Michael Bunker - WICK

Women, who were making their way to the market as they might have on any other day, were accosted in the lane for their opinions, or lack thereof, and were immediately drawn into the heat of battle. One might easily pass a neighbor on the street only to decide at a glance that he was not with you (or that he might become one who is against you), or one might remember that an insult had once been received at the hands of a friend and use the war as cover for revenge. Reason had taken flight with the dawn and had left behind only brute and animal feeling. Actions may speak louder than words, but reaction speaks loudest of all.

The personal combined with the political, and both were soon lost inside the immediate. It was dangerous to walk outside of the house, and in some homes it was dangerous to walk outside of one’s room, and truth be told, even in one’s room it had grown perilous to climb out from under one’s bed. There was simply no telling who stood where in those early moments of societal rage.

The people who raged in this battle, the townsfolk of Warwick, could not have known that in the America outside the wire, the microcosm of their struggle had followed an identical course, and the seeds of it had taken firm root. In both cases, like two twins who are separated at birth only to be reunited later in life to find that they have the same taste in food and the same interests in music, the town of Warwick and the nation generally had become inflamed by the threat of collapse. In both cases, the people had been blinded to this reality by the immediacy of their comforts, and by the seeming reality of their delusions. Now that comforts and reality seemed to be lost to the reign of chaos, everything changed.

It was surprising to find, therefore, that passing through the growing chaos in that earliest light of morning was a specter of nonviolence in the form of a soft young man with a secreted supply of reason and a critical eye. He wove in and out of the pockets of turbulence around him like an aircraft passing through a storm looking for good air. He slid by the commotion at the bakery, and walked straight through a crowd fighting at the bank, bumping shoulders with the combatants as if he were one of them, all the while not catching anyone’s attention. He moved toward his destination with skillful avoidance of the crowd, becoming lost in plain sight like a benign and pleasing blip on the radar. And all the while, as he piloted through the crowd, he watched with a watchfulness that was complete, as his sister followed along in his slipstream. The two were going to the house of Pyotr Bolkonsky.

Kolya and Natasha Bazhanov ascended the steps of the winding garden, being careful not to attract any unwanted attention. They knocked at the door and were immediately let in by the large burly man in the faded khaki hiking gear. The door shut immediately behind them, and they stood in the hallway and stomped their feet. They took off their thick winter jackets before offering a quick exchange of greetings.

“Hello, Pyotr. It’s good to see you again,” Kolya said cheerily. “Perhaps you know my sister, Natasha. We were told that this is the place to meet Vasily.”

“Yes. And hello to you both. Is the situation out there as dire as it sounds?”

“Yes, well, you know. The fog has descended. Brother against brother, that sort of thing.” Kolya waved his hand dismissively, paused, and took in the room and its surroundings.

Vasily stuck his head out of the door down the hall and called, “Kolya, is that you? Good. Hello, Natasha. I am just getting out of bed, give me a moment and I’ll be out to see you.” He nodded good morning to Pyotr, and went back inside his room to get dressed.

Pyotr spoke. “Natasha. Vasily told me that you were coming along. I see that you and your brother have come dressed for a hike. Excellent. I cannot tell you how ill-prepared some people can be when setting out for a journey. This is good. We’ve a long road ahead.”

“Yes, Pyotr, we’re grateful for the opportunity to get out of Warwick at last. My brother here was so excited that he never even went to bed,” she smiled.

Pyotr looked over at Kolya, who had now bowed his head as if he were in solemn reflection, and his hand rubbed his pudgy chin, and his brow was down in honor of his thoughts.

“Well, we’ll find a place after a while where we can hunker down and get some rest. I don’t know what Vasily told you, but there is likely to be an electro-magnetic pulse event tomorrow that will be terrible in its extremity. Given what we already understand to be the social disruptions in the eastern seaboard, it will be a shock to the system that will likely never be overcome. Did you hear my uncle’s speech?”

“Yes, sir,” Natasha replied respectfully. “We paid close attention. But we weren’t sure what could be done about it, with all the guns surrounding this place. Honestly, Kolya and I had essentially decided we would just gather whatever information we could glean and then either hide out in our house or make some kind of desperate suicide run for the fence.”

Pyotr nodded his head, and as he looked over to Kolya again, he noticed Kolya looking at the blank spots on the wall where the holy ikons had been.

“Suicide is exactly what it would have been. Uncle Lev told me that Mikail will never let anyone escape as long as he has influence over the Russians.”

“As long as he is one of the Russians,” Kolya corrected him, without glancing away from the wall. Pyotr looked at him, not certain whether he appreciated the correction, but understanding its point.

“Yes, well, anyway, I have go-bags in the basement—packs prepared for a long journey. We’ll go down shortly and prepare for departure. Would you like some coffee to warm you up?” He walked into the kitchen and took down a couple of additional cups. The cabinet doors thudded with a light finality, emphasizing not the warmth of the coffee, but the word departure.

Natasha followed and quickly gestured that she would appreciate some coffee, while Kolya reached up to cover a yawn and then to straighten his glasses. “Yes, I was afraid you would never ask. I don’t suppose you would have a Pravda on hand or, better yet, a New York Times?” He looked at Pyotr to see whether this request registered any notice. It didn’t.

As Pyotr poured the coffee, Kolya’s eyes seemed to still be on a distant thought, and Natasha watched her brother as the thought solidified and was formed into words that then came forth from his mouth.

“I noticed something odd during our walk here, and it only now has occurred to me what it was. I don’t know what it means, but it was odd, and I thought I’d tell you.” He took the coffee as it was offered, and lifted the cup to his nose, where he smelled it and took in the rich aroma. “The whole town of Warwick is up in arms. They’ve all come out into the streets—all kinds—and they can all be seen running to and fro; and there are battles and meetings and shouting and all of the things you’d expect in a societal meltdown—”

“Yes, we know, Kolya,” Pyotr replied, prompting him to further his thought. “Is this the thought that has finally occurred to you?”

“No. The thought is this… where are the oldlings? What I mean by that is, where are the oldest Warwickians, the people who have been here since the beginning? I saw them all in the gym during the trial. And I’ve seen several of them since then, but it is not what one would expect. Walking here with Natasha I saw people of every kind and age and economic class, and of every ideology, all out there marching or fighting or fleeing. But the old people are… well… they’re just gone.” He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee, before adding, “It’s strange.”