People Park

by Pasha Malla

  Isabella and Gregory Eternity climb to the top of the Thunder Wheel. She starts screaming at everyone through a megaphone. He abides at her side, trying to look proud.

  Out on the bridge the people are ready. Yet one weird woman is apart from everyone else. She climbs down under the bridge. She walks out on a trestle. She has no gun. She just stands there, facing west, pale and naked, and the wind tussles her hair like a drunk uncle’s hand, though benign, into a mess of black scraggles.

  The boats are fast approaching. The air fills with the clacking clamour of a bunch of guns cocked fast. But the woman apart from everyone doesn’t move. She seems oblivious to everything: to the invaders, to Gregory Eternity trying to get a U-nique! chant going, clapping his hands like someone’s too-keen, embarrassing dad, oblivious to her fellow citizens poised to kill, to the world and all that is in it.

  GOOD LOOKIN OUT, Bean, said Griggs, and clicked his radio off.

  From the top of the Thunder Wheel the view was astounding. The lake nibbled its way inland. The streets in the eastend’s farthest reaches had become a grid of black water from which houses and trees struggled, and upon these impromptu canals residents of Fort Stone and Bebrog and Li’l Browntown and Greenwood Gardens boated and swam and waded inland toward People Park.

  The westend too was a swamp. From Lowell Canal ribbons of green sludge threaded into LOT and UOT. Residents who hadn’t joined the exodus surveyed this warily from upper-storey windows and roofs and the top of the Dredge Niteclub. Only the Mews, swelling bubblelike from the island’s southeast corner, remained, for now, dry.

  As from the east so from the west, people were escaping to People Park — great convoys of them on foot, grimly splashing through the water, in and upon various watercraft (rowboats, surfboards, planks) they fled the Zone. Meanwhile, the protest/parade had reached Topside Drive, discovered it flooded, and disbanded — some people had relocated to the common, others milled aimlessly around downtown.

  Yikes, said Wagstaffe, lowering his camera.

  Too late to sandbag it, said Griggs. Once people are downtown it should be fine but —

  Wait, said Magurk, what do you mean should?

  Look at the water, said Wagstaffe. It’s still coming up. Look!

  I’ll take your word for it . . . Lucal.

  Whoa, who are you calling Lucal? I’m sorry, things go a little wonky and suddenly we forget protocol? What is this, How We DON’T Do? What if — he swung the camera at Magurk — we were actually broadcasting?

  But Magurk had gone quiet: all this commotion had got the Thundercloud rocking and creaking, he gripped his harness, face as pale as paper.

  Griggs spoke into his radio: Walters and Reed, any word on Favours?

  No sign of him.

  Good lookin out, sighed Griggs. He eyed Magurk, then Wagstaffe. Guys, he sighed, please, remember the fourth pillar. Try to maintain decorum.

  Wagstaffe trained the camera west, zoomed in on Laing Towers, where a few dozen residents congregated, safe for now, the water six floors below.

  They’re spelling something, he said. With the letters from the building sign.

  What does it say? said Griggs.

  WE . . . ARE — but just a letter R . . . wait . . . wait. Oh.

  Oh, what? said Magurk. WE R O?

  No, that’s it. Just WE R. They don’t have the letters to spell anything else.

  Laing Towers, Laing Towers, said Magurk. They could write: WE R LOST.

  They’re not lost, sighed Griggs. They’re on their own roof.

  How about: WE R LOST AGIN? said Wagstaffe. Misspelled, but still.

  But if all they’re after is help, said Magurk, what the fug does it matter what their sign says? Don’t they just need to be noticed? I mean, they could write WE R — he paused, his lips moved, the other men waited. The wind blew gently. At last he spoke: GOAT SIN if they thought it was going to get them rescued.

  Goat sin, yucked Wagstaffe. Is that what you’re up to at the Friendly Farm afterhours?

  I swear, once we’re off this ride —

  Enough! bellowed Griggs. Please. Would everyone just shut up. I’m sure Noodles too would appreciate a little silence.

