Fault

Part 52

Fallon Connelly 12:34 p.m.

The sun tries to remind us that it's there, just behind the wall of ash and leftover storm clouds that have settled into the city's atmosphere like a wedding veil. We are teased by its promise of warmth and familiarity just beyond the smoky shroud as the sky turns a horribly beautiful mix of red, orange and black. I'm struck again with how quickly we've lost sense of time in the last couple days. Time matters most when you can't track it.

Ry-Ann and Justin hold hands as they walk between us. They look as exhausted as I feel. My feet ache in the arches and the itching has begun again under my bandages. Marc keeps pace to my left and Cal is a step in front at the right.

Groups of people walk in pockets around us, all of us heading in the direction of the rumored shelter in Forest Park. I wonder if any of them were part of the looting like we were. We all look like survivors of a nuclear holocaust with dirt in our pores and ash in our hair. We were the unlucky overflow that emergency vehicles couldn't make room for.

"I'm thirsty," Justin whines.

We pause in the yard of a dilapidated brick house. It's hard to tell whether the earthquake was responsible or not. There were plenty of houses that looked this bad before Mother Nature jackhammered us. Cal swings his backpack around to get a water bottle out.

I squint at the windows of the house. It didn't look like anybody was inside. In the places where houses and stores and factories have been left to slowly rot away it's as if the city has simply laid its cards on the table. There is no hiding the bad. If you come to St. Louis you see it all. The beauty and the heartbreak, often side by side.

Ry-Ann helps Justin hold the bottle as he sips from it. It's not as though he's so young he can't do it on his own but no one wants to see him drop it and waste a bottle of fresh water. Marc leans against a rusty pole that probably once held a mailbox. He blinks slowly a couple times and then closes his eyes, swaying a little in the breeze. The sight of it makes me want to lay down right where I stand, on the overgrown cement pathway to a desolated house, and just sleep. Now that we've stopped my muscles throb with fatigue.

Ry-Ann takes a sip after Justin and then hands the bottle back to Cal.

"Does anyone else need some while I have it out?" he asks.

Marc shakes his head without opening his eyes and I agree. It's probably overly cautious but we're treating the remaining water like gold. We might be thankful we have it, even once we reach the shelter. Cal quickly slips the bottle back into his pack.

"Look!" Justin cries out, startling Marc so much that he loses his delicate balance against the pole and ends up hitting the dirt. I can hear Cal chuckle behind me but I'm already following Justin's pointed finger.

If Justin hadn't seen it first I would have thought it was a hallucination. Across the street, in an undeveloped plot between two other rundown houses stand three zebras. Three living, breathing, normally-found-on-the-Savannah-Plains zebras.

"No way," Marc says, getting to his feet.

Their black and white striped bodies visually slice through the red brick backdrop. It's like they've been photoshopped in. They don't look panicked, as if I know what a panicked zebra looks like, but they are huddled close to each other. Their manes stick up like mohawks and they each have caked mud from their hooves to the middle of their legs. They are simultaneously absolutely stunning and completely unsettling.

"How did they get here?" I ask without expecting an answer. I see Marc shrug out of the corner of my eye. I wondered if these were the only animals the zoo might be missing.

The three zebras stand still as groups of people stop to stare. Ry-Ann takes Justin's hand and starts to cross the street with him. I instinctively follow and can sense Cal and Marc on my heels. The closer we get the more surreal the scene is. At the zebra's feet are piles of assorted trash, left from the homeless. Fast food wrappers, frayed old sheets and empty beer cans lay strangely beside their hooves.

I can see that Ry-Ann and Justin want to walk right up to them, but I quickly put my hands out to stop them at their shoulders when we're about ten feet from the zebras.

"They're still wild animals," I warn. "We shouldn't get any closer."

We stand there as a tired and battered group, with other tired and battered groups and stare at the impossibly beautiful sight of three zebras caught in the middle of our nightmare.