The Aerie
Today's story was inspired by the cards "An old man," "A classified or personal's ad," and "In the dark."
Remember by continuing you're agreeing to read but not copy or transmit the following story. Just enjoy!
I tried to walk slowly but the treasure of condensed milk and tinned ham in my string bag clanked together with every step with a noise that said “Rob me!” I had been lucky when the government truck pulled up, the crowd in front of the aid store was so thick the soldiers had stopped half a block back, right where I stood, to avoid the crowd.
The uniformed man, boy really, who swung down from the tail flashed me a woflish smile and gave me the once-over, and I, hardly daring to believe my luck, was not going to risk it all by objecting. Instead I put on my most charming smile and handed him my ration book. By the time the hungry, impatient crowd, some of whom had been waiting since before dawn, some of whom I knew from the neighborhood, had moved down to surround the truck, I was already hurrying away.
Despite my fears I got home safely, the chill April snow swirling around my bare ankles as I closed the lobby door and headed up to our apartment. Mother met me at the door, her face red and irritated, pulling it open as I fumbled with the keys.
“Why are you back, what did you forget? You didn't miss the truck, did you?”
“No!” I exclaimed defensively, needlessly. If I'd missed the truck we would have been very hungry until Saturday. “It stopped right in front of me, I got first pick!”
Mother drew the bag open and gave a surprised grunt at the contents.
“You got too many milk. How did you get extra...” she drew an angry breath and I flinched, “Who is this?” she cried triumphantly, holding up a card with the green camouflage back of the state militia. “Corporal Peter Norman, who is this?”
“What? I don't...” I started, and then I realized what had happened, but my mother was already underway.
“You, what did you trade for this, hah?” she cried, swatting me painfully in the shoulder with the heavy hand that clutched a black and white government milk container. “Are you having sex for food? What did you do for this?”
Mother was obsessed with my life beyond these walls, my sex life most of all. I wondered what it must have been like, back before the Emergency, back when the computers were all hooked together and there were two hundred channels on the TV instead of the five government stations. Everyone must have had sex all the time, because that's what mother thinks goes on when I leave the apartment block, despite the fact that no boy has more than looked at me in my life.
“No!” I objected, “I didn't do anything, he just, he must be trying to be nice to me, that's all!”
“Slut!” she cried, snapping her fingers in my face, “You think I want to drink this milk you got by whoring?” She carried it over to the sink as if to pour it out, and I lunged for the can opener held to the fridge with a magnet, before she could do something stupid.
“Mom I didn't do ANYTHING, okay!” I cried. “Look, Mom, you don't have to drink it! Trade it! Trade it to Mrs. Peterson for vegetables!” Mrs. Peterson had a south-facing apartment, and did a booming business growing a truck garden on trays in her living room. It was strictly illegal, black market stuff, but so were sanitary napkins.
Mother stopped, gave another grunt, and put the can aside. I knew I'd convinced her when she changed the subject.
“Here, I found this on the bulletin board in the lobby,” she said, “You should go see about it. He lives upstairs.”
The torn off tag of paper read “Evening assistance, partially disabled, Clement, 17B, GOOD REFERENCES”
That was fifteen flights overhead, but it would get me out from mother's nose while she calmed down. I went up to see him right away, but I kept the can opener in my pocket just in case she got any stupid ideas while I was gone.
Clement was an egg-man, oval, bald and stooped. He answered the door and I showed him the paper my mother had given me. After discussing my references – beginning with Mrs. Peterson, who knew everyone in the building, and ending with Mr. Latimer in 15L who I had helped out last year when he was injured in a protest – he asked me to come back in the evening. “I don't eat too much anymore,” he said, “So I can pay you seven ration coupons a week, on Fridays after the agency boy comes.”
I related this to Mother, who was in a much better mood when I returned, chopping pale carrots and shredding tiny lettuce for a salad.
“He just needs help getting into bed. He's VERY old!” I added quickly, forestalling her next accusation.
Helping Clement was easy work, and he was very nice. He was very old, he had just been a boy when the towers were blown up, he had watched it on TV as it happened. “My father swore when the second plane hit,” he said. “I'd heard him swear before, but not often, and never like that,” he told me. "It all went downhill from there, really.”
By Friday evening we had gotten into a routine. I made a small meal of farina porridge for him, with a little butter I'd snuck up from the kitchen, hoping mother wouldn't notice. He was in a dingy old bathrobe that he flattered with the label “dressing gown.” Afterwards I would help him into the orthopedic bed that the government gave him due, he told me, to the radiation burns he'd gotten in Pakistan when he was young.
Clement was a little crippled, but I realized that really he was more lonely than anything. He got about with his walker and the bed was a little high for him, but I could tell from the non-stop way he talked that he just wanted some company. He was nice, polite in a way that had gone out of fashion a long time ago, and I was happy to help him.
