Ish could not sleep, it was too hot. He sleeps on the floor now, the top bunk swirls and pulls all the hot air in the room like a vortex. He crawled off his makeshift sleeping mat without any reason too and his brother stirred on the bottom bunk of the bed, moaning a handful of gibberish words before opening his eyes and staring at his small, frail little brother. William was a strong boy, 5 years elder to Ish and did most of his growing before their parents lost their real jobs and were put on government rations.
“Did you drink your water?” Ish said
William said nothing, he just looked at Ish through the slumbering slits in his eyes and handed a small plastic bottle of water that a long time ago had a branded sleeve, but now only was dark remnants of dirt and ash stuck to a cheap glue. A thin sliver in the curtains allowed the beaming orange dawn to illuminate a narrow slice in the room and Ish held the bottle into that plane of intersection which was full of tiny specs of dust that flowed free into the existence of the slice and then back into oblivion when they left it. Ish held the bottle into the portal in which mites of dust conjured a momentary infinitesimal existence and saw just like specs of dust in the room, there were specs in the water that only could be seen when held closely to light. Ish didn’t want to drink specs of whatever William had left in the bottom so he pulled it out of the light and then drank it.
Ish wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do anymore. He used to go to school every day and he didn’t have to make many decisions. He woke up and ate food that was already there, usually a choice between cereal with fresh white milk or sometimes his dad would make him eggs. A bus would pick him and his neighborhood friends up from the corner, his whole day was laid out for him. First there was homeroom and there he would attempt to muster enough bravery to sit next to Cali Thornton. Sometimes he would take his scrambled eggs to go and beg his dad to bring him to school a few minutes early because he knew Cali was in the before school program, but usually wouldn’t sit near her. But sitting in the room with just her and Miss Caldwell allowed just enough room in his imagination for their romance. Once he came in before her and it was a rare chilly day in Tucson and while Ish had no idea of knowing it, this was the last time he would ever wear a coat in Arizona. He left the corduroy his grandma had bought him on the peg and little Cali Thornton put her coat right next to the peg Ish put his own. She could have picked any of the old stubby pegs in front of the cubbies, but she put hers right next to his and that made Ish mighty proud.
Then he’d go to English which he always enjoyed, then algebra, life science, American history, lunch, art and finally gym. The same schedule every day, 6th grade schooling didn’t require much thinking, which Ish thought to be very odd. He never had to make any decisions, except whether to have chicken patties or salisbury steak for lunch, which he never really thought was much of a choice.
Now there was no more school and his mama had given up on trying to do it herself. She worked late hours at the solar plant, she was hired as a clerk after the university shut down, but they mostly had her carrying things around. She’d help workers carry big solar panels from trucks out into the hot desert, the high altitude hot desert which used to cool at night. When the sun was gone the heat of the earth would mix with a rapidly cooling air in a gradient one could palpate, now it was as if the sun always shined, the air never cooled and it was now impossible to feel the rush of cool wind being pulled high from the atmosphere in a perpetual diurnal dance.
“If there’s one thing we got it’s lots of sun” His mother always remarked about her job.
Ish thought that to be very wise.
This morning when Ish decided to walk out into the living room, his mother was laying languidly on the old sofa with the television on, the room was already hot. The man on the TV was talking about the sudden increase in the price of electricity and massive water shortage on top of the droughts. His father came into the room and they all looked to the man on the TV to tell some more bad things.
He had just returned from the water ration line empty handed. Water used to flow right out of the faucet. Ish would take a poo in the morning and flush it down with water, turn the faucet to wash his hands and water would come right out, then he’d take a shower and use even more water. He thought it amazing at the time that just a little knob could change the temperature and pressure of the stream. Now his pa couldn’t even get a gallon for his family to drink all together.