  But Noodles’ attention was turned skyward: a newscopter went puttering past, off to the westend, to video the helpless folks stranded atop their tenements.

  AT LAST TRAIN 2306 entered Parkside West. After riding through so many vacated stations Debbie was stunned by the waiting crowds. Even at rush hour such a crush was rare. The doors opened, a Helper stepped into the far end of the car to instruct everyone how to board.

  Debbie called, Can we get off first?

  He looked at her in disbelief. How the fug did you get on here?

  And then he was demanding to see her papers, so Debbie slid into the crowd and, with Rupe and Cora trailing her, carved a path across the platform, singsonging, Excuse me, excuse me, feeling like an enemy of the world. Quickly, she lost sight of her co-passengers amid the bodies closing in and pushing past and draining into the train. Who were these people, she wondered, where were they all going?

  At streetlevel she waited for Cora and her son. No one came down. The parade had dwindled, stragglers drifted about, with nowhere better to go they descended the Slipway into the park. Up top, the train heaved out of the station. And still no sign of Rupe and Cora. Debbie climbed the escalator: the platform was empty. South along the tracks, the evacuation passed through City Centre Station, picked up speed around the bend toward Bay Junction and the drowned south shore, and disappeared. Debbie was deserted trackside. Across the street, the lights of Cinecity’s marquee flashed and twirled.

  FROM THE FLOOD beneath Upper Olde Towne Station the Hand and the twins scrambled up the scaffolding into the half-renovated platform, climbed over great coils of cable and stacked girders onto the tracks, swung underneath and hung there digging drills and electric screwdrivers from pilfered toolbelts. Motors whirred and the process began of grinding out screws and rivets, each one crusted with rust and hardened paint. They worked in purposeful silence and only when the first of the huge lugnuts wriggled loose and tumbled down to the flooded street, landing with a plop in the black water, was there a hoot of triumph, before they went back to work.

  WITH RAVEN’S Grammar tucked under an arm Pearl waded down to the bottom of Mustela Boulevard, followed people hopping the turnstiles, climbed the dead escalator to the platform, and joined the waiting crowd at 72 Steps Station. The atmosphere was tense, the air clammy and thick. Everyone seemed to exist inside a column of solitude, even family members seemed somehow estranged from one another, the lakewater slapped at the station’s struts below.

  Eking out elbow room, Pearl opened the Grammar and examined its Table of Situations. The chapters were titled arcanely — Supplication, Daring Enterprise, The Enigma. Where to begin? Only Disaster seemed relevant, but all she wanted was to find Gip, not solve the whole city’s problems. Even if she could.

  Train, called a voice from the far end of the platform — echoed, Train! — and the mood lightened, hope bloomed. The platform rumbled, a galloping sound came from the east. Someone hollered, We’re saved! and everyone cheered.

  Turning to face her, an old man shot Pearl a gaptoothed grin. Been waiting here forever, he said. Didn’t think we were ever going to get out. I’ve got the ground floor at E and 9, totally underwater when I left it. But as you can see — gently he knocked his cane against Pearl’s leg — I’m not exactly fit to walk all the way across town.

  The whole westend is flooded? said Pearl.

  Flooded? Missy, I’ve seen flooding! This isn’t flooding. Sinking’s what we’re doing. The man winked. Get out while you can!

  Sinking? What’s sinking? The island is sinking?

  Look, he smiled, twirling his cane, here’s the train!

  A clatter as it neared. When the movato
r didn’t come to life, people stepped into the bevelled warning area. But the lead car reached the end of the platform and failed to stop. One by one, each car flashed by, close enough to touch, packed with people, the faces of men and women and children inside mirrored Pearl’s astonishment — What are you doing there? — until finally the train slipped off to Budai Beach.

  Not again, said someone.

  What now?

  I’ve been here twenty minutes! Nothing’s stopping either way!

  It’s not like the trains aren’t running.

  I mean, was that a train?

  That was a train. So was the last one. And the one before that!

  So what are we supposed to do? Wait here to drown?

