Aftermath, p.4
Aftermath, page 4
They walked up the veranda steps together. Sitting on the top tread was a young man with a thick serpent’s body, which was mostly coiled under him. Only his tail peeked out. Moodily the young man glared at them and flicked his tail, knocking over the small pyramid of stones he had just built with his tail’s tip. Wayne nodded at him cheerily, but the young man harrumphed and turned away. Hera noticed that he was not scaly but feathery, and in his temper his feathers fluffed up. "Don’t mind Kukulkan,” Wayne said out of the corner of his mouth. "He’s still a bit sore about the conquistadors pulling down his temple. To be fair, it was pretty rude of them — they used the stones from his temple to build a church. Bloody mongrels. Hey! Brer, what’s up brother?” He waved at a human-sized rabbit wearing denim overalls, who waved a plate-sized paw and loped around the corner out of sight.
Impatient, Hera grabbed Wayne’s arm and pulled him around. "I demand to know what is going on,” she ordered him. "What is this place and why am I here?”
Calmly, Wayne looked her straight in the eyes, in a way Hera found both insolent and unnerving. He wasn’t afraid of her, she realised. Then he looked over her shoulder and frowned. "Now who do we have here?” he said. He gently but very definitely took Hera by the arms and moved her aside, then walked further down the veranda to a corner darkened by the shade of an ancient pine grown too close to the house. A broken swing dangled lopsided from one branch.
Wayne squatted down in front of the dark corner. "Hello there,” he said gently.
Peering around Wayne, Hera could just see a hunched shape — a pair of bony knees with skinny little arms wrapped around them, a head of scraggly black hair nestled on her kneecaps. At least Hera thought it was a her. "You can see me?” the girl said, so quietly only a god could have heard.
"Of course I can,” Wayne said. "What’s your name?”
Her voice was fragile as glass. "I don’t remember.”
"What kind of god is she?” Garuda murmured to Freyja.
Freyja exchanged a look with Kukulkan, whose face relaxed out of his habitual resentment into a kind of sorrow. "I do not think she is a god,” Freyja said. "She is human.”
"Then why is she here?” Garuda said. "I can understand Wayne being here — we need a human to serve us, of course — but is this not a place for gods alone?”
"Fool!” Kukulkan suddenly spat. "You think we were brought here because we are godly?” His tail lashed out, sweeping the stones from his pyramid clear off the step.
If not that, then why? Hera thought. She gazed at Kukulkan’s scattered stones. One pebble was almost swallowed up in the weeds. She thought of Freyja and Garuda talking of new religions sweeping through their former territories. "What disaster brought you here?” She thought of Pompeii — the warnings she had sent out, the warnings that were ignored. She thought of the boy in the olive grove. She thought of his mother, who told her son that she, Hera, Queen and Roman goddess of old, was no one.
This place was a refuge not for gods escaping disaster: war, conquest, eruptions, persecution. This was where you went when everyone had forgotten about you.
Hera swallowed. The girl briefly met Hera’s gaze, then glanced away as if her sight had been burned. She could not have been more than ten. Hera said to Freyja, voice throaty, "Does this happen often? That these children —”
"Not always children,” Freyja said. "Sometimes teenagers. Often the elderly. Women. Brown people, black people. Sometimes whole villages. It happens all the time. The world is wide and its people are many. You can’t take notice of everyone.” Freyja grimly smiled. "So the humans say.”
Hera gazed upon the young dark-skinned girl, backed into a corner of a dilapidated porch. This nameless, unclaimed, unremembered child. How could they? a voice in her suddenly roared. How? She marched forward and knelt beside Wayne. The girl shoved herself back, the whites of her eyes showing. "My name is Hera,” she said. "I have a gift for you. Please —” it tasted strange in her mouth, this word of supplication — "please, may I give you this gift?”
The girl’s gaze flitted from Hera to Wayne and back again, her eyes still wide with fear. Nevertheless, she abruptly nodded. Then she turned her head away and brought her arm up as if fearing being struck.
A tear slipped down Hera’s cheek. Slowly, gently, she reached out to the girl, palm up in the ancient sign of peace. From her palm a silvery white light began to glow. She passed her hand and its attendant glow above the girl’s head, draping her in a gauze of light. The girl un-hid her face, looked up at Hera, startled. Then her eyes filled with wonder. Yes, Hera thought. Here is the gift of feeling at home, at last.
Freyja came forth, two of her long silvery blonde hairs tugged from her head and glittering in her hand. She swept them around the girl’s shoulders and as they circled her, they became a golden cloak. Garuda presented the girl with a feather; when she took it, her back straightened, her chest rose from its sunken shape. Fear dropped away. Even Kukulkan wound his way forward, nudging one last quartz pebble towards the girl. When she picked it up, a light came into her eyes that it seemed had long been dead. She opened her fist to reveal the pebble, now a sparkling emerald.
Wayne’s gift was simple. He leaned forward and kissed the girl on the forehead. "Kia ora, e kō,” he said. The girl smiled.
Then the girl looked finally back at Hera. "I see you,” she said.
