Meg Elison - The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

“Please tell Maria to give her a good dinner and put her in her spare bed. This girl shouldn’t be alone.”

Bernardo nodded and was off. Jane waited until Old Maria came.

“Colleen, would you like to go with Old Maria? She’s got dinner and a nice warm bed for you. Is that alright?”

The girl nodded again.

“Listen, you’re not going back with those guys. Nobody is going to hurt you here. Nobody will even touch you unless you say ok. I promise that. Ok?”

Colleen did not look as though she believed Jane or cared. She went where she was told. Jane went to the council room.

Council was set up in the offices that had formerly belonged to the fort’s commanding officer. Only Daniel had been summoned to meet with the traders. Female members of council were not called upon to deal with outsiders.

The two men were kept standing. They wore ragged ponchos and stank of unwashed bodies. When Jane walked into the room, they started.

“Holy shit.”

“Where’s Colleen?”

Jane ignored them and spoke to Daniel. Daniel was in his fifties. A career military man, his bearing was erect and his clothes looked pressed every time she saw him. He took to leadership naturally, but without the insecurity that drives a man to be cruel.

“Daniel, Colleen is badly injured. Her genitals were cut a few years ago by someone with a dull knife and no brains. These two are rapists.”

Daniel nodded curtly. He had expected that the men would be of no use, but genital cutting was something new.

“Hey, we didn’t cut up her pussy. She was like that when we bought her. Some old guy did that.”

“But you have been forcing her to have sex with both of you?” Daniel’s eyes were ice.

“Well, she belongs to us. We care for her and feed her. It’s an arrangement.” The two men were bearded twins with the same shiftless way of talking. Jane could not tell them apart.

“Do you two have anything else to say?”

“You’re not gonna let us stay, are you? We’ll just take our girl and be on our way.”

“Do you mind if I do it, Daniel?”

Daniel sighed. “No, but don’t do it in here. I’ll send for a burial detail. Take them to the field.”

Jane pulled her revolver out of the back of her scrubs and pointed it at the last man who had spoken.

“Turn around and walk out the door.”

The other man reached under his poncho and pulled his gun. Jane shot him in the eye from a distance of three feet and he crumpled.

“Sorry, Daniel.”

“Shit. Get him out of here.” Daniel touched his ears, frowning.

Jane pointed her gun at the other one. “Move.”

He did.

They walked out together to the spot they called Potter’s Field.

He was talking fast. “Look, I’m a mechanic. I can fix things. You wouldn’t be sorry if you kept me. There’s no reason to get all bent out of shape about Colleen. She’s fine. It wasn’t a big deal, she just wasn’t that into it. But she—“

“I’m only walking you out here to keep you from becoming a carpet stain. Shut up.”

“Oh so you just take her side of it? Is that all?”

“Did you fuck her today?”

“Well yeah.”

“Did she say yes?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Stand or kneel?”

“Please don’t shoot. Please. I’ll make it up to her. I’ll never touch her again, or anyone else. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” His eyes were green in his haggard face. They darted as he begged.

“I can’t fix you. I don’t have the time to teach you why you’re wrong if you don’t already know. So this is it. Stand or kneel?”

He lunged toward her. She took the shot and he pitched forward, laid out on the ground.

The burial detail arrived as Jane was walking away. “Check him, he might have a good knife for one of you.”

Jane got out of her scrubs and into bed. She slept with her door unlocked. She dreamed of nothing at all.

* * * * *

When the settlement at Fort Nowhere had been in place for seven years, Jane was nominated to council. It was only a gesture. She could not leave her work. But the people of the fort trusted her, they knew how she decided and how she acted. She saw them through seven hard winters with minimal loss of life. She treated the flu and kept panic about fever to a minimum. She delivered dead babies and buried mothers. She established the hospice and trained attendants so that when Old Maria began to show the signs of cancer there was a network in place to see her mercifully to her death.

Refugees and wanderers came. Some could stay, some could not. No one with medical training joined the community, so Jane began training a couple of sharp teenagers. Every once in a while, the Council debated creating a school, but the population did not grow. They did not see the point.

Jane’s diaries gained legendary status even as she wrote them. The books were always in evidence in the infirmary. When her time was most scarce, she would ask others to add to the story of where they came from and what they had seen. Not everyone took her up on it, but still the story grew. When she ran out of space in the journal she had, an order was given to a raiding crew to bring back more. The crew returned with a trunk full. Journaling caught on as a fad, then became embedded in the culture. Storytellers emerged among the inhabitants and it was Daniel who first remarked that they ought to appoint someone to act as an historian. A scribe for the community. They might not be able to leave anything else behind. The resolution passed.

THE BOOK OF HISTORIES AND HIVES

Please share some part of your story here. I want us to start collecting histories . — Jane

Daniel Emory Woolcott, Colonel. U.S. Army, 54673

I was born in Bloomington, Illinois. My parents were James and Emily Woolcott. I joined the Army when I turned eighteen. I served in actions in the Middle East for most of my career, and I should have retired ten years ago. I hung on because I’m still in good shape and they always seemed to have a job for me.

I was assigned to Fort Leonard Wood during the outbreak. Initially, I was assigned command of a regiment stationed here for the evacuation of the city centers of Missouri and part of Kansas. That plan went immediately to hell and we had refugees flown in from all over, mostly doctors and scientists. This place became a lab center where they tried to figure this thing out. They failed in their efforts. There was a rash of desertions and another of suicides. I served with some fine men and women, but I am the only one left of the people who were brought here by medevac. I dug a lot of holes.

I lost contact with my wife and grown children almost as soon as I got here. Communications broke down all over the country and the cell network was the worst of it. The last time I spoke to Maude, I didn’t think I had any reason to say goodbye. She was in Savannah, and I don’t think I have any reason to go looking. I don’t have many reasons at all.

I helped to form the first council here because there was work that needed doing and people need structure. My training helps me keep focused while everyone is losing their heads. It was the right thing to do. We have order, and outside they have nothing.

My last orders from the United States government instructed me to pray. I have always followed orders.

Andrea Ramirez

I didn’t know where to start, so I looked at where other people have begun. I don’t know if it matters now, but I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. I lived there my whole life, and enrolled at UALR. I was a sophomore when everything fell apart. The CDC set up these huge tents out on the quad and the rumor was that it was a really bad strain of the flu. They were giving out flu shots and trying to get everyone to get tested, but there wasn’t much information and there were protests and a lot of people refused. We got confined to our dorms when the National Guard showed up. The power and the water went out but my iPhone kept working. I got my parents to come and get me, and the Guard couldn’t say no to that. They took me home.