Apart and Together

Apart and Together

The morning sun falls across the table sitting beside the window in Bill and Chloe Gregson’s small apartment on the upper east side of town overlooking the railway track that provides most of the transportation for the city since owning a vehicle is just too expensive. Bill is reading the newspaper out loud trying, in his own way, to be amusing. In a deep announcer’s voice he says, “And on this day, Saturday the eighth of October in the year 2034, our glorious president, James Burrows, waves to onlookers as he and the First Lady board Air Force One, departing for a week vacation. Meanwhile, Congress will be voting today to decide the fate of the country's homeless that have become a burden upon our great country. In an interview with Sandy White last week, David Sandhill explained how the homeless disgrace our cities by clogging alley ways and moving about town in ragged clothes, carrying bags and boxes of items looking mostly like trash. Can you believe this, Chloe?” Bill asks. “I mean they have placed these articles side by side. How can they not see the disparity of people starving, without shelter or money, and no hope of a job right next to an article discussing the beautiful, tax payer paid vacation that our ‘great leader’ is embarking on.” Bill shakes his head in bewilderment. “They do not even consider it, Bill.” Chloe answers. “They see the homeless and poverty level people as a completely different life form. Something along the line of a leech or parasite, not like a worker bee that they care about as long as they can be productive citizens.” Bill mumbles and turns the page, only to scoff in disgust at another article finishing by carelessly folding the paper and tossing it onto the table. Chloe looks up at him for a moment before giving her attention back to the breakfast she is cooking, scrambled egg substitute and tofu bacon strips. Turning the stove off, Chloe lifts the last strip of tofu bacon from the pan and places it on Bill’s plate. “Ah” She says. “With enough salt and pepper, this will taste just like the breakfast your mother used to make.” Bill sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose. “It smells a bit like bacon, I wonder how they get it to do that, since they were able to capture some of the smell you would think they would also work in some of the taste.” He says. Chloe is slightly offended and says, “Well fine; I will let you find a way to buy groceries, pay the rent and utilities and our transportation fees… Then we will talk about the taste of our bacon. At least we are not carting all our possessions around in boxes.” “Not yet!” Bill says. “But if our great president has anymore ‘vacations’ we will not be very far from the feel of cardboard walls and threadbare blankets.” Staring down into her cup of soy milk, Chloe notices that the liquid is quivering and she says, “Can you stop shaking the table?” Bill replies, “I am not shaking the table, you must have bumped it as you sat down.” Chloe watches the cup, waiting for the tremors to subside, but they intensify instead. “Bill, something is wrong. Turn the radio on.” Bill reaches over to the small radio that they keep on the window sill, the only place in the apartment where it will come in clearly, and turns it on. After a moment Bill pushes a button to seek for a different channel but all he can find is static. Bill ran through the entire dial with no success. He was about to start the computer and use one of their technology cards to access the global network when the entire building shook with enough force to knock the tiny radio out of the window onto the floor. Bill and Chloe look at one another, “We have to get out of the building.” Bill says. “I have seen what the tremors can do to these concrete block buildings and we definitely do not want to be under the three floors above us.” “Okay” Says Chloe “Just let me grab a couple things…” The building shakes again and all the windows shatter, they can see through the hole that had been their kitchen window moments ago, pieces of the wall beginning to fall. Bill grabs Chloe’s arm and says, “No, no we have to go now.” Chloe starts to resist but gives in and follows Bill out the door and down a small flight of stairs. Outside people are running and shouting, looking for friends and loved ones. Bill says, “Let’s get to the transit station, they are supposed to be built to function as shelters from earthquakes, tornadoes, and terrorist attacks.” Bill and Chloe make it across the street and onto the railway tracks as another violent tremor brings down a large portion of the wall of their apartment. Chloe looks back at the sound of falling debris and stops. “My pictures, they are all I have left of my family… it is just a small box. Bill, I have to get them.” Chloe says. “Chloe, don’t be stupid. Can you not see the walls falling down? We were lucky that we got out before we were trapped.” “Bill, I have to get them.” Bill tries to hold on to Chloe’s hand but they are racked by another tremor and Bill stumbles on the uneven tracks. Chloe takes this opportunity to run. Bill cries out, “Chloe, Chloe – Wait! Chloe, we will come back. Don’t go in, Chloe.” But it is too late. Bill catches a glimpse of Chloe’s red hair as she slips through the hole in the side of their apartment and disappears.

