California (the children)
Noon, time for the midday meal..we rise quietly and say silent prayers. Ren passes around the bowls, fruit, raw vegetables, bread and the big pot of hot potato stew... each of us takes his portion and passes the bowl to his neighbor. We lived in communities, usually fifty to eighty in one sect. We were the Californians, and over the whole state there was one hundred thousand sects.
California was an island now, the great earthquake,, yea believe it or not it came, and it did just what had been predicted... I remember the week before, Ren, Sharon, Paul and I had planned a trip to the mountains.. we had been having tiny earthquakes, nothing to get alarmed about, little tremors, 3-4 on the Richter scale. But, driving around the mountain, I felt I would never see home again.. just a feeling, just a thought,,, that came true..
I packed up things that weren't making any sense to me but I guess that intuition had taken over. Our trip was the day after the fourth,, and in spite of the heat, my pack contained a couple pairs of jeans, several pairs of socks, boots and an extra heavy sweater. They had laughed at me.. the only thing I could say in defense of myself,, you never know.
The earth shook, hard, for a long time, we had been down in a canyon, all we could do was sit, the sound was deafening, rocks were dislodged, rolling down the mountain side... I don't think I had ever been that scared in my life and figured, I never would be again,, but I was wrong...The silence,,, it hurt, our chests hurt from holding our breaths. You could hear and feel your heart beat. There were big boulders, some had knocked down trees, the van was crushed... a big one landed in the lake, and water had rushed the shore line into the canyon and lapped at our feet. We stared at each other... no one spoke the silence wouldn't let us.. and the earth rumbled again.. Fissures started to appear.. two on opposite sides of the canyon.. This brought us back to life.. we all came together on the same side and scuttled up a hill..holding onto each other we watched as the two fissures met.. you could hear grinding and smell the fresh dirt that rose from the ground.. then, one big jolt... and the other side of the canyon fell away...
California was an island, Hawaii was gone, Alaska was approximately 1500 miles to the north of us.. Florida and Mexico combined to make one large island 800 miles south of us.. The rest of the U.S. had been split in two and it lay 2000 miles east of us, to the west, nothing but open water. The beach communities were gone, Malibu, Huntington, Long Beach, Ventura,, a bit of Los Angeles...California coastline now started at Eagle Rock. The wave had been so large, it actually knocked the tall buildings down..nothing left not even a memory of where they had once stood.
We had to be self sufficient, we grew our food, the soil had been enriched somehow after the quake ... everything grew. The quake had not affected the animals too badly, since most had been out in the open.. Some panicked and ran into the crevasse or into the water, our problem had been rounding them up,, though, they weren't as much of a problem as the wild animals, their homes (zoos) had been destroyed.....water had been a concern, we were surrounded by it, but it wasn't safe to drink, with trial and error (more error) we found a way to purify it... So our lives began...again.
Still the water was calming to me, although I knew the damage it had done, I loved the way the sun glistened off the surface.. There were a few birds, mostly the gulls.. we hid our food so they wouldn't steal, they had always been bold, now they were brazen and vicious and would attack for a morsel..
We didn't have four seasons anymore, now there was six months of summer and six months of winter.. Summer temperatures stayed around 80 to 120.. then the temperature would drop dramatically and the winter months brought the 10 to 30 degree temperatures.. It rained during both seasons,, in summer cooling and refreshing, in winter,, freezing and killing whatever crops that hadn't been harvested.. We had built large indoor pastures.. cause as we found out, the animals could not survive the cold. We took what fruit we could from the trees, covered those that we could and said our good byes to the others.
The âÂÂSummer Festivalâ had arrived, this was a time we all looked forward to.. Clans would come together and celebrate the ending of the summer, they would sell things that they had made,, there was food, dancing and singing...mostly thanks for being alive..
I went over to talk to Janey, she was pregnant and looked like she would go any day...I asked how she was and commented that she should stay closer to home since it was so close to time.. she laughed and held Julia's' hand.. the little girl looked sick and Janey wiped her nose with a handkerchief she had tucked away in her pocket... The little girls' nose started to bleed.. Janey excused herself and took Julia to the infirmary..
I walked around looking at different things, there were some things I decided to trade for, things I needed, or rather I wanted... I looked for Janey and was told that she had had to take Julia home.
Festival was over and it was time to take down the visitors tents.. time to get ready for the drop in temperature, that was due any day...We all checked our huts, making sure they were sealed, water tight, and could withstand the winds of winter.....We had to be ever vigilant against the pests that would not die, that had survived the ice age and the big quake.. (insects) .. we constantly swept and mopped the floors of our huts.. although they were made of wood, they were not treated, and bugs that could inflict serious bites and do serious harm... lived along the cracks in the floor boards.. I swept my hut and then went to see Ren and helped him with his.. he needed the help since Sharon had gone with another clan to be closer to her father. I felt sorry for him and we spent much time in each others huts... Sometimes Paul and his family would come down, and we would share memories and some food.. I cherished those times with Ren and the times when Paul and his family came,, I had lost mine in the Tsunami....
