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

blowflies with bristly metallic-blue bodies and large red eyes grabbing onto the skin with their claws, piercing and sucking on the flesh. I remember the body of M_____ covered with maggots crawling and burrowing inside her open abdomen.

I was unable to climb the fort of New Jamestown to see who was inside, left only with carcasses, along all the streets, on the sidewalks, in cars, in big rigs, in malls, in department stores, in parks, in houses. I remember grasping the picture of a little girl I found dead on her bed.

The British Fisheries vessel that smashed into the dock is still there, bodies spilling across its deck. Along its damaged body is written, “United States of America or Bust.”

I crawl and reach for a stiff scarf wrapped around a tree. Beyond it, I see a static screen:

DISEASE PENETRATES NEW JAMESTOWN.

ALL 1,000,491 PEOPLE CONFIRMED DEAD.

I hear barking in the distance. Maybe it’s Cleveland, maybe not. The apocalypse was not supposed to look like this, with everything else—Cleveland, the birds jumping within the trees above me, the fish swimming below—surviving, while all of our constructions—religions, politics, and taboos—die with us. We succumbed to a human-made virus designed to control the animal population.

The last time I was here at Battery Park was the coldest day I had experienced, but Jasmine and I decided spontaneously to visit the Statue of Liberty. Nestled together with water dripping from our noses, we posed for a photograph in front of it. We were just enough warmth for each other. In what city in Heaven can I find you?

I regret procrastinating to apply to move with Jasmine and Isabella to New Jamestown, instead taking them to hide in a cave in the Santa Monica Mountains. Maybe then, Jasmine would not have lain beside me to whisper, “I love you, I love you so much,” two days before I saw their bodies rotting and decaying along the brushy creek, Jasmine’s hair flowing like string algae in the water as she loosely embraced Isabella at her chest.

In this burning house, in this tower, I stand up from my chair and dance with my wife as the great flood becomes. Too much light from the candles blurs the room as we turn inside the mirror ball. As flames surround us, I look at the tips of her eyes—what a beautiful thing never to be seen again. I let everything burn, and then I feel free.

A silverback gorilla and his troop moving past me capture my attention. His back is monstrous, colored steel. On his knuckles, he steps cautiously over the bodies, pots and pans, and crumpled tents, and his troop follows him. Two mothers each hold a cub under their chests, and one of the cubs studies me as they pass. The silverback also looks briefly, but with no expression. As I watch them go by, ancient Poe echoes in my head.

And travellers, now, within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms, that move fantastically

To a discordant melody,

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever

And laugh — but smile no more.

I press my hands against my head and my palms throb. I open them in front of me. Behind the charcoaled dirt, I see small ulcers forming in the centers. I realize I have been in a fugue, infected for a very long time.

I feel faint and lie back down on the frozen dirt. I turn and look for the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the brown bay. The falcon-bird flies suddenly into my view, and I realize he’s not a falcon at all. He lands on a wooden post in front of me. But, in the distance, I only see ego.

About the Author

Babak’s writing debuted in North American Review (“Fighting Fish”), and he was a finalist for a Glimmer Train award. His story “Glow,” published in Palo Alto Review, was deemed “flawless” and “brilliant” by Shenandoah literary review. Babak is also a music artist known as Secret Arcade, whose debut electronic rock album, Quarter Century, skyrocketed on college radio. A Los Angeles native, Babak lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and children, where he is in private practice as a psychologist. He is the originator of the theory of the evolving psyche and moderative psychotherapy.