            Chloe climbs over the jumbled remains of their little apartment and she remembers the day they moved in, it was just two rooms, but it was theirs. The walls were painted a plain white and the floors were covered with a dull carpet that had seen too many renters, but she had loved it. Now as she looks around trying to get her bearings, she can see bits and pieces of their furniture. The small love seat and the couch that folds out to become their bed, the tears start to come but Chloe battles them back down, they can find a new place. She just needs to get her pictures. The rubble is hard to move, but Chloe continues to dig and look. The building shakes again and the inner wall between Bill and Chloe’s apartment and their neighbors falls into a heap, followed by a scream. Chloe stops searching and listens with shock; surely there is not someone still in the building. Faintly, Chloe hears a voice and she begins to move across the debris toward it, further into the ruined building. As she crawls on all fours over the mounding heap, Chloe tries to remember who her neighbors are. All the tenants lived busy lives and most of them keep to themselves. Chloe stops and listens again, nothing… Chloe calls out, “Hello is anyone in here?” “Hello” Chloe is about to turn around and make her way back when she hears a sound, it is weak, very weak, but it sounds like a baby crying. Suddenly, Chloe remembers watching a young woman carry in a few belongings a couple weeks ago and she had a baby. Chloe had not gotten a very good look at the child because the woman had it wrapped it all up in blankets to ward off the chill air. Slowly, Chloe made her way toward the sounds, gently moving aside pieces of debris, until finally she catches a glimpse of hair, quickly now, Chloe begins to dig and finds the young mother crushed beneath a huge pillar, dead, with her baby clutched protectively in her lifeless arms. Amazingly, the baby is still alive. Chloe works to free the baby from its mother’s arms. Once she has pulled the baby free she tugs at the blue blanket that is still pinned. Once she has it, Chloe wraps it around the baby and notices some red stitching on the corner, it reads: “Oliver Lindel August 19, 2034.” Chloe almost dissolves into tears again. This poor child, he will never know his mother… Mother, her pictures! Chloe starts to climb back to her apartment; she looks around, to her left she can see a path that would lead her out of the building, but looking back to the right she can see where her belongings appear in small snatches among the fallen debris. Chloe looks down at the baby in her arms and he whimpers reaching out with a tiny hand and clasps onto her finger. Chloe’s heart stops. She has never wanted children, but standing here, holding this small babe in her arms she knows that she is a mother now. Clutching Oliver close to her chest, Chloe turns left and makes her way quickly outside. Bill is beside himself, running around from opening to opening trying to see where Chloe has gone, coming around the building, Bill stops to stare as Chloe steps through a gap in the wall cradling something in a blanket. Her eyes meet his and Bill can see something is different; Chloe has changed in the space of a few minutes. How long had she been in the building? It cannot have been more than fifteen minutes, although it seems like the building has been falling for hours. As they draw close, Chloe tips the corner of the blanket and Bill looks in to see the babe asleep in her arms; his eyes travel from the baby up to Chloe’s eyes and he knows this baby is theirs now. Bill wraps Chloe and Oliver into an embrace and guides them back to the railway tracks and on toward the shelter of the station house.

            As they sit in a huddle among the other citizens who have fled to safety, Bill reflects on how normal his day had begun, reading the paper, eating breakfast with Chloe and expecting nothing out of the ordinary for his day. Now here at the end of the day, his whole world has fallen apart and yet come together at the same time and it lies sleeping in Chloe’s arms.