Hera felt another tear escape her and this time she was not ashamed. "Yes, my dear,” she whispered back. "I see you too.”
Ah. To be seen. Well, I see you now, Friend. You’re looking good, all things considered. It’s pretty rough going, but then you get those moments of peace, eh? Sometimes you can even see beauty in it all.
Healers
by Gregory Dally
I
‘River.’ It’s harmonic to ‘riven’ in terms
of having a kinetic type of meaning,
a chance at directing or even making
one journey’s rhythm. Over the crater,
other travellers are seeking out definitions.
‘Fever’ seems valid, an ‘experience’
for those culling data to enhance the tranquil. As hale
as hell, you rive the current, swimming until you laugh.
Ingesting the dust of matagouri and rātā,
you sneeze out an ache, tilting it up
into a cyan flame of sky over Ōtematatā.
Hiccups are remedies.
Fallout from Australia’s fires
is glazing cirri, auguring mist on the plains.
In a drought that cleaves tussock of sustenance,
memories soon turn to ideas of jaundice.
II
Our minds can’t ease.
Creatures you’ve edited from their refuge in thoughts
have set about rending the last of this year’s twilight.
Gorgons are tricking summer into shivers.
Out in McKenzie Country, mystics dressed as rustlers
once froze and gifted their carcasses to the earth.
Their atoms fed a miscellany of plants.
A century later, herbs laced with the zing of the heavens
are starving on glaciers.
Shadows of the feral
leave those who cast them occluded,
crying for deliverance from the stars.
Do you get the idea
that something is in movement,
silent recluse?
Can you feel the earth under you
surging, heaving? Friend of this chronicler,
yes, that could be your heart.
We've travelled some distance now, dear reader, through time and space, through monsters and apocalypse and moments of reprieve, but we're not done yet! No indeed! So take a bite of something while you can, because you never know what we'll need to work through next or how we'll surprise ourselves doing it.
Thirty-Four Days
by C. D. Jacobs
"Thirty-four days since the big one blew. Twenty-six days since ours went too.” Io sang to the rubble as she jumped from ledge to ledge, high above the ruins of Dunedin. "Sinking, sliding, burning, dying, the only things left are me and you.”
Each jump calculated, practiced, Io moved along the edge of the old post office roof without trouble, her song carrying on the wind. She stopped and sniffed the air. The acrid stench of putrefaction mixed with natural gas and sewage made her dry retch. She had waited … "Thirty-four days since the big one blew …” She mumbled to herself, trying to remember if she had changed the number in the song today. She looked up at the perpetually overcast sky, searching for the brightest spot. It had to be morning still, so maybe it was "Thirty-five days since the big one blew … twenty-seven days …” She stopped. She had waited for twenty-seven days to come into the crumbling city centre.
She looked down from the corner of the Chief Post Office at the mess below. A green and white, two door, compact car was half-buried in liquid sewage. She imagined its hazard lights blinking absurdly in the perpetual twilight that had enveloped the world thirty-four … thirty-five days ago. She peered through the rear window, morbid curiosity getting the better of her. She could barely make out the silhouette of two people hugging in the front of the car. The road had crumpled around the vehicle, jagged concrete edges reaching to the sky like desperate industrial fingers.
Io’s eyes searched the rubble for signs of movement, or stable ground. Everything on the other side of the street had been completely destroyed, the casino, the hotel, everything sucked into a sinkhole so big that she had trouble finding its edges. Exposed wiring and water and gas lines criss-crossed the fragmented terrain.
THWUP THWUP THWUP.
The unmistakable beat of a kererū broke the silence of the rooftop and she jerked back to watch as it landed nearby and stared at her. Head too small for its body, it locked eyes with Io, waiting.
"Hey there.” She smiled at the bird, pulling a bit of seed from her pocket. It turned its head sideways to get a better look, backing away a little as she approached. "It’s okay, little guy.” She tossed a bit of seed on the ground between them. "You look hungry.”
A crash interrupted her attempts to befriend the giant pigeon and it took to the air with a cacophonous beating of its wings. The crash was followed by a sharp hissing sound and Io ducked behind the concrete barrier just as a gas line exploded across the street. She felt the building under her shake in response.
If I jump off … it’s seven stories … maybe death? Toxic fumes below … definitely death. Her mind raced, searching for a safe option for escape. The hissing had stopped, but she could now hear glass panels falling off the side of some of the more intact buildings in the city centre. Every crash jolted her inside, just a little, until finally, the silence returned. The roof remained intact, and she risked a look over the edge.
If she hadn’t just been looking, she wouldn’t have been able to point out what had changed, but the car was gone, the sinkhole was now wider and slowly creeping toward the post office like a malevolent spirit. The smell of sewage had been replaced by burning debris.
She hadn’t seen anyone in weeks. A small explosion followed by a collapsing wall had taken out a trio over by the University … sixteen? No … seventeen days ago. Watching through the telephoto lens of her camera, the one she had gotten for her forty-fifth birthday, she had wanted to warn them, to do something, but had instead captured the scene for posterity.
