George Stewart - Earth Abides

Now Ish began to hear the children discussing the matter and speculating upon what the name would be. The younger ones were saying that it should be called the Year of the Bow and Arrow. But the slightly older ones, who could remember more vividly the whole year, said that rather it should be called the Year of the Journey. But those who were still older thought of other things also, and often they grew quiet and seemed embarrassed, and Ish knew that they were thinking of Charlie and of all the other deaths. Ish himself thought first of all about Joey, and then of all the changes of attitude which he himself had to make during the year.

Then finally, as they looked out one evening, they saw that the sun set in the same place or perhaps a little to the north from where it had set the night before, and the older ones said, to the great excitement of the children, that tomorrow would be the day.

So again, at the end of the twenty-second year, they gathered at the rock, and Ish with his harnmer and cold-chisel cut 22 into the surface of the rock just below 21. They were all there at the rock, because the day was fair, and warm for winter, and the mothers had brought even the youngest babies. Then after the numeral had been cut, all those who were old enough to talk called out Happy New Year as it had been in the Old Times, and as it was still at this time.

But when Ish asked, following the ritual set in the last years, what should be the name of the year, there came only sudden silence.

At last the one to speak was Ezra, the good helper, who knew the ways of men:

“Too much has happened this year, and whatever name we give the year will have a bad sound to us. People find comfort in numbers, and no bad thoughts. Let us give this year no name, but remember it only as the Year 22.”

Here ends Part II. The second inter-chapter called Quick Years follows, without time-interval.

Once again the years flowed quickly, and now no longer he struggled and threshed, but instead, floated easily with the current.

In these years they grew a little corn, not much, but enough to harvest a small crop and to keep the seeds alive. Every autumn—as if the falling of the first rain gave a signal—the children played with bows and arrows for a while before they tired of the game. Now and then all the adults drew together to a conference, like a town-meeting, and what was decided there, each one knew, was binding upon them all.

“These things at least!” Ish thought. “These things at least, I have assured for the future.” Yet in the meetings, more and more with every year, those who spoke and took action were young men. Ish, to be sure, presided. He sat facing all the others, and those wishing to speak rose and addressed him respectfully. He sat there, holding his hammer or balancing it beside him. When argument between two of the young men became too heated, Ish pounded with the hammer, and the young men were suddenly quiet and deferential. But if he himself spoke, though they listened intently, often they paid no attention to his ideas afterward.

So the years flowed—The Year 23 “Of the Mad Wolf,” the Year 24 “Of the Blackberries,” the Year 25 “Of the Long Rain.”

Then came the Year 26, and old George was with them no more. He had been painting on a ladder. Whether his heart stopped and he fell, or whether he fell accidentally and killed himself by falling, no one ever knew. But he was gone, and after his death the roofs were never in such good repair, and the trim was never painted. Maurine lived on, for a while, in the neat house where the pink-fringed bridge-lamps would not light and the console radio would not play and the scarves were crumpled on the tables. But she too was old, and she died before the year was out. So they called it the Year when George and Maurine Died.

And still they ran on—27, 28, 29, 30. It was hard to remember now the names, and how they came. Was the Good-Corn Year, before the Red-Sunset Year, and did that come after the Year When Evie Died?

Poor Evie! They buried her next to the others, and in her grave at least she was no different. All those years she had lived with them, and whether she had been happy no one knew, and whether they had done well to keep her living. Only once in all those years had she mattered much, and yet for that little time, when Charlie had come, she had seemed very important. Now that she was gone, the young people scarcely missed her; nevertheless the older ones remembered that her going marked still another broken link with the Old Times.

With Evie gone, only five of the original ones remained. Jean and Ish were the youngest of these five, and age showed least in them, although Ish limped more and more from his old wound. Molly complained of vague illnesses and wept often. Ezra coughed with his dry cough. Even Em walked with a less sure and regal grace. Yet actually they all enjoyed amazingly good health for people of their years, and their various decrepitudes sprang chiefly from approaching old age.

The Year 34—that was an important one! They had known for some time that there was another but smaller group of people living across north of the Bay, but in this year the surprise was that the other people sent a messenger with the proposal of a union. Ish made the young man keep distance, for he wanted no repetition of that business of Charlie. Having got all the information he could from the messenger, he called a meeting.

Ish sat with his hammer, for it was a time of great state. There was a hot argument. Reinforcing the fear of disease was a prejudice against strangers and all their strange ways. On the other hand, a kind of fascination in the very strangeness combatted the prejudice. Besides, there was the strong desire to strengthen the numbers of The Tribe, and particularly to obtain wives. For, in late years, fewer girls than boys had been born and some of the young men had nowhere to look. To Ish also there was the argument that the in-breeding of The Tribe might be dangerous, for now blood-relationship was universal and everyone had to marry his cousin.

But Ish himself, along with Ezra, opposed the union. In overwhelming fear of disease, and Jack and Ralph and Roger, the oldest of the younger men, remembered the Year 22, and supported Ish and Ezra. But the still younger men, especially the unmarried ones, clamored for the union, and Ish could see that the thought of the girls of that other tribe excited them.

Then Em spoke. Her hair was wholly gray now, but her calm voice held them. “I have said it before,” she said. “Life is not lived by denying life. Our sons and grandsons will need wives. Perhaps death will come also, but that too we must face.”

Not so much by what she said as by the spirit that flowed out from her, they all had courage. They voted without dissent to admit the others.

This time luck was with them, for the only epidemic was that The Others contracted measles, and soon were well again.

After that time there was always a division within The Tribe, as of two clans—The First Ones and The Others. When they intermarried, the children were of their father’s clan, although Ish had wondered whether mother-lineage might not prevail, as with many primitive people. But the old tradition of the Americans was too strong.

Then in the next year Ish realized more than ever that Em walked no longer with that regal grace; suddenly when he looked at her, he saw strange lines in her face, not the lines of old age, but the lines of pain. Behind the darkness of the cheeks there was not the glow of red but an ashy gray. Deep within him he felt chill and fear, and he knew that this also had come close to its end.

Sometimes, in those grim months that followed, he thought to himself, “This may be merely appendicitis, The pain is in that place. Why can I not operate? I can read the books. I could find out how it is done. One of the boys could manage the ether. At worst, I would only end the pain.”