It turned out that this was going to be the ever spent in the house he grew up in because they had decided enough was enough and they would try their luck somewhere else. The man on the TV kept saying Arizona would be the first place in the US to be uninhabitable. Then a different funny looking man with a bowtie, nasally voice and big round glasses an inch thick came on, he used a lot of words Ish had heard in his earth science classes. Runaway melting of carbon sinks, groundwater alkalinity, water salinity tables. He blamed the president and ASCON, then said the rest of LA would be under the sea in a year and that no speed of dyke and damn building would save them. The news man asked him if there was a silver lining and he said something about ionized particles of radioactive elements in the sky gleaming silver after the magnetosphere burned off. Ish didn’t really know what any of this meant, but from watching his Ma and Pa and knew it was just more troubling news.
Before they made him and his brother pack a few things he heard them arguing, his Ma repeatedly ushered him away when he tried to listen in. They’d yell and whisper like a teased fire being smoldered and flared by kindling and neglect, Ma would yell and then Pa would whisper, Pa would yell and then Ma would whisper. Then Ish would come back in the room and they’d both pause and anguish. Pa had been gone a lot recently even though he couldn’t find any work. Ma said something about his father’s friends being shot and he violently shushed her. She was insisting they leave and that they couldn’t wait anymore, but Pa was really worried about the government. This puzzled Ish as he always thought of the government as the people who were most trying to fix all the problems everyone was having. Ma and Pa had a lot to say about the president and the governor, but in Ish’s mind they were just 2 people and there were a whole lot more people running around doing their best to get more electricity, food and water.
Willam was still laying in bed when their parents broke the news they were leaving. He leapt out of his crinkled sheets and said
“Finally.”
William was the kind of person who needed everything to be in tip top shape, he cleaned the room and made his bed even though he’d probably never come back again. Ish found that odd.
Ish’s brain was heavy with dehydration and the weight of his world collapsing. He threw a few things in his bag, but didn’t think much about which items he picked because his head hurt so bad. William made him take an extra pair of shoes, which Ish agreed was a good idea.
There was much talk of how to leave and where to go. All of the plans involved driving as long as possible and spending lots of money on gasoline, then abandoning their car to walk the rest of the way. When they got in their station wagon to leave Arizona forever, they discovered that everyone else in Arizona had the same idea at the same time as them. Ish begged his father to run the air conditioner, but he said it used too much gasoline. He would start and stop the car every time they stopped to save fuel from idling and the roads were packed so they did frequently. Ish heard a lot of sirens, loud bangs and clicking sounds from far away. Helicopters flew overhead constantly towards the city center.
They didn’t get very far before they needed gas, every gas station they saw was even more packed than the roads. The people at them looked confused and scared, like his parents did. William started to scold his parents for their lack of planning and soon his parents started to fight, except this fire was flared by neglect. Flared by the neglect to truly acknowledge one's receding reality until there was no longer any ground to stand on. They were both sweating profusely, Ish was too and his head was hurting even worse now. The part of the road they were stopped on was perched high on a hill just north of suburbs of Tucson he grew up in, all the chaparral and Yucca had died, the only living things around were scared people trying to escape the city. Looking down he saw a huge crowd of people densely packed against military trucks where Pa had brought him a few times to pick up their water ration. He heard lots of cracks like whips and his parents got out of the car to watch as the crowd started to loosen and scatter in every direction. His Ma cried while Pa held her tightly.
They debated abandoning the car and walking, though they would likely die of heatstroke. Pa suggested going back home and waiting it out. It was William who posed the best of the ideas, they would instead drive east to the Tungsten plants outside of town and get on 1 of the many trains heading north. Pa perked up at this idea saying something about Tungsten being more important than people, which made no sense to Ish, but Ma smiled at him dearly and there was little further discussion.
