The athletic field swarmed with people pressing past one another, shouting, moaning. Jon Deeterly stopped a moment, closed his eyes, and pretended he was in the outdoor market near his house. He liked to stand in the market and smell the fresh fruit, the spices, the people in their sweat and perfume. It was a thriving hive, filled with music and laughter.
He’d passed through it this morning–everything taken, broken, destroyed, and silent.
He opened his eyes. You might call what surrounded him a hospital. Too few doctors, too many patients, but it was an attempt at saving as many as possible.
He continued down the next row of injuries, making snap judgments of who needed his assistance and who could wait. He’d been the on-call doctor for the Section 7 conversion plant. He’d seen men missing limbs from accidents with batteries. You grew used to the ugliness of the world. You expected it. Blood, lacerations, protruding bones, stumps–the body was fragile.
“Doctor! Doctor!”
He wore his white coat–well, it had been white–to reassure people and to give him the edge of authority he needed. But it could be a hindrance.
“If you’re not bleeding, I’m sorry, but I have more pressing business.”
“Please, doctor!”
He gave her a bare glance. He sighed and stopped. Of course they’d be in this mess, and of course one would find him. It was like a bad novel.
“How far apart are the contractions?”
She stared at him. “Oh. Oh, no, not that. I just need advice. It’ll only take a moment. I promise.”
He drew her near to keep the noise out of their conversation. “Quickly. There’s no time.”
“My sister won’t come out of her house.”
“Can’t?”
“Won’t.”
“She’s not pinned beneath anything?”
“Most of her house fell, but the room she’s in is largely untouched.”
“I don’t think I have time–”
“She thinks she’s dead.”
Deeterly didn’t know what to say to that.
“Come tell her she’s not dead.”
“Surely, you can–”
“I have. She doesn’t believe me. But you’re a doctor. Take her pulse, feel her head, I don’t care. She’ll believe you.”
“You said some advice, that’s all. People here are suffering. Some are dying.”
“She’s dead.”
“She’s delusional.”
“Will ten minutes of your time really matter that much?”
Of course it would. Of course. He needed to wait and pace and wring his hands and tighten a bandage and tell an old man his leg would have to come off….
“Is it near?”
“Two blocks.”
“Quickly.”
Nothing was quick since the incident. It felt as if everything needed done immediately and nothing could possibly be done until later. They pressed through the crowd into deserted streets toward the house. The entire structure was rubble except the kitchen. The front wall had fallen outward, so Deeterly could see in. A woman sat at a table, sipping from a cup.
“She’s brought you, has she?” the woman asked. She was covered in dust, her clothes and hair in disarray, but she seemed uninjured. “It won’t matter.”
“Dorria, this is a doctor. Let him examine you.”
“Won’t matter, Halia. Doctors see what they want to see.”
“I find that’s true of most people,” Deeterly said dryly. “How did you die?”
“She isn’t–”
His look silenced Halia.
“You can see for yourself,” said Dorria. “I was getting a glass of water early this morning when the world shook and the storm hit. My home collapsed. I found myself here, in the kitchen, untouched. I was supposed to be dead, and so I will be, obviously. As soon as I step out of this room.”
“You’re afraid of moving from this spot because…death has it out for you?”
“We live in this city, this grand city,” she started, “and we have food and education and power. Even in the poorest sections, the lights glow with a switch and children are born and we grow old. And sometimes it would bother me, all the peace and goodness and wealth in this city. Oh, we have problems and riots, but it’s all very good for the most part, just rashes on healthy skin. It makes one uneasy, you know. It’s suspicious, all this goodness. Don’t you ever think that? Look at my sister, heavy with child, as the poets say. Another person from nothing. Oh, don’t explain the birds and the bees to me. I know very well where they come from, but still–the shoe’s gotta drop, don’t it? We built quite the society full of order and progress. We knew it would fall apart. I’m not smart, but I listen, and even those Select talk of entropy, of everything running down, and so I sit here ’cause I know full well I should have died and to live is a strange thing. When I step from here, a car will hit me or I’ll trip and break my neck or a rock will strike me on the head from a four-story fall. I’m dead. So I’m enjoying it as best I can. Now leave me in peace.”
Deeterly had tried several times to interrupt, failed, and now had nothing to say. He turned to Halia. “I don’t have time for this. Leave her be. She’ll come eventually.”
“It’s not safe. I–”
“There are plenty of real problems I should be attending to. Good-bye.”
Halia turned on her sister. “Get out of there!” She stepped into the room.
“Leave me! You’ll kill us both!”
“Stand up! Walk! I need you with me.”
“Let go! I said, let go!”
Deeterly turned away. He’d seen more than a dozen fights today; another hardly surprised him.
Crack! He turned to see the last roof collapse.
He ran back. Halia was already scrambling out. She’d escaped the worst of it.
“How’d you land? How’s the baby?” he asked.
She was crying. “Stupid, stupid woman! Why’d she do it? She’s dead, dead!”
Deeterly started throwing aside rubble. He heard something–she was alive. It was a strange sound, like a moan of deep pain. His brain knew he should move pieces carefully, in case the weight shifted, but his body didn’t listen. No one else needed to die, not even this ridiculous woman.
There she was. Her moaning rose. He should wait, plan his move, but he didn’t. With a tremendous heave, he lifted the main ceiling timber off her.
“Give me your hand!”
She did, and he pulled. Halia was behind him, and she pulled. Trembling from exertion, his strength failed. Boom. The timber shuddered back into place.
The moans were hysterical now. Had he injured her further? He turned to examine her.
She was laughing.
“Saved by the doctor after all!” she managed. The sisters were locked in an embrace, weeping and laughing.
“Dead and alive again,” Halia said.
“Never dead at all. Just stupid,” Deeterly muttered, but it was hard to stay angry. The world might be ugly, but it was a practical joker, sometimes, too.
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