She patted the leather case on her side, checking to make sure the camera was still there. It hung loosely beside a small backpack that she had … found? Was found the right word? The initials on the top of the bag read E.F.D. Emily? Edward? Ethan? Eriatara? She climbed back down through the hatch in the roof of the post office-turned-hotel. The upper floors were ostentatious, with gold plated doorknobs, polished oak skirting and gleaming marble floors covered with dust and small bits of ceiling. She had hoped to find people in here, but while the building was intact, it was decidedly empty.
She twirled down the corridor, sing-songing through the surprisingly good acoustic halls of the hotel. "The only things left are me and you. I stayed out and watched it go. The buildings swaying to and fro.” Arms out like airplane wings, she spun down the hall, knocking a large decorative vase to the floor with a smash. "Hissing, smashing, walls are crashing, look out people …” She paused near a mirror that hung on the wall behind a wooden counter, taking in her bedraggled appearance.
Long, knotted brown hair clumped and dangled just over her shoulders like tree roots that framed an unwashed face bearing a line of jagged scabs across her cheek, a gift from twenty-seven days ago. A swerving van had nearly taken her out, trying to avoid a massive sinkhole. She only escaped by diving through the broken glass windows of a small café on George Street.
She briefly touched the wounds, wincing. Still sore. They were definitely infected. She moved in close, looking for lines running from the wound. Ochre tracks of dried, unwashed blood ran down her face. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, examining the bright red puffer jacket she had found … seriously, is found the right word? She batted one of the rips up and down, stuffing the down back inside. She tried not to think about the woman’s sightless face, hand outstretched, grasping for help that never arrived. The concrete had pinned her legs, but her jacket had come off so easily.
She shrugged. "Walls are crashing, look out people, no. no. NO!” She screamed the last no, letting the rage flow out of her and into the building. A chorus of "Nos” echoed back.
She knocked on one of the room doors and spoke with a thick British accent. "‘Ousekeepin!”
"Just a minute!” She deepened her voice and attempted an Austrian accent. How do Austrians speak?
"Come in!”
She pried open the door, sweeping into the room like she had official business. "I’ll be out o’ yer ‘air in two shakes, ‘un.” She sprawled out on the super king-sized bed, pocketing the mint on the pillow.
"Tanks.” She tried out an Irish accent, then shook her head.
She sighed. Most of the hotel was locked up tight. If they hadn’t heard her by now, they weren’t here. She had been completely unable to pry the staff room door open despite having a handy prybar in her backpack. Why the doors to the staff room in a hotel needed to be that strong, she had no idea, but it meant she didn’t have keys to the rooms.
At least the sheets were comfortable after sleeping under a tree for the last twenty-five … twenty-four days? There was the house where the gas line ruptured, the motel that had sunk into the ground, then the tree? It must have been twenty-four days under the tree. An enormous oak tree that had managed to survive the quakes and most of the liquefaction.
Hopping up onto the bed, she was dismayed to find that it wasn’t nearly as springy as she hoped. She did one bellyflop onto the sheets and then clambered off. What she really needed were some antibiotics for the cuts and maybe some Rubifen to help her concentrate. She’d been caught without her meds when the fault blew. It was far down her list of concerns at the time, right below get the hell out of town and don’t die.
She pushed past the damaged door and back into the hallway. She had just remembered why she had gone to the roof in the first place! There was a pharmacy somewhere near here, and other than the sinkhole, the area was fairly stable. She tried to remember the view from the top of the building. Was there a pharmacy? She was almost certain that there was one on the far side of the sinkhole. Getting there was going to be the problem, though.
She nearly tripped over a coat rack that had fallen since she passed the first time, but she caught herself, and the camera.
"To the pharmacy!” she shouted to the stairwell.
The street outside was cracked and jagged. Io wrapped a bright yellow scarf over her mouth and nose before making rapid progress around the edge of the sinkhole. The explosion had burned away most of the built-up methane and she briefly thanked whomever for small mercies. She slogged her way up the hill toward the spot where she was sure a pharmacy had been. It was right next to the medical centre there. At least … it used to be there. She scrambled over a chunk of the Southern Cross hotel and smiled when she saw the still-standing outline of the pharmacy.
"What kind of antibiotics do I need?” They are all pretty much the same, right? She pondered that as she approached the broken front doors of the pharmacy. Maybe they had a reference book of which drugs did what.
"Hello?” She shouted, not really expecting a reply. Everyone in the city had either left or were dead. "I’m here to pick up a script for Io Hays-Lee?” She walked up to the counter, trying not to breathe the air in too deeply, fouled as it was with the smell of rot. She tapped the call bell. Ding! It chimed out. She leaned over the edge of the counter, then quickly leaned back when she saw the remains of the pharmacist. There wasn’t anything to identify them other than the lab coat. Pools of viscera spilled out from beneath the body while flies buzzed lazily above. Taking a deep breath, she hopped over the counter, careful to avoid stepping on anything gruesome. A small, laminated badge caught the sun as she stepped over it and she brusquely snatched it off the ground. She looked around behind the desk, recognizing nothing. This was going to be extremely difficult. Maybe there was something in the back. She whistled and shouted over her shoulder.
