Morgan Nyberg - Since Tomorrow

“Yes, it’s me, Will.”

He let go of her wrists but kept looking at her in terror as he fought for air.

“Will, do you want to see something?”

She lifted him and got him onto his knees facing the window and supported him under the arms and around the chest, holding him against her breasts. She whispered into his ear “Look at the mountains.”

King rose and watched anxiously.

Will continued his loud, frantic gasping. In a minute he said “Take me out.”

She gathered him into the skin throw and carried him to the wheeled office chair, which sat near the fireplace, and gently sat him in it, making sure he was covered, and wheeled him out of the apartment and down the corridor and out onto the wide top step at the entrance of the domicile. King padded after them.

Noor squatted beside the chair. She pointed to the north and said “See?”

Will’s breathing relaxed slightly. He said “Snow.”

Noor looked sharply away. She wiped at her eyes again. She said “Is it?”

“Snow. I knew it would.”

Noor shuffled close and lay her head against his shoulder.

He said again “I knew it would” and then “Has Grampa seen it?”

A sob leapt from Noor, and she sat on the step and covered her mouth. Will appeared not to notice.

Noor rose again and took his hand and kissed it and said “No, he hasn’t seen it. Not yet.”

Will said “Listen.”

Noor listened. There was nothing to hear but his violent gasping. She said “What? What do you hear?”

“Hushed” he said. “It’s hushed.”

The next day Noor knelt in wet grass and reached down into Will’s grave and placed on his chest the Christmas ornament she had acquired half a year before at the market, and the residents of the domicile came forward one by one and dropped their handfuls of earth upon the boy.

The mother, father and child have found a place not far from an uninhabited warehouse, a little upriver from the bridge, where the grass grows close to the edge of the water, and where there are patches nearby of blooming vetch and lupine. There is a tiny inlet where the water is still. The little girl has the bottom half of what could be a white plastic bleach bottle and is squatting naked in the mud at the edge of the little inlet, scooping and spilling water and singing a formless song. The sun is mellow. There is a muted breeze.

The mother and father are also naked. They lie face to face, leaning on their elbows. As the child plays and sings she often bumps against their feet.

The man says “The thing is, see, I’m the boss of the bumblebees. That’s why everyone calls me honey.”

The woman says “Ah, I was wondering about that. And how long have you been the boss of the bumblebees, honey?”

“Not long, only since I stopped being the king of the caterpillars. I had to give that up because people started calling me creepy.”

“Well! I didn’t know you were so important. Have you always been a king or a boss?”

“No, only since the day I was born.”

The child stops singing. She doesn`t bump their toes. The man and the woman look toward her. She stands up and turns.

“Daddy?”

“What’s wrong, my princess?”

“My bottle goed away.”

“It did? What happened?”

“I fulled it up and it sanked and sappeared.” She is about to cry.

The man says “Noor?”

The child only looks at him.

He says “Come here. I’ve got some important questions to ask.”

She walks solemnly up the corridor formed by their legs. The man sits up and takes her by the waist and lays her on her back on the grass. She is smiling now. She says “Jus don’t giggle me.”

“But what if I feel like it?”

“Jus don’t!”

“We’ll see. Anyway, so here’s the first question. What’s this?”

“My nose.”

“Correct. And what are these?”

“My footsies. I mean my feetsies.”

“Right again. Harder questions now. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I ready.”

“First question. Are you going to be beautiful like your mommy?”

“Yeah, I going to!”

“Are you going to be smart like your grampa?

“Yeah!”

“Are you going to be brave?”

The child is silent.

“You don’t know what brave means?”

She shakes her head.

“ Brave means you’re not afraid of anything.”

“Yeah, brave!” She kicks her heels against the earth. Then she is serious. “Daddy?”

“Yes, my princess?”

“Can people sappear?”

A ripple on the complicated face of the river beyond Noor’s wee bay throws a spark of more intense light upon Steveston’s features. Noor sees the green eye and the blue eye and the impish grin above her blend with the sky, and for an instant her father vanishes into the day itself.

Steveston says “Can people disappear! That’s the silliest thing I`ve heard since… since…”

“Since tomorrow?”

“Yeah, since tomorrow.”

He wiggles his fingers above her ribs.

She shrieks and thrashes. “Daddy! I said don’t giggle me!”

Wing said “You know what this is? It’s a revolution. It’s called domestication. Domestication of the wild rabbit.”

Noor said “It was Will’s idea. We plan to trade breeding pairs at the market — with people we can trust to breed them and not just eat them. Can you take a pair home today?”

“Damn right! I’ll keep them in the barn so’s the coyotes can’t get at them.”

“They multiply so quickly — pretty soon no one around here should have to be hungry.”

It was a clear winter day. Here and there to the east and the west and the south, and over Town as well, threads of smoke rose as straight as reeds. Noor and Wing were standing at the open door of a shed made of concrete blocks. Noor wore a long cloak of rabbit skins. Wing had the blood-red warm-up jacket and a skin hat. There was a smell of old straw and manure. It was as gloomy as a cave inside the shed, but the dark was dotted with glowing points of pink from the eyes of rabbits.

Noor closed the door of the shed. She waited as Wing walked over to Beauty’s yard. As Wing approached, the horse thrust her head over the top railing and snorted, and spears of vapour shot toward Wing. He stood for a minute talking to the animal and stroking her thick neck.

When he returned to Noor’s side she said “What about that wagon the Parts Crew made for you?”

Wing shrugged. “It’s still there I guess.”

“We could go and get it with Beauty.”

“No point. I couldn’t use it ’cause my steers wouldn’t be able to pull it. I need that colt you been promising.”

Noor said “Well….”

They walked toward the domicile.

Wing said “Brandon died, I hear.”

“Yeah. Couldn’t make it without the hooch he was getting from Langley.”

“Used to trade your inventory.”

“He did, yeah.”

He said “Night. Rain. Ryan. Jessica. If anyone was going to live forever I thought it was Jessica.”

Noor shook her head, sighed. “Langley’s medicine wasn’t much help. But more people keep coming from Town. The domicile is full. People died over at Fundy’s place too. You remember old Christopher?”

“I do.”

“Old Moses, the bible thumper. That guy who got Grampa’s shoes. Solomon.”

“Fundy’s boy?”

“It’s been a bad year. But your crew has been okay?”

“Yeah. Lucky so far.”

Two dogs came around a corner of the domicile. One of them was King. The other was a brown wire-haired creature no bigger than the rabbits in the shed. It had a swollen belly.

Wing said “That mutt looks familiar.”