  No one’s going to let us drown.

  What the fug is going on?

  Pearl hugged the Grammar. The old man leaned on his cane. And somewhere nearby two angry voices clashed like blades.

  What about the riots? What if they come here?

  There’s no riots! Our houses are underwater!

  There’s riots, people are looting, there’s —

  There’s no riots! Understand me?

  The crowd surged, Pearl was pressed against the wall.

  Get your hands off of me, said the first voice.

  Hey now, break it up — a new voice, booming and paternal.

  There’s riots, there’s riots! Everyone knows! Admit it!

  You touch me again the only riot’ll be my fist through the back of your fuggin head.

  Silence. Expectation. A general, tingling excitement at possible violence.

  Tell me this, said the second voice, why riot when the whole city is drowning?

  Or sinking, the old man whispered to Pearl, winked, and twirled his cane.

  THIS WAS NOT an illustration, said the Mayor, not a trick, not even a spell. It was a curse.

  A curse?

  You put a curse on this city.

  Ah. Oh.

  You must put it right.

  Put it right. If only, Mrs. Mayor.

  What. Why not.

  Oh, you know. I have only certain powers and only those at certain times. So, this is to say, that even if I wanted to —

  You don’t want to.

  I’m not saying that. What I’m trying to express is the fear — yes, my fear — that I’ve brought things to a point beyond my control. I can’t fix anything now. They must just go, they must just happen. Whatever happens, happens.

  For a reason.

  For a reason? No! For what reason? What reason could there possibly be?

  You don’t believe in anything.

  Not true. I believe that nothing is what it seems. It’s always something else. Or at least we must understand it in terms of something else. The thing itself, Mrs. Mayor, is never quite enough. We must always examine it sideways. We must —

  Please, just stop it.

  Oh, Mrs. Mayor, are you the duck who cannot imagine herself a hunter?

  What.

  At any rate, I won’t be around here for a while.

  And I —

  And you, Mrs. Mayor, you should join me. Let me be your gateway.

  Gateway? To what?

  To your own past, if you wish.

  The Mayor’s throat hitched. She bit her lip.

  Well, said Raven, I do believe it’s time for me to go. Will you join me?

  Will I? Go with you? No. No, I can’t.

  Ah. No?

  No.

  As you wish, said Raven.

  Whispering, rustling. A sucking sound of water sucked down the drain.

  Then silence.

  A breeze gusted over her.

  And the Mayor was released.

  The cart began rolling down the slope, that sudden urgent tug of gravity. She picked up speed, was soon hurtling down, the wind whipped her face and whistled in her ears. As she plummeted the blackness filled with shrieking. This grew: louder, hysterical, she felt it inside her bones, her teeth, her arteries and veins — and then it stopped, she was lifted, or dropped, the cart tumbled as if into a void. The Mayor felt disembodied, light. She was floating, drifting, like a rogue planet through a galaxy without stars.

  And then a voice spoke and broke the spell: Goodbye, sweet queen. I’ll see you in your dreams.

  VII

  DINE STOOD UP. Ignoring the crowd’s scolding — Sit down! — What the fug! — You’d make a better flat than a window! — she was hypnotized by the image onscreen: the naked woman at the edge of the trestle, black hair dancing around that gaunt, haunted face. A hand grabbed Adine’s arm, tried to tug her back down into her seat, but those huge and tragic eyes onscreen were too much: they released something from Adine. She felt released.

  But then with a great upward sweep of black hair the face was gone. For a moment empty space consumed the screen, then the film cut promptly to Gregory Eternity and Isabella and the remaining unkilled members of their entourage being driven back from Topside Drive into People Park, where the treetops are ablaze with flaming fires like tall, skinny, brown and bark-skinned people with their hair on fire, except not running around but just standing there stupidly, because they’re trees, and amid a crackle of gunfire the invaders advance, dozens of shadowy figures like the somehow cloned shadows of something evil’s melena-black shadow —

  Enough. Adine squeezed out along the aisle between knees and chairbacks. Heads craned, voices hissed: Hey! — Get out of the way! — We’re missing our fuggin movie here!

