Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

‘You don’t think that maybe He doesn’t make it stop because He doesn’t exist?’

Noll nods. ‘I just know He does exist. I know it like I know that clouds make rain, that their are nine planets in our solar system—’

‘Eight,’ interrupts Max. ‘Pluto’s not a planet.’

‘Well, that’s debatable too. But as far as God goes, there is no other way it can be, to me. And if I thought He didn’t exist, I wouldn’t bother trying to survive. I would have quietly ended it at home after the missiles when I knew my parents were dead and I knew what would likely come of all this. If you take Him out of the equation, well, I don’t see the point of anything. That’s just who I am. Some say believing is a comfort, a crutch… But… answering to no one but yourself? I can’t imagine what that would be like. It would be freeing but hollow. A little like what you are saying – horrifying.’

‘What about you, Fin?’ Lucy asks. ‘You believe in God?’

‘Gee, you don’t really do small talk, do you?’

She smiles and waits for an answer.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you pray? Sorry, that’s a really personal question.’

‘As opposed to if I believe in God.’

‘I don’t know if I believe in God. But I’ve been praying lately. I wonder if that pisses Him off,’ she says.

‘Well, He can’t be pissed off if He doesn’t exist,’ I reply.

‘If He doesn’t exist why do we pray to Him?’

‘I think God’s a woman,’ says Max.

‘Right on, my friend,’ Lucy says and Max grins like an idiot. ‘Although I don’t think a woman would ever let this happen to her children. You didn’t answer my question, Fin. God: yay or nay?’

‘My dad didn’t believe in God,’ I say. ‘Mum did, does, whatever. If He is out there He’s doing a pretty shit job.’

‘So you don’t know if you believe or not?’

‘No. That’s my catchphrase for life at the moment: I don’t know.’

We sit and eat for a bit while Max tells us the reasons for Pluto’s demotion.

‘What flavour is this?’ asks Lucy, when he is finished. ‘Hang on, let me guess. Chicken.’

‘Correct,’ I say.

‘Doesn’t human flesh taste like chicken?’ asks Max.

‘Dunno, Maximum. Haven’t eaten anyone lately.’

Max rolls his eyes and shovels another forkful into his mouth. ‘That’s sad, Fin, that’s like a total dad joke.’

I can’t laugh. I try and I can’t. Max looks at me with those big, bloody sorry eyes, like he’s pushed me over harder than he meant to.

Lucy sleeps beside me, one arm across my chest. It’s a scenario I used to fantasise about, although the whole nuclear winter thing kind of puts a dampener on it if I’m honest. I stare up into the black of the ceiling and imagine stars. It’s been months since I’ve heard music, but I play songs in my head. I have so many stored and so much other stuff that I don’t touch.

I leave as soon as morning comes. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust from the gloomy half-light of the car park. Before I left, Alan told me to be discreet and not let anyone see me come out of the car park. I don’t think anyone does, the street is deserted. I try to move quickly but not quick enough to look suspicious. It’s a fine balance.

Without sunlight the streetscape is a tired palette of greys – even the rubbish over the footpath seems drained of colour. Delicate flakes of contaminated snow drift down from the sky. The snow will stop falling in an hour or so, it usually does. Maybe it’s my imagination, but there seems to be less snow falling than there was the day before.

It doesn’t take long for me to reach my mum’s apartment building. I walk through the shattered front doors and head up the stairs. When I reach her door I pound my fist against it and shout. There is a sound, the scrape of a security chain. My breath stops in my chest.

‘Who you looking for?’

The voice comes from behind me. A woman stands in the doorway of the apartment opposite my mother’s. She wears eye make-up and her hair is neatly brushed. I can imagine her power-walking with a designer pram.

‘Libby Heath, I mean, Streeton. Libby Streeton. She’s my mother.’

‘She hasn’t been there for ages. Some army people came one day and she left with them. Haven’t seen her since.’

‘You don’t know where she went?’

‘No. Sorry. You’re her son?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Thought you might be, you know, an illegal from the West. They got a group of them yesterday, family across the street were housing, like, seven of them.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’s so wrong. I mean, what right do they think they’ve got to come across and take food that is ours?’

‘Um, yeah, I guess. Look if you see my mum can you tell her I came by?’

‘Sure. But, like I said, I haven’t seen her in ages.’

‘Okay. See you.’

I go down the stairs and head back to the car park.

I draw the four of us on a life raft made of two-minute noodles, bobbing on waves as the noodles dissolve in the water. Everyone else sleeps while I sit and try to make a sail out of chip packets.

We have been here maybe three days when, one morning, I honk the horn and someone follows it by calling ‘Wednesday!’ across the car park. Everyone begins to head for the ramp. Rosa walks past us, she clicks her tongue. ‘Rations! Come!’

Alan is standing at the exit telling people to leave sporadically and not to run.

‘Don’t give us away,’ he says. He puts a hand on my shoulder as we pass and pulls me aside.

‘Son, they do spot ID and address checks at the ration points. Your best bet is to run. If they get you, someone else’ll be using your mattress. I’ve been here months now, no one’s ratted us out yet. I don’t think they’ve been given the chance, if you know what I mean.’

I look to Lucy. ‘Stay here with Max?’

She frowns.

‘Only two of us need to go,’ I say.

She raises one eyebrow, looking less than impressed. Then she turns around and heads back down the ramp.

‘We’ll be back soon,’ I tell Max.

‘How come you get to do all the cool stuff?’

‘Max, going out there isn’t “cool stuff”. We’ll be back soon.’

Noll and I leave the car park and head along the street in the direction Alan has told us. Turns out a lot of effort goes into not looking suspicious. I have to fight the instinct to constantly look over my shoulder and check if anyone was studying us for signs that we might be illegals. I put my hands in my pockets because that seems like the sort of thing a casual-feeling person might do. (Not that many people would have been feeling casual in the middle of all this, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be sweating profusely even though it’s about one degree.) I’m doing a better job than Noll, though, who is walking way too quickly. I tell him and he just mutters something under his breath. We round a corner and up ahead, at a big intersection a few blocks away, there is a line of people in the street. We join the queue, neither of us really able to stand still.

There are two army trucks, troop carriers. Guys in camo stand on the backs of the trucks and pass boxes down to the people. Two others stand beside the line, pulling the occasional person out and demanding ID. As they get closer to us I have to keep reminding myself to breathe. They stop at a boy a few people in front of us. He’s maybe a year older than Max.

‘ID,’ barks one of the officers. He has that drawn, hungry look to him, eyes a little too wide like he’s looking for someone to take it out on. The kid feels around in his pocket, then turns and bolts. The officers tear off after him. I don’t know if they were planning to ask me and Noll next. I clench my fists in my pockets in an attempt to stop shaking. We edge toward the front of the line to within reaching distance of the boxes. Then it is our turn and the guy on the truck hands me a box. I look up at him and our eyes meet and I freeze. It is the young guy from the border, the one who gave me back the gun. Noll and I glance at each other. Noll has recognised him too. The army guy pauses for only a second, but I notice it. I take the box and lower my eyes. I am ready to bolt. But he says nothing. He gives Noll a carton of water. Noll looks him right in the eye and says ‘Thank you’. We leave quickly.