A-Void by Babak Govan (phonics readers txt) 📕

Cleveland and I scavenge more houses until we find a working fridge. I fill up a jerrican with water and force large chunks of canned corn past my ashy throat. My ribs feel hollow and I can sense the food plummeting through, splattering inside my stomach.

We go back outside, and I look up, still hoping to spot planes as we move further east. What if all the Colonists are dead and I don’t find anyone inside? I wobble, curling inward as I sit on the gutter’s ledge.

In the corner of a small church office, Cleveland nestles against my back and I stretch out my arm to capture the heat of a sunlight beam resting on the dirty carpet.

TIME 2

“We’re fine,” Jasmine said over the phone. “They’re being alright with us today. They just want us to make it.”

“Yeah. Just do as they say. I’m coming to you right when I’ve secured the vaccines. Then, we’re free.”

“Honey, be careful.” I could hear the wind slice over her Organelle v463.2.

“I’ll be fine. How’s Isabella?”

“She’s good,” she giggled. “She has no idea.”

TIME 1

APPROACHING VINITA, OK

2:57 PM

Cleveland, Isabella’s unicorn, Steamboat Willie, M_____’s box, the mynah bird, and Zebra are anxious. My heartbeat trembles faster with each mile as we approach the customs checkpoint. What if there is no one there? What if I am alone? What if there is just one more person left—a woman? I would need to find her to sustain our species.

The booths are empty. I take a deep breath and check my Organelle v463.2 once more. Still no signal.

I floor the throttle and we break through the barrier arm.

In the distance, giant wind turbines rise atop an imposing structure. I am hopeful that New Jamestown has survived.

Above beastly wooden gates, an ornate red and blue “New Jamestown” sign welcomes me. A bird, maybe a falcon, flies past it, comforting me. Escorted by coniferous trees, the fort stretches beyond my line of sight. The bird lets out a scream and I walk forward, to the foot of the gate, where there is such stillness. As bruised sunlight caresses the grass, my body shakes again. I crimp my fists and huddle against the tall wooden gates.

I notice the plumes of flowers nursing the trees of this new country and their fresh look invigorates me with hope. I turn to the gate and pound on it. “Hello? Hello?” I pound some more, finally pressing my ear against the gate, but I hear only my heartbeat. Where are the guards? “Hello? Hello?” I pound again on the door. “Hello?”

I look up and notice camouflaged surveillance cameras and loudspeakers creviced into the fort. A camera stares at me. “Hello?” Jumping up and down, I wave my arms at it and then display my open mouth and palms. “I’m not infected! I’m looking for my wife and child!”

I study the fort’s stacked logs to its tremendous height. What if I fall climbing it, so close to Jasmine, Isabella, and Joaquin? What if they shoot me down at the top?

I pull up my socks, tighten my laces, and embrace the childhood memory of climbing the jungle gym during recess. Cleveland stares at me from the middle of the grass and I wonder what he knows. He does not respond as I wave to him. I turn, lodge my fingers in between a pair of stacked logs, and follow with the toes of my boots.

I look up, realize I am halfway up, and cannot believe I have climbed this high. I glance back quickly, to find Cleveland unmoved, but the burning in my fingertips and the balls of my feet wipes out any more thoughts.

With about a dozen logs ahead, sweat blurs my vision. A strong wind comes and I hold tight, and begin to shiver after it passes. I adjust my fingertips sideways to keep them lucid, and then just forge ahead.

Two logs before the summit, I wonder whether anyone’s inside. On the other hand, if they are there, will they believe that I am free of infection? What if people are here, but Jasmine and Isabella are not? Am I foolish to believe they made it?

I lift myself to the last log, wrap my arm around to the top, and keep my cheek on the hot banquette where it lands.

The massive flags I had seen from below flap above me, creating gunshot noises. Between every pair, invisible from the base, large cameras face west. Beyond, from outside The Colony, smoke rises.

I turn to face the fort, from where, against a shimmering blue sky, the elevated gardens of the metropolis arise, its buildings shaped as mushrooms, spheres, half-moons, and spirals. Giant pinwheel wind turbines with solar panels on their blades spin atop every building. On the plateau that is the city’s apex, I see a space shuttle docked on a launching pad.

I take a deep breath. What if the city is barren? Then, I run. I run and run, weaving past the flagpoles to see the interior from the other end of the banquette.

As the edge nears, the city grows. I reach for the railing there, grab it, and bend to see who awaits me:

No! What? Where is everyone? Where is everyone?! Where are Jasmine and Isabella?

“Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Anyone out there?”

Aerial red-, blue-, and yellow-striped metallic taxis are dormant at their stations, to and from which there is no one. Their suspension cables weave over and under the colorful gondolas suspended between the two Ferris wheels.

I track the topaz canals of Fable’s Park, meandering through the city center. At first it seems as real as what I’d seen in The Expert’s Guide, but where are the canoe paddlers carefully steering past the lines hanging from wooden bridges, from where patient anglers feed ducks? Where are the schoolchildren chasing kites over rolling hills? Where are mothers and fathers pointing prematurely from handsome benches for their newborns