  In the lobby sunshine came streaming in, garish and disorienting, the first daylight she’d seen in months. Through it Adine stumbled to the bathroom, splashed water on her face, her vision adjusted, shapes defined, the pain faded. She observed herself in the mirror, hair a limp greasy mophead, colour had deserted her face as light from a waning day.

  The only sound in the bathroom was the dripping tap. Adine tightened it. The dripping continued. And the sink to her left started dripping, and so did the one to her right, and all the faucets were leaking thin streams, then torrents, cranked open by unseen hands.

  She stepped back, her feet encountered more water: the toilets were overflowing, a slimy puddle crept from the stalls. Adine tracked sneaker-prints to the bathroom’s exit and out into the foyer. From the men’s room water was oozing too, the same dark water, the sickly whiff of sewage beneath it.

  The box office was empty, no ushers were about, no one worked the candyapple counter. Adine stuck her head back into the theatre: It’s flooding, she warned them, is there someone who works here, the bathrooms are flooding. A few scattered shhhs replied, no one turned from the drama onscreen: bombs explode like detonating broken hearts and Gregory Eternity rages alongside Isabella, the love of his life . . .

  Back in the lobby Adine tried the payphone: dead. She left the receiver dangling and headed for the exit, the rug squelched underfoot in a buttery frogspawn, a bubble lifted, and as she pushed out into the crowds on Parkside West it burst and released a little waft of yellow gas as if hatching a ghost.

  AS IT CAREENED around the bluffs the train’s doors bulged, the NFLM had packed in too many passengers. Kellogg could feel that odd alien hum of a stranger’s flesh upon his own, he offered the woman beside him a tired smile, she returned it reluctantly and looked away. The air was warm jelly, skin stuck and peeled off skin with a tacky, ripping sound.

  Kellogg’s shirt was drenched, Elsie-Anne’s hair sopping, the sweatshirt slathered to her as wet leaves over a rock. The speaker system announced the next stop, Budai Beach Station, but the Helper assigned to this car, a rasping character behind Kellogg (nametag: Bean) corrected it: No stops, folks, just straight around the Yellowline to Whitehall, a ferry’ll take all you mainlanders home.

  This failed to raise morale. The human cargo rocked silently in a steady, sloshing
rhythm as the train travelled alongside the lake. Kellogg hooked his daughter into a gentle headlock. This is it, he said. They’re taking us home, Annie. Home.

  OVERTOP OF WHAT had once been Lakeside Drive Sam paddled the door, naked. The pain in his face had dispersed into a dull throb through his body. He’d wedged the remote in the dry spot between his chest and raft. He saw only light, the microwave’s blazing, the last thing he’d seen was all he’d ever see. Yet within this were shades: the view to his left darkened where the bluffs blocked the sun, to his right was the greyish wash of the lake.

  The light to his left brightened, what he saw now looked bleached. Bay Junction, Sam figured, the bluffs flattening. Were he to cut north he’d be heading into downtown. He was close. Sam felt tired — tired of this work, which was over. He’d not known how it would end. But so this was it, time’s machine sucking everything under.

  Soon he’d be home. He could smell the earthy potatoey rot of the dug-up ground, the sour gasoline odour of the diggers and bulldozers, the dust of crushed and ruined buildings scratched his throat. Up he’d go, enter the A-Blocks and swim north along the Throughline, and at home in H-Block, Unit 53, he’d find Adine, watching TV, and together they’d wait for time to wheel all the way back to the beginning, to the end.

  THE CROWDS COLLECTING on Parkside West had begun to tip into People Park. Debbie considered joining the convoy down the Slipway, but Helpers were among them, randomly checking papers. Instead she fled to the Galleria, where an anxious-seeming woman in a postalcarrier’s uniform held the door open and asked, You looking for someone? Debbie nodded. Friend or family? She stared. Well whoever you’re looking for, said the postwoman, they aren’t here. No one you’d know is in here. And she joined the procession descending into the park.