Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

The next morning, Minerve comes, and I am given breakfast. Once again there are things I have never seen before.

“What is this?” I lift up my food.

“Pan,” she says.

“Pan,” I say.

It is like eating a cloud.

A bell rings, and the other girl, the shy one, comes to my hut, along with all of the villagers. Everyone in town is outside my hut and the whole town amounts to no more than sixteen people. I understand now why the Counter has a ceremony and a script. It is too stressful to do this without a script. I take the first girl’s finger and prick it. Everyone lurches forward to see as I put the blood on the machine. It whirs, it clicks. It buzzes four times red. Everyone is still. We all breathe as one as I take Minerve’s finger. I look up at her. I must look like hope. But I feel fear. A drop of blood blooms on her finger. I place it in the machine. It whirs. It clicks. The first code comes up green.

AGGCTTACACCG

My heart lifts. I touch her knee.

The second sequence comes up green. I smile at her. My heart feels warm.

The third sequence comes up red. I squeeze her knee. The whole town is holding their breath. It could still be okay; she might just be three for four, like me. If so, then Paters will come. She will be seeded. The town will be allowed to trade. With birds, they will likely be rich.

The fourth sequence comes up red.

No one speaks. Someone gasps. There is a sob. Even the Romas know what that means. They will not be a part of the Way. I shake the machine, as though if I shake it, it will become green.

The man who guided me up the mountain suggests that we all have a meal together that evening and a good night’s sleep before we go back down so that I can join the others. The townsfolk disperse. Minerve stays.

“You should go,” I say. “I’m tired.”

“You are upset,” she says.

I had optimistically mixed the color to tattoo the village. I had ignored the protocol of wait and see . I am still learning, and now I understand that these rules are made to avoid disappointment.

I do not want her to make fun of my emotions. I am tired of people making fun of my sensitivity.

“Is it so terrible to be upset?” I yell. I kick the color pot on the ground. I want to smash the machine. But instead I yell again.

“It’s okay, Geo,” Minerve says. “We will go on as before, without the Way. It will just be our way.”

But we all know that the Romas numbers are dwindling. That is why in the past ten years Romas are trying to make towns and join the Way.

She comes over to me and touches my tattoos. She traces them with her fingers.

“Beautiful,” she says.

I go over to the pot. There is still some red in it. I take the needle from its pouch and I tattoo a red mark on her. I just want to see how the red will look on skin, since I have never seen it. When I have done a large enough circle on her shoulder for it to be noticeable, I stop. I cover it up with a bandage. She puts a hand on my cheek.

No one will be able to see the mark unless she is not wearing a shirt. I have not given her a false line. I have just given her a decoration that will be our secret.

I am suddenly very tired. I go to the corner and lay down on the bed. Minerve comes and lays down next to me and puts her arms around me. No one has ever held me. It is the most me that I have ever felt. I hold her like something known but long forgotten. I fall asleep.

A bell rings and the meal begins. It is modest, not a celebration. There is no pomp and glamour. I do not feel like wearing my red robe and yellow scarf. I wear my simple underclothes, and they make me feel more at home than in Sandig. There is a bird for a meal and a husk. I watch as the others open their husks. I have seen these kinds of husks before, but no one bothers with them. Where I am from, there is no part of it to eat. Just a white cone. But these husks are different: I notice that there are yellow insides. Minerve shows me how to bite into it, and it is sweet and earthy. When the yellow is eaten, all that is left is the white cone that I have seen before.

Later, as the town sleeps, I lie awake. I think about the babe in the town that we put down. I think about how if Minerve had been in the Way, she would have been put down too. I think about the birds. I think about the husks. I think that this town has something more than the sequence, more than our code, and that it must be saved. I cannot sleep. I want to wander outside and find Minerve. I want her to hold me again, but I know that is wrong. I close my eyes, my mind abuzz. When I do sleep, my dreams are vivid and wild. I dream of Minerve. I dream of the birds. I dream of the husks and the green.

In the morning, before dawn, my guide comes to get me. I notice that Minerve is with him. He is carrying a pack. He opens it to show me that it is full of gifts that he promised to Jas for my time: strange plants, dead birds, small pots. I nod in thanks. Our business done, Minerve then steps up to me and puts a small bag into my hands. I open it. It is the dried yellow parts from the husks we ate. I told her of the land near Sandig, where the fields are full but there are only empty cones inside.

“Will you walk with me?” I ask.

“I am glad to,” she says.

On our way down the mountain we talk of everything and anything we can think of, because it will be our only conversation. We stop and stare at the ruined buildings, and I am glad that she reaches for my hand. Outside of the gates of the town, Minerve and the guide stop and converse. She takes the pack from him, and he stays while Minerve walks me all the way to the gate. Once there, I put my arms around her. I wish I could say that I will see

Jas and the others know by my face that the town will not join the Way. We gather our things to leave. This time, it takes us longer to get to the next town. Jas is so ill that he tells us we should cut our trip short and head back to Sandig. By the time we reach home, three of our group have died. People are sick everywhere. They eat, but most people are pale and thin. I am never sick. Neither are a few others.

When the time came for Ides, half of the Paters are dead. Jas is so weak that he does not think he could even make the walk. Also, word has come that many towns on the coast are having trouble. No one can figure out the sickness, or where it comes from. We start to call it the Waste. We do not go to Count for Ides or for Fourth. Jas insists that we follow the rule of quarantine.

But I am well. I am restless. After a few months, I begin to escape the town gates at dawn and roam, as was my way. I notice that I am more healthy than I have ever been, as though my body has more energy, more vitality. I notice more birds than the year before. I notice things that fly from tree to tree. I notice that none of the Romas are ill.

One of them seeks me out. He’s found a machine that still works. A rare find indeed. It is one that I have been looking for, to replace the one that helps us to determine illnesses. He wants to trade. But nothing that I had will do.

He shakes his head at everything I’ve brought.

“I have nothing left,” I say. “Everyone is ill. I’ve been quarantined for months.”

“No,” he says, poking at all the objects I’ve laid out before him. Then his eyes fall on Minerve’s bag. He opens it, and out spills the hard yellow seeds into his hand.

“It’s worthless,” I say. “They are dry. I tried to eat one, it nearly broke my tooth.”