the Society

September 1st

Note: this is a revised version as at 23-01-19.

A few days ago, a young mother visited me, holding a little, blue bundle, five days old. I remember her; I helped deliver the baby, a boy. A boy who would hopefully grow up – much taller than his mother – as is customary in our species – and hopefully, help add to the population of healthy humans. Hopefully, he does not grow up to be sterile.

When she visited, she handed me her little, blue bundle. When I had last seen him, healthy as one could ask for, he had no visible birth defects, he was feeding well, and his mother could feed him well too. Now, as I held this little blue bundle in my arms, I cradled the small form, swaddled in blankets. Dead. I remember the mother's face, her sunken features deepened by the darkness under her eyes. She did not say a word to me when she brought in the son she had named, Charlie, not a single word.

Later that evening, the sun set on two young men digging in the soft earth at the edge of the perimeter. I had asked to bury that little, blue bundle delivered to me that day. I didn't tell them what it was – now wrapped completely in juniper leaves and blankets – but I suspect they knew; news such as this travels quickly here, all news travels quickly here.

The mother, Maria, stayed with me when I brought Charlie outside, but not for long. She left to her room across one of the grass flats which separates rows of modest wooden dwellings. I went on a school camp once in fifth grade, and there, they had wooden cabins in rows of six or seven, joined at the hip so that a single raised balcony could run along the entire row, and a window at the front of each cabin. Here, though, not many of the houses have windows; glass-making is no longer considered the most important of skills, and what glass was made was usually used for other things. Those houses which do have windows boast only a square hole in the wooden boards which make the walls – none of them exactly the same colour – covered with an equally square off cut of screen once used to shelter the gardens. Thankfully, it never gets very cold here.

It's raining now, as I write this, and I think of the loose soil packed onto Charlie's body; I wonder if he is in a shallow enough grave to get wet, though I told those boys to dig at least five feet down. I'm not entirely sure why that thought bothers me, but it does. I went out there before – wrapped in a piece of plastic that I use as a raincoat – to look at his grave. It's dark outside, and I could only see the rain beating down on the flat, bare ground where the grass hasn't yet begun to grow back. This flat, bare patch of mud was no wider than perhaps a soccer ball; it sat quietly, not alone in this part of the compound. It's always the most shame when the healthy children die.

I haven't seen Maria or her husband since Charlie died, or at least, since he was buried. Maria and James were married before the disasters; people in the Society have mostly reverted to effective polygamy. The younger of the two boys who buried Charlie told me yesterday that he saw Maria's husband sitting in front of their house after the burial. It is not uncommon to forgo a funeral here, especially for someone so young, but Maria's family had come from Mexico and were involved very heavily in the Catholic faith before the wars. Perhaps Maria has since lost her faith in prayer; they were far closer to the blast area than I had ever been when it happened. Still, she wears her rosary even today, and I find it strange now that she held no procession or vigil over the body. I find it strange too that she didn't say anything to me when she brought Charlie; she looked like she had been crying then, but did not do so in front of me. Now, though, I find myself too tired to worry more about it now. In truth, I'm probably too tired to sleep.