The following text is raw--uneditted, unproofread, unspellchecked. Please forgive any spelling or grammar errors, as I honestly don't give a damn in this stage of the writing process.
...from "City" (working title), a short story currently in the works, by Jayson Marsh:
There are fires. The smoke rises up out of the rubble, blocking the view of the city below. A city destroyed, a city under siege by itself, a city in ruins. Behind me the blades of the rescue helicopter tear through the air, but my mind’s not on them. I’m looking down from the roof of the skyscraper I work–worked, probably–in, wind in my hair, tie flying to-and-fro, tears gathering in my eyes. Someone behind me is yelling at me to get on the copter.
The chopper takes off without me. The pilot is obviously in a hurry. I let it leave without protest. I have something I have to do first.
I take my last look at the blue sky, and I remember sandy-blonde hair. I remember crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes. I remember her favorite blue dress. I remember how her skin felt against my fingers, how it smelt, how it tasted. It’s a long staircase down, so I’m given a lot of time to remember. And a lot of time to think.
The first quakes hit us at nine in the morning, just as the workday was starting. I’d watched Elise put her class plan together the night before, so I know she would have just been starting teaching her kids their math lessons. The initial shockwaves weren’t that bad, and they probably went into emergency-drill mode and ducked under their desks or unto doorframes. I can imagine them just peeking out after the all-clear when the second wave hit.
I don’t need to imagine the screams, or the sound of the ceiling falling in, or bodies and debris hitting the ground as people scurried for shelter. I heard all of that in my office. I remember shaking like some dumb kid who hasn’t lived in. I remember watching Caroline’s arm break when the monitor tipped off her desk and landed on it.
I remember putting her on the helicopter, alive. I have only a vague idea of how many days later that was. Five? Six? A whole week? We were trapped inside for so long that I didn’t see the blue sky for days. I don’t know when the next time I’ll see it is.
Ground-level. I was right: the black smoke from the fires has completely blotted out the sky above me. I squint, and rub my eyes. The city is deathly quiet around me. I can’t see anyone. The street is peppered with rubble large and small, the remains of cars without wheels or, I’m sure, stereos. Here and there bodies stand out amid the grey, mostly grey themselves with splashes of the blue or the yellow or the green of their clothing or, more often, the red of their blood. Five or six or however many days ago it was, I might have wretched. Now I’m too hollow to bring anything to the surface.
I head north, towards the school. It’s going to be a long walk, but if I’m going to find my wife that’s where I should start. The helicopter pilot told us that even the rescue services were having trouble getting into most buildings, and there weren’t any rendevous places for survivors to meet up. There was no real way on or off the island, really, so rescue crews had to fly in and out. The going was slow, but they were getting people out as quick as they could. We all heard the helicopter with the loudspeaker on the first day telling people to stay where they were, to avoid wandering around the ruins, to stay inside and barricade all doors and windows until someone could get there to help them.
I wonder if they heard that same helicopter at the school? I know the faculty has always had a back-up food store in the basement, in case something like this ever happened; teachers are smart–I’m sure Elise and her coworkers stayed there, waiting for help.
And yes, I realize how much of a fool I am for trying to do this myself, instead of letting the professionals take care of it. Damn my hero complex–I can’t help myself, honestly. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, even if she made it out safe and sound. I have to do something, even if it’s pointless.
I walk for hours. I hit sections of the city that are so collapsed in on themselves that I can’t tell what direction I’m facing. As the black cloud above me starts to grow darker, as the sun goes down against a blue sky I can’t see, I realize that I am totally, helplessly lost. It’s amazing how different a grid-like city-structure can seem so foreign when it’s half-buried under the buildings that used to form the grin. I hunker down for the night under a halfway-collapsed wall, sheltered from the winds that come rushing between the remaining high-rises. It’s late fall. The nights are very cold.
I only manage to sleep a couple of hours.