We were three months into winter when I knew something was not right..Ren had come down with a fever... his face was splotchy... and his skin burned to the touch.. I gave him some of the medicinal plants we had grown,, I bathed his body in cold water.. but the fever would come back... he was delirious most of the time.. the rest he slept.. It had been a week,, his fever had come down a bit and I breathed a little easier but his eyes had black rings around them, his hands were swollen, the splotches had turned blue and oozed blood... Ren opened his eyes and looked at me... he opened his mouth to speak, I was horrified to see blood run out, between the blood and gags,, he told me he loved me, he was going to die.... And that is where it started...
The winter seemed to be colder than usual.. or maybe it just seemed that way..one by one people in the community caught the disease, I had been a nurse before the quake and my skills came back to me, but they weren't much good without proper medications.. We had some medicinal plants, Aloe, Eucalyptus, mer dock, satinwood, but none were strong enough to fight the disease. It spread within fourteen days of contact.. but we didn't know what that contact was, we didn't know if it was skin to skin contact...or airborne. Instinctively I knew it wasn't a good idea to touch the open wounds... I wasn't a chemist or anything scientific but, I thought about Ren, we had been in close contact, we breathed the same air, I even touched him..so, it wasn't contagious, not like plague or even the flu..
The disease had been pegged the âÂÂFestival Diseaseâ it started about a week after..actually it started that day, I had received news that Julia had died.. Thinking about it..I tried to compare.. what did the dead have in common..the fever..the red splotches..bleeding and diarrhea.. My days working in emergency told me that there was something in the intestinal tract so, no touch, no breathing,, no it was ingested..
That had to be it, ingested..something they had eaten or drank.. I actually felt a moment of victory..but only a moment..... Paul had died and the rest of his family was sick. I put my head down on the table and cried....
The satinwood was good for anything related to the digestive system..It also made an excellent salve for rashes, I had applied it to the red splotches on the sick....you had to boil it and mix the juice and oil that came from the bark together.. it was bitter and there were those that were allergic..I figured,, it couldn't hurt, after all, they were all dying anyway.
Those that were still well helped me gather the satinwood, we brought big pots and set them on the fire in the middle of the yard.. It was bitter cold outside, but we boiled and mixed, we let some cool and we skimmed off the oil, that was for the salve.. I don't know why but, I added aloe and eucalyptus.. we needed all the help we could get...I prayed hard, I boiled and mixed, I skimmed and I dropped many, many tears......
It was close to summer,, the disease had run it's course...We sanitized and cleaned the huts that had belonged to our friends and families.. never did find out what caused it, but we are much more careful of what we eat and drink.. out of eighty, there are only twenty left.. we have moved closer to each other and spend much time together.. We have decided against a festival this year...maybe next year or the year after but for now, we just spend our time together..
The new year came and went we had been discussing the idea of moving closer to one of the other clans.. there weren't very many in ours and there would be safety in numbers. During the past year we had moved into the yard with the animals, rebuilding our huts there and fortifying the fence...I had that distinct feeling of dread.
We had learned how to do many things.. even me.. we made butter and cheese.. we made bread.. our chickens kept us in eggs.. , there were legumes and sugar beets.. We had fashioned a large stone oven big enough to hold twenty loaves of bread, it was calming to smell the baking bread .. During the winter we kept the fire pits burning and the large pots full of hot water.. We ate meat sometimes but not often, we relied on the legumes and eggs for protein. Our animals were producing but not fast enough for the spit.
Two of the women in our clan were ready to give birth and that would be a time for celebration, so whatever move we planned had to wait until after the children were old enough to travel. I looked forward to the move,, I felt an urgency, something nagged at my mind.. I didn't feel as comfortable or safe as I once did.. It wasn't because of the plague.. it was something else.. something sitting just out of my view. Something that made me uncomfortable in a place I called home.
Multiples..I was surprised, it certainly was a time for celebration..Two little Girls and three boys, as if that wasn't good enough, there were four more women pregnant.. We danced and sang throughout the night.. there had been bread and roasted pig... this was just too good to be true. We would learn just how poignant that statement was.
