He lay down on his bed with nothing else to do, the only sound the hum of the air vents and the adverts from the televisions outside his room. They were offering additional numbers which could be tattooed above your original branding for no more than thirty credits. He listened as they offered radiation sickness tablets. New clothes, new toys, better healthcare. Nothing he had credits for. He stared out from his corner window with his hands tucked underneath his head. For a while he thought about lounging on the beach, the heat blazing down on him, the sounds of the waves creeping steadily in and out. But lately even these images were becoming blurry and less defined. They no longer seemed real to him like they once had. So instead he allowed himself a moment to watch the sky as it moved along, wondering if he too might catch a glimpse of Leonard’s lights peeking through the clouds.
The hum of the strip lighting softened as the lights dimmed, centrally controlled, signalling that somebody had decided that the day had drawn to a close. He wondered if they were still counting the hours. After five minutes of pointless staring at a sky no longer consistent with life he stood up, no longer able to torment himself. Even if there was light, even if the dawn really was about to break, what was there left for him to go back to? There was nothing left for him in the old world. Delta was all that he had now. Even if he could go back to that final day, the moments just before the sky turned black when his life as he knew it ended, would he even have the courage to do so? He wasn’t so sure that he would find the strength to get it right this time, or that he wouldn’t just disappoint her all over again? He secured his overalls with a belt, letting the top half of them hang down from his waist. He checked the spare ration cards were still in his pocket and then pulled on his deerstalker hat. He left his ration card in the wall mounted box, his artificial presence in his quarters, and stepped back into the noise of the corridor. Most people had retreated to their rooms, and all the kids had been rounded up as he made his way through the lobby. It made the adverts seem louder still, but when it was this quiet they offered him some comfort, because they left no space in which to think about what a mess he had made of the life he had lost.
Chapter Two
One bag had been waiting like a convict, imprisoned but ready for action in the wardrobe since last Saturday. Mother had insisted. She had said there was no need for the warm clothes to stay hanging up or stacked in dusty piles, the type that would be beneficial when winter fell and refused to depart like a man-made Ice Age. She had spent the last three days packing, things they needed, and things they didn’t. Emily had unpacked some of her stuff, like the T-shirt that had PEACE emblazoned across it with the CND sign. This was the one she knew she was going to wear when the time came.
Mother had left her to pack only one bag, but she still hadn’t done it. Now it was almost too late. It was the bag for the small things that seem irrelevant but that matter because they belong to you, and because the you that you know, the one you see when you look in the mirror, isn’t going to exist anymore.
Emily could still smell the coffee from the breakfast they hadn’t eaten as she stood staring into the void of the empty bag. There was hardly any space. It was too small, but Father had told her that was all she was allowed. She had spent hours looking through her belongings over the last few days, trying to triage her items into important and non-important. She thought at first it would be easy, but it wasn’t. She thought she could look through her things and know what she wanted to take with her, but it was evident early on that when you knew that soon enough you would be left with nothing, everything became something to treasure.
It had been a normal Friday night, movie queued up and popcorn in the microwave when that first call came. They had finished a takeaway dinner of pizza with an extra topping of pepperoni the way she liked it only half an hour before, amidst laughter and talk of the coming weekend. Maybe they would go hiking on Sunday? Who fancied a trip to the theatre? Whose turn was it to load the dishwasher because it was the cleaner’s night off? Life before that call had been normal. Happy. Emily was shouting from the living room, calling for them to hurry up with the popcorn. Mother had been telling her that she hadn’t done her chores and that the plates were still waiting to be loaded. But then the telephone rang and there was silence. It was only minutes before Mother came running through, telling Emily that she had to be quiet, that Father was taking an important call. Important calls were nothing unusual, but her mother’s behaviour became erratic, drawing the curtains as if they were living through a wartime blackout. She began turning out unnecessary lights like they were a family of fugitives on the brink of being seized. Mother sat down on the settee, told Emily to come close, not to panic, all the while smoothing out a tissue over the top of a jittery knee. She stroked Emily’s hair as if she were still a baby who needed comforting, but it was her mother who was brimming with fear. Her father came in and stood with his back against the door. He noticed the dark and turned on a lamp. He too checked the curtains. Silence. It was Emily’s mother who broke it to ask if it was time, and his only answer was to look away. After he had calmed her down it was he who had the most to say. Her mother had been unable to stop whimpering long enough to work a sentence together. She sat with one hand resting on Emily’s leg, the other dabbing a wrinkled and soaked-through tissue at her nose and eyes. She kept saying everything was going to be all right. Not to panic. Whatever her father said was met by her mother telling her that everything was going to be all right. Emily knew straightaway that it wouldn’t be.
“Emily, hurry.” The words travelled emotionless like foot soldiers up the stairs. “You’ve got less than ten minutes.” She heard her father’s shoes striking against the marble floor as he walked away, barking more orders at the people who had arrived at the door. Emily was already wearing her school uniform when the call came that morning. She had refused to stay home and her father had reassured her mother that it was best to keep living as normally as possible. He added that it would be easy to get to her when the time came. Her mother had called it an irresponsible decision. She added, almost like an afterthought, that it hadn’t been his first.
The history, science, and English books that had been in her bag were now strewn across the quilt cover. It was a patchwork with a heart on it, and now it seemed stupid in a way it never had before. She peered out of the window to see her father arrive on the driveway. He completed a series of movements with his arms, instructions like semaphore, left and right as if he was still in command of his destiny. The rays from the low sun cast him in shadow, his form becoming a hazy silhouette that she almost couldn’t recognise, and she had to squint to shield her eyes. The three men who remained nameless but who had been in the house since the night when that first call came, set about loading the cars as if their life depended on it. Rather than Emily’s and her parents’.