Mindy McGinnis - In a Handful of Dust

“When we are what?”

“Out of Ohio.”

Lynn glanced up from the map. “I will.”

“Being out of Ohio will be interesting.”

Lynn ignored her, immersed in planning their route.

“I’ve been out of Ohio,” Joss offered.

“Really? Before or after the Shortage?”

“Before. I’m not from here, actually. I grew up in Florida.”

“Florida…” Lucy let the word slide off her tongue. Lynn had forced something of an education upon her, mostly revolving around a musty set of encyclopedias her own mother had stored in the basement. She knew Florida existed, and that it was south, but anything more was new information.

“What’s it like?”

“I can’t tell you what it’s like now, I haven’t been back. But I’m sure it’s still hot, and there were crocodiles thick as your coyotes.”

Lucy shivered, relishing the little chill of fear that ran up her spine. “That would rattle me.”

“No worse than packs of wild dogs, I guess,” Joss said, watching Lucy from the corner of her eye, with a playful smile. “Crocs are just scaly wild dogs that’ll drown you and eat you.”

“All right.” Lynn snapped the map shut. “Let’s go.”

“What now?” Lucy asked.

Lynn shouldered her pack and gave Lucy a blank look. “We walk.”

“Walking. I love walking.”

Lynn rolled her eyes as she shouldered her pack, but Lucy caught the smile spreading across her face before she turned away. Lucy allowed herself one glance around before they struck out onto the road, but there was no sign of Carter. Half of her breakfast lay wrapped in leaves beside a tree, regardless.

“So what did you do for a living, before the Shortage?” Lucy asked Joss, grateful for the distraction of a new person.

“I was a yoga instructor.”

“You were a what now?”

“A yoga instructor,” Joss said patiently. “Yoga is an ancient form of meditation that uses breathing exercises and holding certain postures to help you focus.”

“So you taught people how to breathe and stand still?”

In front of them, Lynn barely concealed a snort.

“There’s more to it than that. You could benefit from it,” she said to Lynn’s stiff back.

“I focus best on something when I’m actually doing it,” Lynn said without turning around. “Not standing and breathing and thinking about it.”

“I meant more of the relaxation it can offer,” Joss said, but Lynn didn’t respond.

“If you took the tension out of Lynn, she’d collapse from the shock,” Lucy said to Joss, who laughed easily.

Teasing Lynn was something Lucy and Stebbs had excelled at, picking at her serious exterior until they got a smile, or sometimes, an explosion.

“I had a studio in Florida, but I left and came to Ohio right before the trouble started.”

“Why’d you leave Florida?”

“Reasons.”

As usual, someone’s reluctance to share only made Lucy more curious. “Was it a man?”

“Lucy,” Lynn reprimanded her from ten feet ahead.

“She’s all right,” Joss said. “No harm in curiosity.”

“So what happened? How’d you make it this long?”

“At first, I was lucky enough to be in a city. When they turned water lines off in the outlying areas, we still had access. For a price.”

“I grew up in Entargo,” Lucy volunteered. “I didn’t know water came from anywhere other than the sink. So why did you leave the city?”

Joss shrugged. “Circumstances beyond my control, mostly. What about you? Why did you leave?”

“Well, my mom—my real mom, not Lynn—was pregnant. Again.” Lucy saw Lynn’s head shaking at the level of sharing, but Joss didn’t even blink.

“Ah, two kids?” she said. “Family regulations got you kicked out?”

“Yup. They made us leave, and my dad was killed.” Lucy found the words from her past flowing, offering a distraction to which she gladly succumbed. Sharing an old hurt, long scarred over, was easier than the pains of the present. “I was lucky though. I found Lynn, and she’s been with me ever since. So what about your people?” Lucy asked. “Family?”

“No…” Joss trailed off, watching her feet for a few seconds before answering. “Just a bunch of strangers trying to keep each other safe on the road. I’ve got no place to go. I’m waiting for it to find me. What about you two?”

“California,” Lynn said, as if daring Joss to talk her out of it.

“Good thing you love walking.”

They camped off the road behind a barn with a rotted-out roof, the bare slats home to hundreds of swallows. Joss and Lucy talked Lynn into allowing a fire, and Joss produced a can of soup. She also had a bottle of wine.

“No,” Lynn waved her off with a word, but Joss kept the proffered bottle pointing toward her.

“I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said you might need to relax some.”

“You two have some, and I’ll take first watch,” Lucy said, aware that Lynn hadn’t slept well the night before. Lynn reluctantly accepted the bottle and took quiet sips while Lucy pumped Joss for more information.

“So people seriously paid you to teach them yoga?”

“What you have to understand is people then had things you don’t.”

“Like more than two pairs of underwear?”

“Well, yes,” Joss said, “but I mean they had things like the promise of safety, the knowledge that food could be had cheaply and at any time, and water at the turn of a faucet. Having all that makes it possible to use your time in other pursuits. You could want things.”

Lucy’s heart skipped a beat at Joss’s words. Wanting something more sounded wonderful, but it seemed like a distant possibility in the ruggedness of their world. “And some people wanted to learn yoga back then?”

“Definitely. But you could do other things too: take piano lessons, read a book, play a sport. There’s a ton of things your generation knows nothing about.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Lynn said. “She’s too busy gathering water and wood to practice her breathing.”

“In some ways, it’s a shame,” Joss answered, and Lynn buried her response in the mouth of the wine bottle. “Most people these days, it takes all their time just to make sure they live. Before, we threw ourselves into actually living .”

“Like having fun?”

“More than that. Sometimes it almost made me stark crazy, the pressure of having all those choices. I could’ve been a lawyer, doctor, bus driver, violinist—hell, even an astronaut. When I was a kid, we talked all the time about what we wanted to be when we grew up.”

Lynn wiped her sleeve across her mouth. “I’m happy I grew up at all.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Joss countered. “Used to be we were raised on dreams. Now we tell the kids they’re lucky to be alive. In that way, I do miss the city. There were more options there. You were exposed to more things.”

“The city, huh?” Lynn said, glancing up from the bottle of wine. “It exposed a lot of people to cholera.”

“Sickness happens out in the country too. You’re running from it, after all.”

“Maybe,” Lynn granted. “But people weren’t meant to live that way, inside of boxes stacked on top of each other.”

“What were you expecting Entargo to be like?” Lucy asked, curious as to what Lynn’s vision had been.

Lynn shook her head, gaze lost in the dying embers of the fire. “I don’t know. But when I saw it, all I could think of was the lump your grandma cut out of old Mr. Adams, you remember?”

Lucy nodded. It was hard to forget the cancerous mass one of their neighbors had reluctantly revealed to Vera, a black tumor that had bulged from the back of his knee.