Margaret Atwood - MaddAddam

For a while he slung quasi-meat products at SecretBurgers. It was ten hours and less than minimum, he had to wear the company T-shirt and a dorkwit cap, but SecretBurgers wasn’t fussy about identities. And they had protection against the street gangs for their booth workers, and bought off both official nosies and non-official ones, so nobody hassled him. He felt sorry for the female workers: they were paid less than the guys, and they had to wear tight Ts and fend off customers and management alike. They should have been issued hard plastic visors for their tits.

But his sorrow didn’t stop him from finally acquiring in-the-flesh carnal knowledge with one of the SecretBurgers meatbunnies called Wynette, a brownette with big, dark-ringed, starved-looking eyes. In addition to her alluring personality — a euphemism, he now has to admit, for her somewhat meagre snatch, which was the part that fascinated him, and he apologizes for that, but such is the case with hormone-sodden adolescent males, and it’s nature’s plan, and he thought he was in love, so fuckit — she offered the advantage of a tiny room.

Most of the SecretBurgers meatgirls couldn’t even manage that: they shared overcrowded walkups, or squatted in repossessed and decaying houses, or hooked on the side to support some child or addicted relative or tinselly pimp. But Wynette was cautious and frugal, and hadn’t squandered, and could afford some privacy. Her place was located above a corner store that sold alcohol tasting of troll piss and paint remover, but Zeb wasn’t too choosy at that time, so he used to grab a bottle of it to ply Wynette with before sex because she said it helped her relax.

“Was it as good?” asks Toby.

“Was what as good? As good as what?”

“Sex with Wynette. As good as the decapitated Lady Jane Greys.”

“Apples and oranges,” says Zeb. “No point comparing them.”

“Oh, give it a try,” says Toby.

“Okay. The Lady Jane Greys were repeatable. Reality’s not. And since you’re wondering, they’re both good sometimes. But it can be disappointing either way.”

Sunlight wakes her, coming in through her cubicle window. Birdsong, the voices of Craker children, the bleating of Mo’Hairs. Nothing unhappy.

She pushes herself upright, tries to remember what day it is. The Feast of Cyanophyta? Thank you, Oh Lord, for creating the Cyanophyta, those lowly blue-green Algae so overlooked by many, for it is through them, so many millions of years ago — which timespan however is merely an eyeblink in Thy sight — that our oxygen-rich atmosphere came to be, without which we could not breathe, nor indeed could the other land-dwelling Zooforms, so various, so beautiful, so new each time we are able to see them, and intuit Your Grace through them …

But on the other hand it may be Saint Jane Goodall’s Day. Thank you, Oh Lord, for blessing the life of Saint Jane Goodall, fearless Friend of God’s Junglefolk, who braved many a risky situation and also biting Insect to reach out across the Species gap, and through her love for and labour with our close cousins the Chimpanzees, led us to understand the value of opposable thumbs and big toes, and also our own deep …

Our own deep what? Toby rummages for the next phrase. She’s slipping: she ought to write such things down. Keep a daily journal, as she did when she was alone at the AnooYoo Spa. She could go further, and record the ways and sayings of the now-vanished God’s Gardeners for the future; for generations yet unborn, as politicians used to say when they were fishing for extra votes. If there is anyone in the future, that is; and if they’ll be able to read; which, come to think of it, are two big if s. And even if reading persists, will anyone in the future be interested in the doings of an obscure and then outlawed and then disbanded green religious cult?

Maybe acting as if she believes in such a future will help to create it, which is the kind of thing the Gardeners used to say. She doesn’t have any paper, but she could ask Zeb to bring some back on his next gleaning expedition; if he can find any that isn’t damp, or nibbled for mouse nests, or eaten by ants. Oh, and pencils too, she’ll add. Or pens. Or crayons. Then she could make a start.

Though it’s hard to concentrate on the idea of a future. She’s too immersed in the present: the present contains Zeb, and the future may not.

She longs for tonight, she longs to skip the day that’s just begun and plunge headlong into the night as if into a pool; a pool with the moon reflected in it. She longs to swim in liquid moonlight.

But it’s dangerous to live for the night. Daytime becomes irrelevant. You can get careless, you can overlook details, you can lose track. These days she’ll find herself upright, in the middle of the room, one sandal in her hand, wondering how she got there; or outside under a tree, watching the leaves riffle, then prodding herself: Move. Move now. Get moving. You need to … But what exactly is it that she needs to do?

It isn’t only her, and it isn’t only her nightlife that’s causing it. She’s noticed others slacking off as well. Standing still for no reason, listening though no one’s talking. Then jerking themselves back to the tangible, visibly making an effort. Busying themselves with the garden, the fence, the solar, the extension to the cobb house … It’s tempting to drift, as the Crakers seem to. They have no festivals, no calendars, no deadlines. No long-term goals.

She remembers this floating mood so well from the months that she spent holed up in the AnooYoo Spa, waiting out the plague virus that was killing everyone else. Then — after there was no more crying, no more pleading and pounding at the door, no more bodies collapsing on the lawn — just waiting. Waiting for a sign that there was someone else left alive. Waiting for meaningful time to resume.

She’d stuck to her daily routine: keeping herself fed and watered, filling up the hours with small activities, writing in her daily journal. Pushing back the voices that tried to get into her head, as such voices do when you’re solitary. Fending off the temptation to wander away, wander off into the woods, open the door to whatever was going to happen to her or, more honestly, to put an end to her. An ending.

It was like a trance, or sleepwalking. Give yourself up. Give up. Blend with the universe. You might as well . It was as if something or someone was whispering, enticing her into the darkness: Come in, come over here. Finish. It will be a relief. It will be completeness. It won’t hurt much .

She wonders if that sort of whispering is beginning in the ears of some of the others. Hermits in the desert heard those voices, and prisoners in dungeons. But maybe no one’s hearing them now: it’s not like the AnooYoo Spa here, it’s not an isolation cell; everyone has other people. Still, she’s conscious of counting heads each morning, making sure all the MaddAddamites and former Gardeners are still in place: that none among them has strayed away during the night, into the labyrinth of leaves and branches, of birdsong and windsong and silence.

There’s a tapping on the wall beside her door. “Are you inside, Oh Toby?” It’s little Blackbeard, come to check up on her. Perhaps on some level he shares her fears and doesn’t want her to vanish.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m here. You wait out there.” She hurries to put on her bedsheet of the day. Something less austere and geometrical than usual: more floral, more sensuous. Roses, full-blown. Vines, entwining. Is she being vain? No, it’s a celebration of renewed life, hers: that’s her excuse. Does she look ridiculous, mutton dressed as lamb? Hard to tell without a mirror. The main thing is to keep the shoulders back, stride forth with confidence. She pushes her hair behind her ears, twists it into a knot. There, no waving tendrils. Best to show some restraint.