifts his hands away, I take a few deep breaths and feel my arms relax. I take in his words. There’s only one reason we’re going, and only one place we could be going to. “The flood? But it’s nowhere near our house?”
‘Nowhere near’ is an understatement borne from, depending on my mood at the time, optimism, ignorance or apathy; the Lowerlands have been long submerged and we have been left caught between the rising ocean to the south and the Fence above us. In a matter of months we’ll be drowned out too. We’ll be homeless but with not a spot of solid land to set up camp. Hopeless, believing that the sea is nowhere near us is all that comforts me right now. That’s not entirely true. We’re going. “The Upperlands?”
Jason still doesn’t respond.
“They’re letting us in?” I ask, persistent in my questions that receive no answers.
Finally, he nods.
I bolt upright. If anything in this world is going to shock me it’s this. Then I remember that the announcement isn’t due until this evening so this news seems premature. I wipe the sleep from my eyes. “You’re serious.”
My brother nods again. “Mum and dad are nearly ready but we’ve got to be quiet.”
I look at my possessions strewn about the room and figure out what I can fit into the bag and what I’m bothered about taking with me. “Wait,” I say, confused by the command as it finally seeps in. “Why do we have to be quiet?” Then it hits me. Jason isn’t more excited about this because something doesn’t sit right; we have to be quiet because others can’t know. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Only a few of us are going. We’re lucky, so be grateful for that much.” He sighs, disclosing more than he means to. “The rest of the Middlelanders will find out what’s happening at the announcement tonight.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain later but right now you have to get ready.” He looks at his lower arm, at a watch that sits snug on his wrist but I don’t recognise it. The watch is not only new but unlike anything I’ve seen before. Pure silver, no clock face, sleek. He pushes the screen and digital numbers flash up.
“Whoah.” I want to ask where he got technology like that from but he cuts me off.
“There’s so little time,” he says before he leaves my room. What is he afraid of telling me? For starters, if only some of us are going then why my family? What did we do to be picked out of the thousands of Middlelanders looking to be Rehoused? And who else?
I climb out of my bed, throw on yesterday’s clothes because they are to hand and nothing else is much cleaner, and look around my room. There isn’t a lot I feel compelled to take with me. If we’re going to the Upperlands does that mean we’re not coming back? I want to ask Jason but he’s gone. I only have a backpack’s amount of space anyway but it feels surreal to think this might be the last time I’m here. It’s something I’ve dreamt of for years, to be moved beyond the Fence, to safety. But now that it’s here I can’t quite fathom what that means.
I want to talk to Henry, my best friend, who lives a few streets away and ask if he’s coming too. But what if he’s not? Do I say goodbye? Or see you soon?
Good luck?
Jason pops his head around the door. He’s a lot taller than me but looks even more condescending than usual, as if I’m a nuisance to him, disappointed that I’m only half dressed. “Two minutes,” he says.
In a trance I gather up a few things but it’s haphazard because, in truth, there’s nothing here that I’m attached to. It’s the people. When my parents were young there was an abundance of appliances like cameras and printers but these lost any utility when electricity and batteries were limited and then unobtainable, except during Surges. As a consequence, taking photographs became a thing of the past and no one missed it because there was nothing joyous or momentous in documenting our lives, unless marking our slow descent into extinction counts.
I have no photographs to pack, except for one. It was my thirteenth birthday and my parents managed to get hold of something called a Polaroid camera. I have no idea how much money they spent or what they had to do to borrow the device but I was allowed to take one photograph.
Henry and I stood together, arms around one another’s necks, and we stuck out our tongues towards the box whilst my father pointed it at us and clicked a button. There was a whirring before the machine spooled out a square blank sheet. My father told me to hold the print at the edge and wave it in the air. Henry and I stared for what felt like an eternity until colours gradually appeared in splodges, and bit by bit our faces and the tops of our bodies showed up.
I pick up the photograph from my bedside table and smile. Jason is my older brother but Henry is closer to me than anyone. He has other friends, such as Theia Silverdale and Selene Gould, but I’ve trusted him with a secret that no one else knows.
I consider leaving the photograph in my room with a note on the back in case Henry isn’t coming with but that would mean he would have to break into my house when he found out I had gone. And what if he is moved to the Upperlands as well? I don’t want to sacrifice the picture so I pack it carefully between two worn sweaters then write a note on a piece of scrap paper for him to find, which I place on my bed.
I leave my room in the dimmest glow of daybreak and don’t look back.
My parents and Jason are huddled by the front door at the bottom of the stairwell. They look at me with apprehension, as uncertain as I am as to what awaits us. “Ready?” my mother asks. I see her bag and wonder what she packed.
“Ready,” I reply.
