Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven

A year before she was seized by the prophet’s men, the clarinet was sitting alone on the beach in Mackinaw City. It was a cool morning, and a fog hung over the water. They’d passed through this place more times than she could count, but she never tired of it. She liked the way the Upper Peninsula disappeared on foggy days, a sense of infinite possibility in the way the bridge faded into cloud.

She’d been thinking lately about writing her own play, seeing if she could convince Gil to stage a performance with the Symphony actors. She wanted to write something modern, something that addressed this age in which they’d somehow landed. Survival might be insufficient, she’d told Dieter in late-night arguments, but on the other hand, so was Shakespeare. He’d trotted out his usual arguments, about how Shakespeare had lived in a plague-ridden society with no electricity and so did the Traveling Symphony. But look, she’d told him, the difference was that they’d seen electricity, they’d seen everything, they’d watched a civilization collapse, and Shakespeare hadn’t. In Shakespeare’s time the wonders of technology were still ahead, not behind them, and far less had been lost. “If you think you can do better,” he’d said, “why don’t you write a play and show it to Gil?”

“I don’t think I can do better,” she’d told him. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying the repertoire’s inadequate.” Still, writing a play was an interesting idea. She began writing the first act on the shore the next morning, but never got past the first line of the opening monologue, which she’d envisioned as a letter: “Dear friends, I find myself immeasurably weary and I have gone to rest in the forest.” She was distracted just then by a seagull, descending near her feet. It pecked at something in the rocks, and this was when she heard Dieter, approaching from the Symphony encampment with two chipped mugs of the substance that passed for coffee in the new world.

“What were you writing?” he asked.

“A play,” she said. She folded the paper.

He smiled. “Well, I look forward to reading it.”

She thought of the opening monologue often in the months that followed, weighing those first words like coins or pebbles turned over and over in a pocket, but she was unable to come up with the next sentence. The monologue remained a fragment, stuffed deep in her backpack until the day, eleven months later, when the Symphony unearthed it in the hours after the clarinet was seized by the prophet’s men and wondered if they were looking at a suicide note.

While they were reading it, she was waking in a clearing from an unnatural sleep. She had been dreaming of a room, a rehearsal space at college, an impression of laughter — someone had told a joke — and she tried to hold on to this, clinging at these shreds because it was obvious even before she was entirely awake that everything was wrong. She was lying on her side in the forest. She felt poisoned. The ground was hard under her shoulder, and she was very cold. Her hands were tied behind her back, her ankles bound, and she was aware immediately that the Symphony was nowhere near, a terrible absence. She’d been filling water containers with Jackson, and then? She remembered a sound behind her, turning as a rag was pressed to her face, someone’s hand on the back of her head. It was evening now. Six men were crouched in a circle nearby. Two armed with large guns, one with a standard bow and a quiver of arrows and another with a strange metal crossbow, the fifth with a machete. The sixth had his back to her and she couldn’t see if he had a weapon.

“But we don’t know what road they’ll take,” one of the gunmen said.

“Look at the map,” the man who had his back to her replied. “There’s exactly one logical route to the Severn City Airport from here.” She recognized the prophet’s voice.

“They could take Lewis Avenue once they reach Severn City. Looks like it’s not that much longer.”

“We’ll split up,” the prophet said. “Two groups, one for each route, and we meet up at the airport road.”

“I assume you have a plan, gentlemen.” This was Sayid’s voice, somewhere near. Sayid! She wanted to speak with him, to ask where they were and what was happening, to tell him the Symphony had searched for him and Dieter after they’d disappeared, but she was too nauseous to move.

“We told you, we’re just trading the two of you for the bride,” the gunman said, “and as long as no one attempts anything stupid, we’ll take her and then we’ll be on our way.”

“I see,” Sayid said. “You enjoy this line of work, or are you in it for the pension?”

“What’s a pension?” the one with the machete asked. He was very young. He looked about fifteen.

“All of this,” the prophet said, serene, “all of our activities, Sayid, you must understand this, all of your suffering, it’s all part of a greater plan.”

“You’d be surprised at how little comfort I take from that notion.” The clarinet was remembering something she’d always known about Sayid, which was that he had trouble keeping his mouth shut when he was angry. She strained her neck and saw Dieter, lying on his back a few yards away, unmoving. His skin looked like marble.

“Some things in this life seem inexplicable,” the archer said, “but we must trust in the existence of a greater plan.”

“We’re sorry,” the boy with the machete said, sounding as if he meant it. “We’re very sorry about your friend.”

“I’m sure you’re sorry about everyone,” Sayid said, “but while we’re discussing strategy here, there was absolutely no reason for you to abduct the clarinet.”

“Two hostages are more persuasive than one,” the archer said.

“You’re so bright , the lot of you,” Sayid said. “That’s what I admire most about you, I think.”

The gunman muttered something and started to rise, but the prophet placed a hand on his arm and he sank back to the ground, shaking his head.

“The hostage is a test,” the prophet said. “Can we not withstand the taunts of the fallen? Is that not part of our task?”

“Forgive me,” the gunman murmured.

“The fallen walk among us. We must be the light. We are the light.”

“We are the light,” the other four repeated in murmured unison. The clarinet shifted painfully — the movement brought a storm of dark spots over her vision — and craned her neck until she saw Sayid. He was ten or twelve feet away, tied up.

“The road is fifty paces due east,” he mouthed. “Turn left when you get there.” The clarinet nodded and closed her eyes against a wave of nausea.

“Your clarinet friend still sleeping?” The archer’s voice.

“If you touch her, I’ll kill you,” Sayid said.

“No need for that, friend. No one will bother her. We’re just hoping to avoid a repeat …”

“Let her sleep,” the prophet said. “The Symphony’s stopped for the night anyway. We’ll catch up to them in the morning.”

When the clarinet opened her eyes, the men were apparently sleeping, bundled on the forest floor. Some time had passed. Had she slept? She was less ill than she had been. Someone had placed a cloth over Dieter’s face. Sayid was sitting where she’d seen him last, talking to the boy with the machete, who had his back to her.

“In the south?” the boy was saying. “I don’t know, I don’t like to think about it. We did what we had to.”

She didn’t hear Sayid’s reply.

“It hollows you out,” the boy said, “thinking about it. Remembering what we did, it just guts me. I don’t know how else to put it.”

“But you believe in what he says? All of you?”

“Well, Clancy’s a true believer,” she heard the boy say very softly. He gestured toward the sleeping men. “Steve too, probably most of the others. If you’re not a true believer, you’re not going to talk about it. But Tom? The younger gunman? To be honest, I think he’s maybe just in it because our leader’s married to his sister.”