Ish doesn’t remember much about the drive to the plant or getting on the train, but he does remember the smell. A mix of organic and inorganic smells that triggered a deep seeded emotion of scarcity in Ish’s tiny human brain. The smell of burned rubber, of too many decades of industrialism, of strict quotas and overworked day laborers, one of whom raised the alarm at their attempt to board a train. A weaselly group of men came armed with machine guns, they were not kind to their father and his mother was torn away from them while she wailed like a banshee. He never saw her again. The tallest of the weaselly men shot his father and then turned to shoot William, who was clenching a large rock behind his head in his surrendered hands. One of the other weaselly men that stood back while his father was shot and his mother was dragged into a dark building did not want to shoot the children and after a few words were exchanged, Ish could see the tall man did not really want to become a child killer. While his attention was turned William unveiled his rock and smashed it against the tall man’s head, he fell to the ground merely a bag of bones. William lunged for the next weasel, but was instantly shot. The bullet impacted him like a sledgehammer to his shoulder, he fell backwards as his legs continued with their momentum and swung over his head. Blood and bone exploded from his chest and back. After William hit the ground and had been still for a few moments, the men started to shoot each other. Ish doesn’t really know what happened, the next thing he remembers was sitting on the train with 1 of the weasel men and the wounded William north bound sipping cool water from a thermos.
2095
When Ish opened his eyes he didn’t know where he was, there was a fog and the pulsing headache to deafen most of his thoughts. California orange poured through a wall of windows as a sliver of the merciless god figure rose above a distant seawall stained by waves and sun. He stared right at it and little dancers appeared in his visions, streaming many different colors in all directions as he started to phototrope towards it. He let out a deep yawn and the sun started to burn away the fog in his mind and he began to find the will to leave his bed, though the first attempt failed to materialize.
His eyes started to dart around rhythmically as his mind passed from one thought to another. Ish’s large head bobbed and weaved like a boxer as his thoughts became words and a semblance of order mustered into form and his mind became rigid and logical. He carefully sets himself a plan for the next hour, the morning and the rest of the day. Again he began to propel himself out of his bed and this time it materialized, he went to the kitchenette to snack on algae bar and drink water. He pulled a 10 gallon jug out of dark corner that no sunlight reaches and lifted it with his entire body onto the counter, he sets it down and it came down harder than he meant it to, the counter jiggles side to side with great tension, balancing on whatever of the few struts were not rotted out and Ish thought the whole thing might finally come down, the entire apartment building with it. The mint green countertop was cheap when it was installed and now is paper thin, with many small holes that Ish has crudely replaced with thin sheets of plywood and rusty nails. Ish returned to the dark corner, grabbing a rigid and wellcrafted butterknife made of real silver on his way, he used it to pry a flood board away, he moved his pistol over and grabbed another algae bar. The packaging was plain brown. Many years ago there were colorful pictures printed and nutritional information boastfully labeled, but now they are just a utilitarian brown color. Brown like a paper bag, but even thinner, with spray on plastic coating designed to maintain freshness, although it adds a funky taste.
Ish never minded the taste of the bars like many others have, he didn’t grow up near the ocean, but when he was kid he always imagined himself moving to California to study dolphins or whales, to be a scientist like his mother. The bars always brought her memory forward whether he wanted it to or not and he has found a way to treasure it when it arrives, though only after many decades of trying.
Ish laid out his absorbent mat and lifted himself a dozen different ways for 1 hour and then crinkled and rung the mat of his sweat into an aluminum bucket and then slid an old cutting board over top of it before beginning to gather the many items he will need for the day, his knapsack, a large knife, empty jugs in case an opportunity for water appears and then goes to his bookshelf. Ish prides himself on his collection of encyclopedias and he selects the one with the binding indicating it’s for the letter F, he opens and removes a package of tinfoil from its hollowed out center.
Ish tried to go straight last year. His body and mind was tired. He’s had many jobs, but never any aboveground, so he gave working as a day laborer wherever the ASCON work orders were paying the most for. He found the lines too long, the work far too hard and the pay abysmal. The smell reminded him of the tungsten plant where his parents were killed, the site of the day laborers eeking out a mundane and brutal existence behest of a tyranny beyond their comprehension created a friction in himself. Every swing of an axe, every bag lifted onto the shoulder, every turn of the wrench was a reminder that he too was just another powerless being marionetted by reality in a world populated by a hierarchy of gods who themselves were meekly ants to the gods above them and at the top of the hierarchy was something like a divine and malevolent trickster who through Ish’s eyes absconded away with the spirit of his species by strength and competence alone and transcended the laws and order that he accepted as dogma, as physical constants that bound him and everyone else as much as gravity.
