The Survivors

Memoir: Montana, 1992

MEMOIR

The Survivors' City, Montana

March 1992

It was a quiet, freezing afternoon. The snow had fallen in blankets for days without stopping. It was awful. But that day, it had finally laid off. The wind had stopped, too, and, because we didn't mind the cold, it was a perfect afternoon. About thirty of us had gathered outside the city walls to run in the snow. A massive snow fight had ensued. The others started to get tired or lose interest, but Noah and Ben and I had remained. Andrew emerged from the gate where he had been watching us, and he called for Ben. Noah and I followed, knowing we wouldn't be allowed to stay outside the gates alone. "No, no, you stay," Andrew called, waving at us. Noah and I looked at each other, not going to turn down a chance at staying outside the walls with no one to bother us. I took off running and then jumped off a little bank, diving into the deep snow. Noah laughed hard behind me and followed suit. It was one of the happiest, most carefree moments of my entire existence as a Survivor before I left.

Laying on top of the snow and watching the thick clouds move overhead, I decided to talk to Noah about something I had been reading about. I had not told him what I did in Bigfork every day, but he was the only one other than Lizzie and Andrew who paid enough attention to me to know that I left everyday. He had kept that secret safe, so I thought of him as an ally.

"Hey, I have a question," I said, trying to act naturally,

Noah had been half-buried in the snow bank a few feet down from me. He pulled his body free and launched himself so he landed right next to me. "Shoot," he said. My speech had grown increasingly modern even with only limited time on the outside and with my extensive exposure to literature. Noah had picked up on it when he spoke with me.

"When you're with the elders, do you ever hear that really soft, pounding sound? Like someone rhythmically tapping against the inside of your head?" I asked.

He considered this. "Happens about a hundred times a minute, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Do you know what that is?" I asked.

"I guess it's a heartbeat," he said.

I nodded, having read a lot about this. "I think so, too," I said. "Do you notice you don't hear that sound all the time?" I asked.

He sat up and looked down at me. "I hadn't thought about it," he said. "But I don't hear it right now."

"I don't either," I said. "I think we don't have heartbeats," I said.

Noah thought intently about this for a minute. He stuffed his hand inside his shirt and laid his palm flat against his chest. "I mean, it's stupid that I never thought of this before now. But even when we read about heartbeats-I didn't know what they meant. I mean, I understand the concept of a heartbeat, but I never felt one," he said.

"Me neither. Even when we were kids?" I asked.

"Never," he said. "You think something is wrong with us?"

"I mean, it's probably not that weird. We are immortal. Who's to say our hearts could hold up for that long? This probably just comes with the territory of being...not human," I said.

"That bothers you, doesn't it?" he asked.

"What does?" I asked.

"It bothers you that there's another way you're not like humans. You always sound like you're disgusted or irritated or something when you say, 'We're not like humans,'" he said. I never thought of Noah as being particularly perceptive before that moment.

I sort of shrugged, ignoring his question. "Do you think there's something to it? To their hearts beating and ours not?" I asked.

"Well, maybe if it's just us then it's something weird. I mean, it's already got to be a little weird that we were born at exactly the same time," he said.

  "You think there are others? I've been trying to tell, but there are always several people around, so I always hear the heartbeat sort of," I said.

"Let's find out," Noah said. I smiled. This is what I wanted, but I didn't know if I could enlist his help.

Noah and I spent the next two weeks slowly getting each Survivor alone enough so that we could tell if they had heartbeats or not. Noah could hear a little clearer than I could, but I didn't miss any.

Then we made a list. Of all the Survivors, we found twenty-seven who didn't have a heartbeat. Including the two of us, that made twenty-nine. I carved the list of names of the twenty-nine still-hearted Survivors into the tree like I did with my questions 110 years before. I did this because (just like right now) I like writing down things to think through them. I committed the list to memory, and then Noah touched his hand to the wood and the bark fell off in ashes. We talked endlessly about the meaning of a heartbeat, and I told him what I knew of them, of blood, and of the purpose of those things to the human body (breaking the rules Lizzie had set out for me, I suppose). We hypothesized on why hearts might not do the same things for Survivors.

  Unable to really explain it, we decided it must be because, as time went on, Survivors were still evolving, and the need for a heart that pumped blood grew superfluous. (Then I had to explain the concept of evolution to him, which he didn't like. He called it blasphemous, so I laid off.)