We knew...all of the children had large heads but some babies were born that way.. however in the first six months.. they malformed in some way.. their limbs twisted... when they cried it was like a sonic scream it tore at the eardrums. They all had slate gray eyes and we had made the mistake of thinking they could not see.. but, what their problem was, the daylight sun, they saw better in the darkness... Their growth was astonishing too at a year they were the size of a six year old.. veins ran under the tight skin of their bodies, the hair was sparse.. like feathers or like the remainder of a cancer victims' that had gone through the sickening chemotherapy... Something had gone wrong and it all seemed to stem from the Festival.. from the sickness that had tore through our clan.
They were horrid.. but we took care of them..we didn't love them but, we couldn't find it in our hearts to abandon them.. we also learned later,, how dangerous they were...
Along with the first five children came twelve more, each woman giving birth to triplets. All the children turned out the same, the same twisted limbs, same eyes, same growth pattern. In the first three years the children grew more and more grotesque.. They were the size of teens and we actually had to carry sticks with us when out in the open cause they would attack..sometimes for things they wanted and sometimes just for the hell of it.. We didn't venture outside at all after dark.. Unfortunately there was nothing we could do for the animals..They attacked and ate them... The idea of moving to another part of the island and meeting up with another clan wasn't just a plan it was now a necessity..
The children slept most of the day or stayed inside, they only interacted with each other, so that was when we made our plans, during the day, that was when we planned to leave...during the day.. but we moved a little to slow.. One of the men went into the shed where we dried our seeds and never came out. We found blood.. then a leg bone, an arm, the skull.. we didn't see the children anymore, we just knew they were there...
I was sitting in my hut staring at the wall thinking remembering how it would feel settling down after a hard days work, shrugging off the tension leaving that world outside your door. I could not dwell on that too long, too many memories, too much pain. We had survived and made a life for ourselves, hard at first, then comfortable now, tense and dangerous. We huddled together in my hut and made plans to leave the next day.. we knew it would be dangerous but, it had to be done and we had to make sure to stay in the light and to conceal ourselves well in the darkness... It hurt to leave the home we had worked so hard to build.. and to leave it in the hands of mutants...I mulled that word over in my mind, mutants.. that's what they were...
As soon as the sun rose the next morning, we were on the road..funny thing there was still remnants of actual road, asphalt, sidewalks and we followed these towards the North, towards San Fransisco and what we hoped would be safety...
If there had still been cars, this trip would have been made in eight hours or less, by plane forty five minutes, as it was, it would take us around sixteen to twenty days. Our first day was uneventful..but something we hadn't planned on...was the children following us... what we thought was, they didn't like the sunlight so, they would stay behind, we had been so wrong. We walked most of the day, just stopping to drink water, eat a little fruit and bread... so by evening, we just wanted to set up camp and sleep. We had brought our warm clothing, all of it.. there were some ruins of what looked to be an old apartment building.. that is where we settled for the night.
It was a horrible way to find out the children had followed us..two women went to find some privacy, one made it back her arm in shreds and bleeding, the other we never found... That night it started to rain and we were exposed.. there was better shelter but, I didn't think any of us would survive.
We were cold, wet, shivering and afraid.. we trudged along not speaking, each one with his own thoughts.. I didn't count miles, that was laughable, we had been gone for all of two days. I didn't know if we would make it but, we couldn't keep going like this, we had to have some sort of plan..
There was no doubt in anyones mind there had to be a night watch, and as embarrassing as it might be, private things would have to be done in a group setting.. The men took turns at watch with the last man being relieved by one of the women so that he could get needed rest..
This worked well for the first week.. we camped out near the Eagle Rock river. The water was clear but we knew it had to be boiled and treated with some of the plants we brought before we could drink it.
One night.. we were eating, boiling the water for the next few days and setting up watch.. Just beyond the perimeter of the fire there was movement. We all fell silent, listening waiting.. I turned my head just in time to catch a flash of something coming towards me. One of the children caught my cheek and ripped it open, I could see in that instant two others being attacked.. instinctively I threw some water on it,, that was all I had.. It shrieked and screamed.. its' skin starting to bubble where the water had hit it..
It looked like the water balloon fights we would have in the summer.. but these did much more damage and gave the victor much more protection.
So our protection.. something so simple.. something that had almost destroyed a whole state, replenished and gave a reprieve from fear.
Upon reaching San Fransisco we found large clans armed with sticks and anything they could find.. the children ran rampant there and there were many women pregnant.. We explained to them how the simple substance H2O, water,, had equalized the odds in fact, had bent the odds in our favor.. The problem was, what to do about all the women that were pregnant.. I was no Herod, and could not fathom that but, something to make them miscarry... That was what was needed... in the mean time, we had our defense, our protection... And me.. well I had my own cross to bear, I was glad Ren wasn't here, I was glad he hadn't been around to see the children,, and know that is the way his would be...