Ish left the labor lines and went back to his old job, which consisted of lurking and listening. Recently he had observed an ancillary officer named Peg, whom he had dealings with in the past, hobble into a collapsed building. Peg was brawny, but had a soft face and when you took a closer look at him you could see his brawn was mostly pudge. The name Peg resulted from a stint he had in an underground prison where a torturer severed all the tendons in his right leg. He must have known the right people because ASCON retrained him to work in the ministry of supplies rather than dump him on the streets. Peg had failed to disguise the swivel of his head, like a deer scanning its surroundings before it crosses an open meadow and Ish’s predator instinct saw an opportunity, an opportunity to create a victim out of an oppressor which in his own mind gave whatever he was about to do a reynardian justice. There were cameras on this block, but the power shortages would likely mean they were down. Civil disturbances on adjacent blocks might mean those sectors have power, but even then Peg was such a small fish he would never be able to access them. When Peg rounded the corner of the block Ish entered the dilapidated building and quickly found what Peg had stashed.
Cigarettes wrapped in tinfoil. And a piece of tape with some seeds attached to it. The items in the package and the package itself are all rarities, with exchange and pragmatic value. The cigarettes alone are worth a proles water ration for a month, the tinfoil a day.
“Well I might have a hard time finding someone who wants to buy a piece of tape.” He said to no one in his apartment.
Ish walked over to his windows, gateway for the brutal and life giving california orange, which had started to cook his once fair skin. Looking at ruined LA, it doesn’t look so ruined for a moment. Other than the sea walls, at a glance it looks like it looked 100 years ago. There’s a lot more broken windows and the streets are cluttered with refuse, but there still would be thousands of homeless people, dense smog, people yelling, starving, going to work as policemen or firefighters, maintenance crews tasked with impossible mission of keeping infrastructure alive and the bustle of a million people all trying to survive against the other million. All the same malignities and benignities of the human condition under the tense conditions of the end of the world, pushing the natural proclivities of human behavior to the malignities. The exteriors of buildings have held up well when you look at them from a distance, though the staircase in his own building had collapsed, which prevents easy access to the higher half of the building. Sometimes Ish hears screaming from the upper floors which can only be accessed from the lobby on the opposite side.
Ish leaves his contemplation and unlatches the many locks on his door to leave, the clinking and dinking attracts the attention of his neighbor, and most of the time, his friend Levy. Levy opened his door to only a slight crack showing it to be off camber with the frame; he does this without having to undo a single lock, which greatly annoyed Ish.
“Come Isherwood” he said in an eastern European accent.
A crepuscular creature that seems to do gymnastic routines throughout the evening, Ish never believed his accent was real. Air travel became far too expensive for 99.9% of people when he was a boy and Levy was his age. Ish never brings it up.
Levy opened the door. The gaunt russophile opened his door, his smile mischievous and intense.
Ish enters, receiving the invitation for witty exchange and desperately attempting ot ignore it.
“I don’t have time for this.”
Ish knows Levy wants to tell him something, but won’t. Not until he’s earned it by entertaining him. Ish walked through a narrow corridor into the apartment which Levy does not remove himself from to make way, Ish lightly pushes him and Levy carries the momentum he’s received many feet backwards and lands himself on a torn sofa, adjusting himself to appear as comfortable as he can possibly look, while waiting for Ish.
“What’s up, why are you doing this?” Ish snipes.
“Well I don’t really know what you mean, something is up. I was just getting ready to head to a meeting.”
“If you knew what a red herring was I’d accuse you of it.”
Pretending he was offended, he put his hand on his chest and scoffed before getting up and walking to the window, gesturing his head for Ish to follow him. His tone shifted and his eyes glistened. Levy revealed a plastic cup from behind his curtain, full of richly brown dirt, with little specks of white permeating the surface, a small green leaf shooting from the surface, supplicating towards the precious lord of the sky.
Ish’s tone matched Levy and he couldn’t help but reveal some excitement. The hue of the green warmed Ish’s heart and triggered a deep satisfaction in a part of his hind brain that has been neglected for many years. He profanely professed this dirt to be delicious looking and asked many more questions related to it’s content. He relaxed a bit and Levy did too, he must always wear down his friend’s exterior upon each new interaction. He put his arm on Ish.
