Is this my future?
Unlike Roth, most state governors show their dedication in aiding towns like this, asserting their unwavering compassion for the millions of displaced Americans driven from their homes every year by erratic weather and perpetual superstorms. But what can the government really do? This woman’s entire life has been annihilated. Major Disaster Declarations have become the norm, pressuring the government to choose which cities are worth saving with our dwindling resources. Whether people make the choice to move to a big metropolis or take on a nomadic lifestyle drifting through the fringes, one thing is for certain: they are on their own.
I hang the binoculars around my neck and shoulder my rucksack once more. Her own binoculars still pressed against her face, Ava takes two conservative sips of water before offering me the bottle with her free hand. I suddenly realize how dehydrated I am. How hot the day already feels only twenty minutes after sunrise. My hair damp with sweat, I slide off my beanie, freeing my head from the hellish oven.
We still have half a day’s walk ahead of us to Amarillo. We need to rest. To figure out our plan.
Ava turns to me, pink indentions outlining her brows and cheekbones like oversized glasses from the pressure of her binoculars.
Not here, her look tells me. I take two small sips, hand over the half-empty bottle, and we continue our silent march onward.
My adrenaline has drained away. I’m left raw and defenseless to answer for the neglect of my twisted ankle, now stiff and inflamed, the pain worse with every footfall. But my sister pushes me on. As does my fear.
A mile farther, the thick mesquite shrubs give way to asphalt and concrete. We walk along an old unused path until an abandoned megastore comes into view. From the state of the crumbling structure and overgrown parking lot, I determine this place was forsaken long before the town.
All is quiet, with no sign of activity, but Ava keeps pressing forward, likely reasoning a large warehouse is a good place for unseen drifters to hide.
She points instead to a football stadium a few hundred yards ahead, somehow left untouched by the winds. I limp behind her, and we move through the gates, ascend the bleachers, and scan the landscape with our binoculars from atop our metal mountain.
Once I assure myself we’re not being followed, I search the perimeter for a safe place to shelter. I recognize the run-down exterior of a former bookstore and shove aside my immediate impulse to run inside, to witness all the empty shelves, to take in all those lost words hanging forgotten in the vacant air.
I shift my gaze right, and a field of massive oil wells fills my lenses. Behind their still and broken bodies, I spot the shell of a small factory set on fire by the rising orange light of the sun. I lift my hand and point. Ava trains her binoculars in the direction of my finger, examines the building for a long moment, then nods.
I scan the horizon one last time. There’s no one here to hurt us, but there’s no one here to help either. It’s just Ava. It’s just me.
As I look out on the long and endless journey I see so clearly before me, I’m thankful I’m not alone.
AVA
Mira stands at my back, searching left while I search right. We walk cautiously forward between a maze of perfectly aligned steel tables that are sealed into the ground. Sunlight streams through busted windows inside the old factory building, but I still use my cylinder work light to sweep the forgotten structure. Nature has reclaimed her right to this space, its walls and floor now covered in layers of dirt and thick weeds.
I note the absence of chairs—anything useful that isn’t bolted down has all been looted. I raise my light and spot an overturned vending machine farther ahead, empty food containers littered around its shattered glass.
As I tilt my head up to the vast ceiling, I hear the elaborate song of a bird. I haven’t seen a real bird in years. Intrigued, I narrow my eyes, looking for any movement above, but I see nothing except dust hanging in the air. The thin melodic song ends abruptly, and I refocus my attention on scanning the room.
Confident we are alone, I signal to Mira we should separate. I make it fifty paces into the room before a flutter of bird wings above my head causes me to trip over a wool rug embedded in the earthen floor. I’m launched forward, but I catch my fall on a crib that’s pushed against the wall. Unable to hold my full weight, the structure caves in and sends me crashing to the ground.
Landing on my hands and knees, I find myself surrounded by dozens of used baby bottles. I sit back on my heels and come face-to-face with a stencil graffiti of a pregnant woman painted over the ruined crib. The deep-purple and black lines of her naked body are outlined with deliberate torment and desperation—it’s in the curves of her back and in the bulge of her swollen stomach. Moving closer I see the woman shelters two small red hearts inside her pregnant belly, the paint faded but the meaning clear.
I realize with a pang that this place, long ago, must have been the refuge of a woman with a multiple pregnancy. Did she give birth here? How long did they last before they were detected and captured by the Guard? An image of my mother flashes into my mind, and I block myself from this line of questioning. I stand, dust myself off, and gather the bottles into a neat pile underneath the portrait.
“All clear,” I say, turning my back on the pregnant woman.
“All clear,” Mira says, emerging between a pair of tall supply racks. I notice her sharp intake of breath as she limps toward me. “Find anything useful?” she asks.
I shake my head. “You need to rest your ankle.”
Mira leans her body against the nearest wall and slides down with a slight groan. I argue with myself about whether or not I should make her take the opioid pain medication packed away in my bag. We may need the medicine farther down the road.
Mira folds her pant leg up to her knee, and it hurts me to see how swollen and bruised her ankle has become. “You need the opioid,” I conclude, sliding my rucksack around my waist.
“No, I’m fine. I don’t want to risk becoming drowsy.” She pulls out compression tape from a medical kit in her bag and gingerly slips off her boot. I bend down to help wrap her foot and ankle in tight layers of tape.
“Get out Father’s box. I’ll finish the wrap,” Mira says, securing the tape at the top of her ankle.
I dig for the box at the bottom of my bag and unfasten the seal to discover an expected array of survival kit items. I flick quickly through the supplies—medicine, a compass, scent-eliminating spray—but my hands stop their search when I see the paper map. Mesmerized, I place the box on the ground.
My fingers cradle the paper delicately, like I’m handling a relic that requires my greatest caution. There’s something rare and beautiful about the intimacy of the handwritten key in the corner of the map. I run my hand across my father’s small, cramped letters: “Safe houses . . . Danger areas . . . Distance in miles.”
Mira moves in close beside me, and with a light finger—we both can’t resist touching the paper—she traces a thick highlighted route that leads from Dallas to Denver.
I point out the little flags our father drew along the way that symbolize safe houses. People’s names are written below. The first flagged stop is way up in Amarillo: “Arlo Chapman.” The second stop, “Kipling,” is in Dalhart, near the northwest border of Texas.
I use the key to measure the distance with my fingers. “The first safe house is fifteen miles away,” I say.
Mira half listens to me, circling the end of the route with her fingertip. She underlines the name written in bold below the final safe house in Denver: “Rayla.”