Isinglass

Chapter 1

When the world has no future, all we have left is memories of the past.

It is my childhood that I most commonly remember, raised in an idyllic small town nestled on the banks of a river so broad it was often mistaken as a lake by visitors. The sight of a stand of poplar tree brings me back to games of hide-and-hunt (for we were boys and "seeking" was not enough). The deep, rhythmic staccato of a nearby train brings to mind nights spent in my grandparents home, whose farmhouse was a stone's throw from the tracks. And the smells... Above all, the right smell can fill my heart and mind with the warmest memories. 

The warm aroma of baking bread, the pleasant sharpness of lemon-scented cleaner, or the comforting smell of freshly laundered towels- each brings my apron-clad mother to mind, images of her youthful smile looking down at me as I played on the kitchen floor. The steamy smell of shaving cream after a hot shower mingled with hint of minty mouthwash on warm breathe has me instantly in my father's arms. Rocking slowly in our hammock as I lay on his chest, it was as though he was Superman, defying gravity with my tiny 4 year old body curled safely in his embrace.

I long for those smells again, along with the memories they bring, but they're gone. Gone forever. Instead, the stink of sweat and sickness overwhelm me. As I helplessly attempt to care for the dwindling and dying figures lying in these beds, mere shadows of the people who were once my mother and father, those memories seem impossibly distant.

It is a hard truth that those best suited to survive the apocalypse seem to be conversely the least qualified (and desirable) to rebuild the kind of world most would hope to live in. And in a fitting opposite, those who we might think could best imagine a new and hopeful future out of the abandoned wasteland we now call earth, are the kinds of people least likely to survive long enough to do so.

While I most certainly do not belong to that first group, I doubt that I am well-suited for the latter as well. How do I know? Because the whole world is crumbling around me and my first thought is that the grass in the front yard needs to be mowed and I actually consider- not just consider it but desperately long for it, as though it will magically set the world aright- wasting time and energy on this now empty act of redundant domesticity.

Even at this, though, I scoff at myself. As most of the dwindling population of earth gasps it's last, dragging with them the technological and social advancements we've become dependent on, the world needs survivors, not someone who uses phrases like 'this now empty act of redundant domesticity'. Such a turn of phrase would have once made me smile to myself, taking pleasure in how the words rolled off the tongue. Instead, I feel a deep self-loathing that is quickly swallowed up by sheer panic.

And yet, the cold lottery of chance is no respecter of persons. The randomness with which the disease decimated the planet was matched only by the sheer breadth and unrelenting pace of the death it brought with it. While there was no consistency in the length of incubation the disease needed before manifesting itself, the only thing that has remained certain in every case is that, by the time the symptoms began to present, it is already too late. A lingering and painful death inevitably follows.

At the last report, before most of the communications fell apart, it was suggested that not a single infected individual had yet survived the illness. It was a game of biological Russian Roulette in which every chamber held a live round of ammunition. So, as I care for my ailing (and doomed) parents, I feel the cold metal of the barrel firmly against my temple every day, waiting for the trigger to be pulled.

My mother has pleaded with me to leave when the health authorities, with the aid of the military, began to organize evacuations to a neighbouring small city. Having more resources and a larger hospital than our small rural town, she felt it offered my best chance at survival. Yet, as the number of infected continued to rise, I knew that leaving my parents behind would be a cruel act of neglect. Besides, there seemed little hope in any of the failing options the powers-that-be offered up.