“I got this book. It tells me all sorts of ways to get delicious dirt. I also traded some of our gasoline for a bag of fertilizer in the haymarket. Petrochemical for petrochemical.”
“You traded it for this? We could have been matched by cameras and not even know it yet. Every footstep in the hallway I hear could be ancillaries finally coming to take us for that.” Ish said plainly as the tension in his shoulders returned.
Levy continued to talk about his plant tactics as if Ish hadn’t said a word. Ish resigned the issue, partly because he didn’t feel like fighting Levy over it and partly because it was only a small amount of the gasoline.
“There were seeds in that foil of cigarettes I lifted from Peg last week.” Ish said
“Isherwood Williams got seeds? And he didn’t fucking tell me?” Levy said
“It’s a blueberry bush. Never going eat a thing that comes off of it without the whole fucking town coming to join in. Besides, it’d never last in the midday heat. Or the floods. Or the freezes. Or the pests.”
Ish, more puzzled than ever, didn’t say a word and patiently let the look on his face speak for him.
“We didn’t get matched. You are paranoid. There’s no power anywhere anymore.” Levy said.
“You traded half a gallon for a bag of fertilizer for a giant blueberry bush to live in your apartment!? I guess the sun does come in nice here. Where will you put it when it gets too big? How will you water it? And the roots won’t take well to the sand if you can’t make more of that dirt.” Ish said, trying to sound intellectual.
Levy scoffed some more while looking at Ish with an exaggeratedly disgusted look. He walked away and motioned his hands towards an imaginary crowd of equally disgusted viewers that Levy always referenced looked to in order to create the illusion in his mind that what he said was important or agreeable. He scoffed again and stopped, not saying anything while looking down with his eyes fixed on a single position and tapping his foot rhythmically as he danced from thought to thought.
Annoyed, but entertained, Ish smiled.
Levy slowly began, staring forward and again fixing on a single point in front of him while using his hands to enunciate each word “This is an investme--”
“Like the bag of marbles to cover our exit for that time we--”
“SHUT UP!” Levy exploded excitedly and animatedly waved his arms.
“This is real! Look at this! It is real! I made it! I made this happen! 3 tries it took, but here he is! Nature wanted what it wanted and I gave it to her. And now I will be rewarded! Reciprocity! Mutual Aid! You ever seen a plant this fuckin green?”
Levy stops abruptly. He exaggeratedly zenned himself, taking a deep deep breath in and slowly letting it out with his lips pursued.. He opened his eyes as abruptly as he stopped talking and began inspecting Ish. He circled him, making different gestures with his hands at different parts of his body in between his accusatory facial expressions, with each movement he would make a slight sound as if he was going to start speaking.
Still amused, though now Ish was trying, and failing, to hide it.
“This.” As he gestures at Ish’s face.
“AND this” hands waving towards his midsection.
“AND CAN”T FORGET THIS. FOR A CELIBATE MAN YOU SURE THINK A LOT WITH THIS.” Pointing towards his groin.
“This isn’t what my blueberries need right now. The words spill out of your mouth with no thought. And they are effortless. They poison the air they drink.” He gestured Ish away dismissively. Levy hovered over his blueberries, humming gently to them. Maybe even whispering Ish thinks.
“This is a bit much shenanigans even for you my friend… do you have a piece of flint?”
“Ya ya you Uh, you know where they live” Levy said, pointing vaguely over his head towards the kitchenette without breaking his concentration on his precious blueberry bush.
Ish thrashed through the organized doors to find flint and then went to leave, Levy still hovering over his plant like a troll under a bridge admiring his pile of loot. Ish stood half way out the door, waiting for Levy to break his gollum like charade and look at him. Ish shook his head and let out a nervous chuckle before closing the door. He thought for a brief moment after shutting it and stood outside for about 5 seconds, then opened it again, Levy had stopped hovering over his fledgling bush and gone about his business, they smiled at each other as Ish slowly left.