“For God so loved the world that He swept it clean from iniquity and barbarianism, setting right what had been wrong for years upon years.”
I unzip the door and step from the darkened void back into Grandfather’s room. It still smells of his aftershave and of Bengay, even though he’s been gone for more than a year. The attic room, usually hot and stuffy, is drafty this morning, as it has been all week. His room remains nearly untouched from the time when he hobbled around it, first heavy-footed and crouched over to avoid the sloped ceiling, later with his carved cane and a curved spine that made the crouching permanent.
A single semicircle window gives me a view of Brine Street covered in fallen leaves that haven’t yet dried up and lost their colors. Old books are stuffed onto rickety shelves my daddy built in one of the corners. In another corner is the coat rack still holding Grandfather’s flat cap and coat. His rocker is against the wall.
My room is one floor down, on the level with Mom and Dad’s bedroom and a bathroom and a linen closet. My room is mostly littered with clothes. I only wear dresses on my birthdays as a tribute to Grandfather, and I’ll never wear heels again. I gather up today’s clothes and head to the bathroom. It’s past due for a good cleaning. I used to be more vigilant at cleaning house, but it was easier with running water and consistent electricity. As time runs on in this new world, remnants of the past one dry up and crumble like the leaves each fall. I had clean water for months after the end, then it started smelling funny and looking dingy. I started boiling and bottling it. Later, I scavenged purified and distilled gallons from area grocery stores.
When the electricity finally stopped coming to our house, the thing I missed most wasn’t the TV or radio, but Wi-Fi. Until then, using the Web and social media still felt like I belonged to a world big and connected and alive, even though nothing was current or responsive. Facebook became a cyber ghost town of a billion profiles and histories. Final postings turned anecdotes and sped-up recipes into eulogies; emojis were epigraphs on the virtual gravestones of humanity.
The American Foursquare home I’ve lived in my whole life creaks as I move through it. My car keys hang on the hook at the end of the narrow hallway to the front door. Growing up, this hallway seemed bigger and longer than it is. I lock up the house, a habit I can’t shake even though I’ll never have a break-in.
Out front, parked on Brine Street, my street, is my dirty Pathfinder. Sitting inside with my iPhone, I text: A day is never as good the moment you realize there is still much of it left. I press SEND.
I drive the barren city blocks, window down, enjoying the breeze, passing Gramercy Park and the coffee shop I used to love. My destinations today are the shopping mall for clothes and batteries, my usual grocery stores for canned and dry goods and snacks, and the park on the way back. The great tree in Gramercy Park is losing the last of its leaves. There are other trees in the park, but none at its center, and none as large and beautiful as this Siberian Elm. I legit believe the tree is older than this park and this city. Maybe the world itself.
Sitting against the tree, my tree, I peel open a can of peaches and stare across the park. It’s overgrown now, the playground is frozen like it’s rusted, hiking paths are choked by unmanaged flora. But I’ll always love Gramercy Park. Mom and Dad brought me here so often. Grandfather never liked it, but he knew what it meant to me. After I finish the peaches, I crack open canned pudding.
This park is like the Internet: its vast emptiness reminds me of how big things made by people can outlast those people. I realize I’m underdressed. The falling temperatures remind me I need to stay alert. Nothing stays the same, not even in this new world. Change always comes. The seasons, the loss of comforts as more and more infrastructure crumbles, fear of how far into my mind loneness will take me. And worse. Eventually there will be a time to worry, to eventually lock the doors with intent. But Grandfather warned me of such a time. And prepared me for its arrival.
Grandfather holds me in his lap as we rock in his wicker chair. He is a room himself, my head presses against the wall of his barrel chest. Each arm are walls, too, and the room closes in on me with a gentle squeeze. I’m laughing. Mom and Dad are having a date night. I’m wearing Grandfather’s favorite dress. It’s not the one I like most, and it’s getting kind of tight around my belly. I don’t mind.
“Change is coming, Mia,” he says. I hear his voice in his chest, tickling my cheek. He’s been telling me this since I was six years old. It used to scare me to hear him talk about the Change, but now that I’m nine, I don’t worry about it as much. “I may not live to see the Change, but you will, my darling.”
I don’t like when he talks about not being here. Yes, he’s old, and his right hand sometimes seizes up on him, but he’s a strong, big room and his eyes never look old. My silver-haired grandfather is the greatest man I know. I can’t think of a life without him. I’ve told him this. He says he’ll always be with me, even after he’s gone. I think this is something people tell you so you won’t miss them as much.
“There is hope for you, my darling,” he says. “I will see to that. I will give you my greatest secret.”
What makes this new world strange and lonely isn’t so much the lack of people, but the absence of animals. I know what happened to all the people, but the animals just went away. This world was theirs, too. The sky seems vastly sad without the birds. You miss the big, bright things, but you also miss the small things teeming in the cracks and corners. I truly understood how alone I was when I discovered no worms in the soil, no ants in the pantry, no spiders in the dusty webs on the basement walls.
I am twenty-two. I am careful to mark the days since I’ve lost the automatic reminders from iPhones and radio and satellite TV. Before the end, time came to me as an involuntary function; now to track it is a commitment. In this place, my birthday can be any day, just mark it down and put twelve months between it.
Hey, I know how to pump gas from the tanks beneath the service stations, and stock up on the right medicines gloriously waiting at neighborhood pharmacies, and to keep my eyes and teeth strong and protected. Grandfather’s books help. On a schedule, I mow the lawns of every home on my block. That makes the neighborhood look less savage and less abandoned. Besides, busy work legit keeps my mind stable.
As for my appearance, I keep it practical—clean and shaved. Hair is short, clothes causal. I don’t do bras anymore, except when jogging, or doing hardcore scavenging. I’m stocked with enough Always pads to last me to menopause. I’m not a pretty girl. I know it. But I’ve known love. Love of my parents, and of my grandfather, certainly. I’ve tried to snag the love a boy here and a girl there. But I know I’m not someone’s idea of a catch. That’s all moot now, isn’t it? I am the most attractive woman walking the face of the earth.
The Pathfinder bounces and rocks as I guide it down Cabot Road, the worst road in town, even before the Change. I shouldn’t risk damaging the SUV on Cabot, but it’s the quickest way home. Inspired, I pull to the curb and snatch up my phone and text: Who will mind the things that need man’s constant care? Our nuclear reactors? Our unstable skyscrapers? Our dams and aqueducts? Our satellites still circling the globe? Our vast collection of deadly viruses? Who will fix the potholes? I press SEND.
I turn right onto Camden Ave. It’s smooth sailing from here to Brine. But I notice a doll in the middle of the street. I can’t recall seeing it earlier. You notice microscopic changes in a world without people to change things. I get out of the SUV, leaving it running. The doll’s China-white face is half smashed. Maybe I ran it over yesterday not knowing. It’s wearing a dingy denim dress over pantaloons. And an apron over the dress. I think of Raggedy Ann. The doll has a pull-string ring on its back.