I had gotten him into bed and I was looking in Clement's hutch, at an old photograph of a pretty woman I assumed had been his wife, when the first of the explosions sounded, away across the city.
“Are they shelling again?” he called from the bedroom.
I was turning out the lights according to regulations. “I'll check,” I called, and moved to the window.
The city looked like a field of dying embers, as lights were blinking out everywhere in response to the deep rumble of explosions. As I watched there was a bright flash, much closer this time, and a fountain of smoke before the darkness engulfed it again. “Yes,” I called back, turning away from the window, “but it's nothing to worry about it's way over by...”
Suddenly everything whirled and spun, and I found myself sprawled across something soft. There was a whining sound, as if a timer were going off, and when I tried to move I felt glass crunch underneath my hands. Feeling carefully about, I realized that I was sprawled across an overturned couch, which was lying on some broken glass.
“Clement?” I called, but my voice came out weird and muffled. Feeling about, I realized that I could feel the broken glass move under my hand, but it made no noise. I was deaf.
No, I wasn't completely deaf, I could still hear that whining sound. Was it my ears ringing? I'd read the phrase many time in old books, but it was weird to experience.
“Sandra,” I said, my name the only word that came to mind. Muffled, I heard myself dimly, but inside my head. Then I coughed, the air was thick with dust and that too was muffled.
My hearing would have to sort itself out, I realized, and I focused on getting up. I was sore all over but I didn't feel any severe pains, and crawled slowly backwards off the couch, feeling only carpet under my knees. I peered about, but it was completely dark, and I wondered if I was blind, too. It didn't feel like it, but what did blindness feel like?
“Clement?” I called again, and it sounded a little better. The ringing was definitely fading, I thought. I groped around in the darkness, disoriented. The couch had been to my right as I faced Clement's room. A mortar must have struck quite near, and thrown me and the couch against the hutch where Clement kept his mementos, so that would put him about to my right, now.
I groped forward, the carpet felt warm and it was gritty with debris. Suddenly I heard Clement, quite clearly.
“Not that way, missy,” he said.
“What?” I replied and coughed on the bad air. My voice still sounded strange, but Clement's voice was clear.
“Turn around, back up,” Clement said.
Obediently I crawled backwards till my feet hit the overturned couch.
“Tip that right and climb over it,” he said.
I did so, stepping carefully on the remains of the hutch.
“Wait now, stop. Just at your feet, take that, please?”
I bent, groping carefully, and quickly found the scrolled metal edge of a picture frame.
“Her name was Sarah. I've missed her. Take that with you.”
Clement directed me forward, through the kitchenette, to the door to the hall. Just as I got there he said, “You'll be fine, now” and then a light appeared under the door.
My heart surged as I realized that I could see! I wasn't blind. I pulled the door open, and could hear it now, faint under the ringing but my hearing was definitely returning.
“Hello?” I called.
“There's one here!” a voice responded, “Hello, are you okay?”
“I think so,” I replied, and a flashlight beam caught me in the face. I turned my head against the glare and looked back into the apartment.
Dust and smoke filled the room, but was being sucked out the gaping hole where the far wall was missing. Wreckage was everywhere.
An arm wrapped itself around me, and light played over my face. “Are you okay?” The man's voice was shaken.
“Yes, I think so, my hearing is coming back,” I said. I looked down at myself, and realized that I was filthy, covered in soot, my dress shredded, exposing my bulky government bra and panties. I struggled to cover myself, suddenly ashamed. The cold glass of the tiny portrait pressed against my chest, and I looked down at the face of Clement's wife.”
“It's amazing you're alive. The shell hit the roof!” the man said. The building was only 18 stories tall, I knew it had struck close to me, but I didn't feel scared, not then.
“Here, take this,” He wrapped his coat around me and lifted me up.
“Is anyone else in there?” he asked, playing his light over Clement's apartment. “There's nobody else alive on this floor, I think.”
“Yes, Clement, he's at the back,” I said, pointing to where the dust was thickest. Now that it was clearing I could see fires in the city beyond. I looked down the hall, briefly, and realized that I could see the city there, too, where much of the building was gone.
The man went into the room, pushing the couch aside, and stopped.
“There's nothing back here,” he said.
I stepped forward, reluctant to go further in. “No, he's right in the bedroom, he helped me get out.”
The flashlight came back towards me, and I ducked my head against the glare.
“No, you don't understand. There's nothing there, the apartment is gone.”
But I was looking down at the jacket he had given me. At the name stitched, “Norman, P. Corporal.” on his breast.
And I looked up, and it was... it was the boy from the food truck.
Posted by Albatross at December 15, 2009 9:23 PM | TrackBack