We step outside into the fresh, biting wind and Jason leads the way. My father goes to close the door. He fumbles with the key in the lock, and Jason scowls at the noise he makes, so my father stops trying. “I guess we don’t need to bother with that,” he whispers to no one and the words get swept away in the breeze. The homeless are now welcome to our house, just like they should have been years ago. I remember when our community agreed to invite those from the Lowerlands to sleep on our floors when they had to evacuate their drowned houses, but when the time came no one volunteered. Instead we watched them migrate to the Fence and no one around me professed guilt because the responsibility was shared too widely for anyone to step up and admit what we had done was wrong.
My father rubs my back as we move away from the house. The four of us, a complete family, heading towards the Fence but, unlike the homeless from the Lowerlands, a way through has been opened for us. Will the homeless watch passively
as we enter through the gates? It’s so incredible it’s hard to digest.
My father, mother and brother tiptoe down the path and turn onto the road but I falter. “I’ll be there in a second,” I say in a hushed voice, aware that the rest of the neighbourhood is still sleeping and that few others or no one else is coming with, making it even more unlikely that Henry has been invited. Knowing what I do about Henry’s feelings towards Theia, a girl he’s in love with, he wouldn’t leave without her so it would be both of the families or nothing. What about my loyalty to Henry? Should I leave without him? This is all happening so unexpectedly, so fast that I don’t know how to feel.
“Come on,” Jason says.
“I want to get my thicker coat,” I explain.
I go back into the house and swap to my other coat; if we’re going farther north it’s likely to be colder, unless the Upperlanders have a solution for the climate as well as the sea. I hope they do.
Hope. That’s what I’m feeling right now. I’m full of hope.
I change my mind about the photograph and think that even with the unlocked front door Henry is too polite to enter. I don’t want to give up the cherished print of the two of us but I need to convey a message to my best friend if he isn’t coming with yet. Making sure my parents and Jason don’t see, I scribble my note out again but this time on the back of the Polaroid. I close the front door and bend down to slide the note under the worn, thatched welcome mat, so that only a fraction of it is visible.
Then I catch up to my family and play back the words in my head. ‘Henry, I hope you don’t see this because you’re going to the Upperlands. I hope I see you soon.’
Yes, that’s exactly what I feel.
Hope.
Henry
The world is too quiet, devoid of electricity. It must be my imagination but the Middlelands seem even more absent of noise than usual, as if people are already holed up in their homes, waiting with baited breath for the announcement despite it being hours away. I pace the streets, unsure what to do with myself since I’ve knocked on Ruskin’s door and he’s not there, called in on Selene but she’s in a foul mood because of something her mother said, before finally heading back to my street and checking on Theia who seems to have been missing in action all day although we had a plan to meet this afternoon and discuss the announcement. I came up with some great statements, amalgamations of previously-said insincere messages from the Upperlands during other Surges that were designed to inspire and reassure us but effectively give us nothing tangible. We have your best interests at heart. We are grateful for your patience. We are working hard to find a solution. But this evening’s announcement is going to be different, I’m sure of it. From the rumours I’ve heard, tonight will change our fates.
I try Theia’s house once more, past the creaking gate. Her father comes to the door, carrying Leda, barely able to lift his eye level to mine and acknowledge me, affected by the same fog that’s blanketed his mental state for years. He shakes his head and walks off in silence. Ronan, Theia’s younger brother, appears.
“Hey Ronan.”
“Hey Henry. Theia’s still not here.”
It’s unusual for Theia to leave Ronan and her baby sister in her father’s care. As usual, her mother will be at the hospital, likely to catch tonight’s announcement during a ward round rather than at home with her family. “Any idea where she went?”
“No. Want to play?”
“Maybe later.” I walk away and wonder where she would have gone.
I let my feet lead me and follow the streets to the market, in the opposite direction from the Fence that has dominated our skyline since I was Ronan’s age. At one point I pass an elderly homeless man with a straggly beard who lugs his possessions in tattered bags down the middle of the road and I move onto the pavement to avoid him. He’s deathly thin but still alive and I wonder that, if the rumours that we will all be Rehoused after tonight are true, maybe all he needs to do is hold on a while longer. I decide to buy him some scraps of fish if I have anything trade-worthy and give them to him on my journey back.
The market is buzzing, a sharp contrast to the rest of the Middlelands. Soon my father and the other fishermen will return with the early morning load but already people are passing the time gossiping about tonight’s Surge, the flow of electricity that will allow the announcement to be broadcast through our usually-blank, otherwise redundant television screens.
I nod towards a few people I know but I don’t engage in any conversation. I keep my eyes out for Theia but she’s nowhere to be found and I can’t think where else she’d be.
I feel into my pocket and bring out the coin. It’s not much but any frivolous spending money is a rarity. If we are leaving the Middlelands then I might as well buy something beforehand. Considering the number of people and the haggling I can hear around me, I figure others have the same idea.
