After the Parch by Sheldon Greene

Author:Sheldon Greene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.

The Sixth Day

—1—

The next morning, if morning is possible in a windowless underground room, is as despondent and heavy as the air. Bran, Ephus, and June are confined to Nikanor’s office and the room across the hall. They have slept there “for their own benefit,” as Nikanor put it, for the less they knew about Unity America the better. Nikanor came and went, but he tries to relieve their suspense with distractions. Someone brought them a tape deck and a dozen tapes, a Monopoly set, and a deck of cards, but nothing helped. Ephus worked a few wooden puzzles, but was restless as a caged fox and he complained of a headache from the “dead air.” Outwardly calm, Bran says little and June is alternatively thoughtful, restive, and morose.

Despite Bran’s gloomy preoccupation, he forces himself to be interested in a book filled with pictures of stone churches resembling sculpted rocks, their spires pointing to something invisible in the sky, their brilliant windows brighter than any field of summer flowers. Another has pictures of paintings, views of serene well-fed people enjoying a picnic under a tree or rowing down a green river, living a life that seemed free of the hardship and privation that he has observed. Did this world exist alongside the one he knows, just as the walled villages exist within sight of the Sal Si Puedes? Is it gone or did it ever exist? He would ask Nikanor.

Nikanor joins them for lunch, a bar of chocolate and a bottle of wine in one hand and a thick file in the other. He is friendly but seems preoccupied with his work for his eye keeps drifting to the closed file as though he should be studying it. Bran notices that it is labeled “Standard—Ref—l—Security”. He shows Nikanor the pictures in the book and Nikanor tells him that they are paintings by artists done over one hundred years ago.

“Are there still places like that?”

“Maybe. Things keep changing.”

Bran looks at the photos on the wall and asks him about the two men. Nikanor stares at them with respect and tells him that they are Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King. He takes a bite of his peanut butter sandwich, gets up, and goes to the shelves, finds two books and hands them to Bran.

“Why are their pictures on your wall? Are they important to your organization?”

“They are both Americans who lived in different times before the Dissolution. Yet, they shared a common vision,” says Nikanor, his voice somehow changing, as though the words have come from a deep source of conviction.

“Why did the United States break up?”

Nikanor’s eyes turn toward Bran with gentle indulgence. “The leaders lost faith in the vision.” He stares at Bran, waiting for a response. Suddenly, as if an alarm has gone off in his head, he gets up, grabs the file, and says in his usual bright tone, “Gotta go to a meeting.”

Mid-afternoon, someone brings a pot of herb tea and slabs of ginger cake. They eat, for the most part, in silence.

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