Damon Knight - Orbit 21

We have waited all summer for the train to come and the protectors have cut our allotment twice. Last night I heard Momma and Marie talking after we had gone to bed. Marie says some people are sick and yesterday the protectors caught two men trying to break into the warehouse. Momma said she couldn’t blame them because they were only trying to take care of their families. Marie said there are ways of getting extra food but Momma said she wouldn’t talk about it.

In six weeks I will be thirteen. Momma says there will be a surprise for my birthday. She says I’m starting to become a young lady, and that if Papa could see me he would be very proud. We don’t talk about him very much. It’s almost like we have forgotten him and the times before.

I am scared because I think Momma is dying. I noticed when she stopped eating with us but when I asked her she would say she hadn’t slept well and had gotten up early and eaten then. But she seemed to get more and more tired. She made me start doing the washing, mending and cleaning in the apartment all by myself. Then she said I was old enough to teach Ned and Carrie as well as Jane and Baby Anna. Now she just sits in her chair and watches me. Sometimes she corrects me when I do something wrong. Or sometimes she will tell Ned or Carrie to help me.

Last week she told the protectors I would be coming alone to pick up our food. Nextplease made a mark by our name in his book and Momma hasn’t gone to Line since. She sits in her chair and seems to get smaller. When we went to bed Momma would be sitting in her chair watching us, and when we got up in the morning, she would still be sitting there watching. Last night Baby Anna crawled on Momma’s lap and Momma held her and crooned to her a little sing-song about Papa coming to find us soon.

Then this morning Momma was so weak that Ned, Carrie and I had to lift her from her chair and lay her on the mattress. I tried to make her eat and she did have a little soup but in a while she threw it up. She seemed to sleep then.

I know she has stopped eating because there is so little food and our allotment is so small. But we can live on it if she will only try.

When I came home from Line Momma told Ned and Carrie to take the little ones out for a walk. I knew she wanted to talk to me but somehow I was afraid of what she would say. I went into the bathroom and took a long time using the toilet and washing. Then I put away the food, wiped up the kitchen and finally brought another piece of wood in for the fire. There was nothing else I could do so I sat on the floor in front of Momma because I knew she was waiting for me.

She said a lot of things I didn’t want to hear. Things about taking care of the little ones and the apartment and myself. It isn’t fair for her to think about dying and leaving me alone to take care of everything. She sounded tired and I told her to rest but she kept talking like it was important for her to get everything said before she fell asleep. I’ve got to make her eat. I can’t take care of all of us.

Momma is dead. Jane and Baby Anna woke me up crying. They said Momma was cold and when I tried to wake her I knew. I’m so frightened. I don’t know what to do. I almost hate Momma for giving up and dying and leaving me alone.

Marie came up to remind me of Line. I don’t think she is surprised about Momma. She is making me go to Line and she says we will decide what to do when we get back.

My new journal was my surprise birthday present. When I hold it in my lap and look at it I can feel Momma’s love. I can see her and Marie saving all the bits of paper to make the pages.

Marie came to sit with me like she promised. I don’t know what to do with Momma’s body. We can’t tell the protectors because if they know they will cut our food again. So many people have died that the protectors dug a grave-ditch for the bodies, I can’t stand the thought of them taking Momma there and throwing her in.

Marie picked up my journal and held it. On the cover Momma wrote, “To my daughter Alexandria Dorian Thomas on her thirteenth birthday.” I watched Marie trace the words with her fingers and I knew she was thinking of Momma. Marie told me then about how she and Momma made my journal. She said, “The night before your birthday your mother came down after all of you were asleep. We tore all the sheets into the same size and your Momma pushed the holes in the sides with a fork. She had to wait three weeks to get a cardboard box from the protectors and we used a side of it to make the covers but we couldn’t figure out how to tie it together until your mother had the idea of unraveling part of her sweater. We cut the yarn in pieces and braided it to make the ties. We worked on it all night.”

Then Marie said to me, “Your mother was a very beautiful person but she was not strong and she was not a survivor. She could have done things to get more food. But your mother wouldn’t.”

When I came home the little ones were crying and Ned’s face was bloody. Carrie was curled up in Momma’s chair and she wouldn’t say anything or even look at me.

Momma’s body is gone.

Poor Neddy isn’t very strong but he tried to stop them. I don’t think he’s hurt. I cleaned off the blood and looked for cuts but I think he just got a bloody nose and bumped his head when the woman pushed him down.

I had to shake Carrie to make her look at me. She started crying and saying that it was her fault because she told the little girl across the alley that Momma was dead. It was the little girl’s mother who came and took Momma’s body. At least the woman will not tell the protectors about Momma because she knows I would tell them what she has done.

Carrie is still crying. But she is only ten and I think she will eventually forget. I’ve told her I’m not angry and I will keep telling her that it will be all right because I think that is what Momma would have done. But I don’t know what I will say when she asks me why the people took Momma’s body. I cannot think about it anymore.

It is getting colder. This morning there was frost on the windows on the inside. I made Anna and Jane get in bed with Ned and Carrie and told all of them to stay there and keep each other warm until I got back.

When I knocked on Marie’s door she did not answer for a long time. When she opened the door just a little and told me to go on without her, I saw the gray uniform on the chair through the crack in the door.

The cement was very cold and my bare feet hurt before I was to the end of the first block. I will make shoes this afternoon for me and Ned and Carrie. It will snow soon and we can make a little money fetching wood bundles for people. I have enough cardboard to make the soles double-thick if I can remember how to cut the feet part the way Momma did last winter. We still have some wool cloth and I can use some yarn from Momma’s sweater to sew them together. Anna and Jane will want shoes, too, to play outside. They will not understand that I don’t have enough material to make shoes for all of us.

The protectors have cut the allotment again. Only one can of milk and one can of soup each day and only half a loaf of bread a week. Nextplease could not even glance at the people. He asked for names and did not take his eyes off the checklist.

Ned and Carrie have worked hard and earned a dollar. I took the money to Marie and asked her to get me some meat. She took my money and told me she will bring me what she can find. I know she will buy human meat with the money but I cannot do anything about that. We are hungry and we must have more food.