Care and Companionship under Crisis Theme Analysis

“We are arrogant, stupid, we lack humility in the face of centuries and centuries of time before us. What we call knowledge, what you learn in schools about fossils and dinosaurs, it's all hunches. What we know now is that we didn't think enough. We know we aren't careful enough and that's about all we know. That's what I'm trying to protect us from. […]

In our time, in your time, there will be breakdowns that can't be fixed. There will be more diseases that can't be fixed. Water will be as valuable as oil. And you'll be stuck taking care of a fat generation of useless parents.”

“I'll take care of you when you get old.”

“I worked for the state, back when the state took care of its own. Like you, I had grand and noble responsibilities to all, but I still had to deal with individuals. I'm sure you know the difficulty. Sometimes those two things can be at cross purposes, say, when one child is a bit behind, maybe keeping the others from moving on. What should you do? Ignore the child? I found that I had no choice in the matter as soon as I started seeing the class as more important than the student, the children were lost, I was lost. Nothing was grand, nothing was noble. Do you understand what I'm saying? […] Anything named Central doesn't even know what you look like. I do, and I'm watching you to see that you make the right decision here.”

He waved us through.

“I write it all down, everything that's gone on with the farms too. Families being scattered, friends making enemies just so as to stay alive. I've kept dry paper and each night I write down what happened during the day. I'll write about you tonight, what you taught me but also what you are, making money on other people's losses. People won't take notice of it now, but I'm keeping the pages safe till that time they become ready for the truth. There's no way I'd ever burn my writing or allow it to get wet, regardless of what comes.”

[Jenna]’s exactly the kind of romantic that's got no instinct to make it. She's fighting the tree, fighting the rain, fighting me, and her whole purpose in life is to record every indignity.

There have been a lot of times with this job when I've seen people holding on to things that didn't make sense, thinking that if they just kept a photo album, their mother's wedding ring, a lucky dollar, that it would keep them safe when the water reached the door. That night, in this woman's apartment filled with crystals and little shrines to nothing, the only foolish thing she had to hold on to was me, the guy who was there to tell her to forget it all. From what I've seen, people usually come to reality and save themselves. Despite all the feelings we think we've got for our loved ones and our attachments, when push comes to shove most people figure out how to travel light. In the morning she let go of me, got dressed and left, without taking any mementos, without leaving messages.

I'm imagining the person who finds me. […] She does what has to be done and keeps a smile through it all, a sincere one. She helps me up onto an old wooden work-table where she's made thousands of meals for her family, cuts open my pants carefully, just enough so she can see the wound. She's all business, taking care of me. I look around. It's a farmer's kitchen, shelves lined with bottles of pickled vegetables stored for harsh weather (and still not all eaten, even now, because she's planned so well). She'll have the exact right topical to wash me up, some secret her family’s used for a hundred years. There’ll be a metal bucket full of fresh sunflowers by the sink. […] And this woman, she's so glad to see me. She's waited patiently through all these months of hunger and rain for me to crawl ashore.

Sometimes when she's not here I try to dissolve into this one feeling of missing her and it pushes away everything else—this guy going through our stuff, the virus. It's not uncomfortable missing her, actually, and with him down there leering at me with his glazed glassy eyes and bloody mouth and nose, concentrating on her and our future is the only way to believe this will pass. It's like wanting her to be here makes me forget she's not.

Most evacuees don't learn. They try to start over someplace exciting (a target) or temperate (subject to floods, fires or earthquakes). Or they identified this month's most thermal politically neutral region. They assume they're not going to have to pack again. Even though it may be the third or fourth time for some of them, they're still completely tweaked with relocation fever. Full of piss and, as the expression goes, vinegar. They take their first steps around their new home and get confidence; make friends, buy appliances, plant tomatoes. You want to shake them: Do you really think this time it's going to be different?

Her pack is on both shoulders, her bedroll and her jug of water hanging off it. My equipment is at my feet. A dozen times we would have died, but Margo saved us. She knows all the nuts and berries. And how to find your way by the stars. And the value of everything. She's just given Shane the bad news and I don't care. It feels like it used to. She's a real survivor […]

When she speaks, her mouth is right in front of mine and it almost feels like I'm saying the words with her. We’ll fix it, like there's something I have to fix too.

I nod. I'm granted another kiss.

If my desperate fifteen-year-old self were here, it would marvel at my excellent fortune. It's all been the result of my insistence on the practical union in the first place. I opted for it to protect—I thought—my heart, but Margot exploited it to expand our world. When I proposed, getting down on one knee even, she said, “If you want it, I'm going to make you use it.”

Name an act, a theft, a drug, a social rung, a job, a dream: we have tried it or abstained only for reasons of health or sanity or law. The goals don't always entice me, but they entice Margo, and I will be quiet or charming or rough in order to reach them.

There's a spark in front of us as [Juliet] lights two long white candles with a match. She hands one to each of us. “Go on. We’re protected.” She holds her arms open to the woods. “It's time for it to go. Do the honors. Don't think about it, we're safe in the suits, the vehicle is secure, the edges of the forest are protected. Everyone, everything is safe. It will all grow back. The forest needs the fire.”

Margo's eyes are shining. “Yes! Yes!” she yells, as she pushes her little flame against one twig and then another. She turns to me in lecturing ecstasy, “You don't even comprehend it do you? […] We’re three already, you don't need documentation! You've got your security and all the love you'll ever need!”

I roll up the sleeves. As I pull off my boots, I see [Karuna] notice the hole in one sock. I drop my synthetic slacks and she seems to be drifting away from me. I'd feel more at ease if she, or whoever else is watching, were simply inspecting my body and not my actions. I've made it my work to eat as often as possible to stay fit. When presented with a long night in a secure environment, I do my exercises. There are scars on my hip, neck and all over my calves, but I still look scrappy enough to scare away most would be attackers. My body is symmetrical, reasonably strong and, as Karuna pointed out, still here.

It's not till we're cruising around a curve that I realize he's resting his hand on mine. We're both blistered, raw and, apparently, incensed from our respective prescriptions. For a moment, I can't tell which scarred bit of flesh is mine. This sucks. I look like the rest of them. I disengage our skin. I get out my cover up cream to smooth down the dark orange patches. Dad's going to have some words to say about this. I'll get lectures about parity of treatment. Undoubtedly, he'll reach for something he's ground together from the back of the garden. Or maybe it's simpler now. All he'll do is touch me and I'll be made well.

Suddenly I'm being carried down the steps of the bus, supported at my shoulders and my knees. Outside, I look up into my father's eyes. You've never seen a color like this, like a bucket of summer peas. I relax into it, like my doctor told me to. For a moment, I feel that space she's always talking about, like I'm holding on to this world by a string. I hold it and let it go, hold it and let it go. When I let it go, when I close my eyes, I drift, but when I open them he's looking at me with the sun behind him and I'm holding on.

Everyone supports a different limb so the skin won't tear. We all learn so much about treatment from each other.

I suddenly realized that it's better here with him than anywhere I've been. I want to apologize for my fifteenth year. I'm ready to live like this. I want to tell him that I'm going to stay and take care of him.

He inhales deeply, summoning his powers. His hands come slowly down, working from my forehead to my chin and back again, pressing a current of air tight between us. I see it rushing across my face. Slowly, he lowers his fingertips near my skin till I can feel their heat on my cheeks and then, without a sound, without the slightest incantation, he closes my eyes.