The food section will fill up soon enough but for now most people are in the clothes quarter, attempting to purchase or trade for thicker coats because the Upperlanders will be at a higher altitude. However, I hear someone negate the idea that coats will even be needed because the Fence will cut the wind off and it will be pleasant to walk around. It’s impossible to know but hopefully our curiosity will soon be satisfied.
I wander some more and find myself in front of a table of metal scraps, some shinier than others. Amongst the junk are a few pretty items: jewellery and other accessories, most of which I imagine have been laid out dormant for months if not years, because what opportunity is there for a woman to dress up?
Then I see it.
My heart flutters and I realise that maybe I’m wrong, that maybe tonight will be cause for celebration, and I know that I will do everything in my power to buy the object with whatever possessions I have on me as well as anything else back at the house that I can get my hands on.
I play it cool and pretend to barter for a few other items, chunkier and more expensive-looking than what I have my sights set on.
The seller looks at me with frustration when I keep changing my mind until I pick up the bracelet and casually throw out another question. “How about this one?”
“If you leave me alone?” he says, without any effort. “Give me that coin and you can have it. What difference anyway.”
I make the exchange and move away before the man changes his mind or sees that I’m thrilled with my purchase.
It’s only once I’m out of the market and into the fresh air that I really stare at the bracelet. It’s the exact same material and style as the necklace Theia wears, handed down from her mother. I imagine Theia’s face lighting up when I present it to her. We’ll have the announcement, the news will be great, I’ll hop over the garden fence and we’ll celebrate. And then I’ll reveal the bracelet and with it she’ll know how I feel.
That’s exactly how it will play out.
I slip the bracelet back into my pocket, where it will stay until tonight.
I walk away from the market as the men arrive with bucket-loads of fish. Perhaps it will be the last time they have to go on the daily haul. If all goes to plan tonight then they won’t have to fish again in the Middlelands.
I’m so excited that I want to go and find Theia now. But I’ll wait. I’ll head home and see her after the announcement.
I can’t wait for this evening. It will be perfect.
Selene
At first I see nothing except a glare. I slide off the heat-vision glasses but leave the helmet over my face to protect my identity because I shouldn’t be here, beyond the Fence. I have no right to be here, not only because I am impersonating one of the Upperlanders’ guards but also because my mother was singularly allowed to be Rehoused, which means that I should be dead.
The morning sun hangs low but, even without the glasses, its reflection off the structure dazzles my vision. I squint and let my eyes adjust. I find myself on the other side of the Fence, away from the mounds of massacred homeless people, in a large concourse.
Officers march through checkpoints that are set up in various streams. There’s so much activity but this is not what I’m astounded by.
Apart from the Fence, set back and spanning into the distance behind me, I stare at the largest building I have ever seen. It is made of glass, steel and iron, nothing like anything in the world I have left behind. I have to crane my neck as far as I can to both sides to look at it from end to end. The structure sits on a raised platform, standing almost as high as the Fence itself, a narrow walkway stretching above my head, connecting the top of the Fence to an entrance on this construction.
I think back to a few hours ago, in Henry’s room, just before the Surge and the horrors that followed, when things were simple and I deemed his room my sanctuary, our very own Noah’s Ark. In my mind it was meant to be Henry and me. I was meant to save him. But he’s dead now.
Henry chose Theia over me and she is to blame, running from his house as the life faded from his body. I shake that thought away. I was meant to bring him to the coast, sail off and figure out the rest later but I was too late.
I was looking for a boat and now I have found one because I see exactly what this thing is in front of me. It is Noah’s Ark brought forward thousands of years but this time it is an advanced community rather than one man who has built it. A ship, bigger than anything I could have imagined. Pre-empting the flood, this is large enough to house thousands if not tens of thousands of people. So this is what the Upperlanders have been working on, devoting their time to, in case the Fence didn’t hold the water out. They still worry the flood will rise farther.
When the woman mentioned a lack of resources in the announcement, did she mean space onboard? Would we have all been able to fit? Is that why they didn’t Rehouse us all?
Lack of space beyond the Fence is an inadequate explanation for what has become of the Middlelands as even this arena is larger than any public space we had. Professing a lack of resources is not a good enough reason to have held us back because the flood would still have to reach over the Fence, too far away from being a threat here. Despite the ship, there is plenty of space for us in the Upperlands because looking past the ark or whatever the Upperlands call it are innumerable buildings, again made of clean, unrivalled materials. A whole city, worlds away from the Middlelands; these buildings don’t tower over the Fence but they look comfortable for mass living. Safe from the weather conditions. Safe from the ocean. I can only guess at the commodities inside the buildings. Living must be easy up here. We have been lied to.