Atomic Bomb

Seren, now mute after enduring on the outskirts of the atomic bomb-blast now lived with us.

“I saw a movie about a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb” my husband Levi commented somberly and he looked very pensive. “I can’t imagine what horrors she has seen. An atomic bomb is worse.”

Levi was very broad in in his shoulders, but he’d become a little broad around his waist. He tussled his salt-and-pepper mustache.

After the bomb had blown up, we’d scraped together what we could of our family, Seren being our niece had moved into Jase's old bedroom. He now shared a room with his brother Ethan.

I was ing my mug of tinned soup that’d been swapped for a bar of soap and listening to the rain gathering in the saucepans outside and punting off of Maxes tent in the front garden. Max was Levis’ cousin.

“How long d’you think it’ll be before radio’s start working again?” I asked Levi.

We were only too aware of the lack of TV. Radio wasn’t available either. We kept each other occupied but it was harder than we could have imagined. It was harder to unwind without these two mediums of entertainment. Everyone had struggled to hear any news with a lack of tv and radio. The lack of news after a bomb of that magnitude was uncanny.

The gossip and the hear-say on the subject made me feel uneasy though it fascinated my eldest son Jase, he collected stories people said about the atomic bomb. We’d explained he couldn’t check the truth of these stories but yet his ever-thirsty curiousity persisted. Maybe his intrusive questions were part of Serens silence.

“I don’t know.” Levi said with a shrug, thumbing his mustache again. His steely grey eyes framed by heavy bushy eyebrows distant as he was deep in thought.

“You know Levi” I began “I have heard of people being encouraged to paint or draw their traumatic experiences, perhaps that’s the kind of catharsis Seren needs.”

“Perhaps.” He shrugged but frowned.

“What?” I called him out on his frown.

“Well, we’re not professionals, are we? We can’t know if that would help or make things worse.” He looked at me directly.

I bit my lip nodding. I couldn’t dispute that.

When the capital on the other side of the country was taken out everything we’d planned and hoped for went with it, pulling us into anarchy – my thoughts went to our sons and their futures. What opportunities could they grasp unto now? What skills could they discover to ultilise to sustain themselves or a family? Of course, these worries now were for Seren also. I didn’t know what hopes her mother had for her. Levi and his sister had never been close, a lack of closeness that seemed to extend to me and now with her death the lack of closeness had turned into guilt. I sighed at these feelings. At least we could find Seren at all as they’d lived on the safer side of the mountain range –what was left of the mountains.

I shuddered away from the memory of that day. The entire country was engulfed in eerie blinding light and an omnipresent hum. A stark shadow opposing everything. Everything to do with that moment became a surreal blurred memory riddled with confusion. A second sun -

“We should teach the boys morse code!” I blurted out to distract myself with the first thing that had come to mind.

“Julia, what?” Levi was confused by my sudden change in subject.

“It makes sense, right? The most useful thing I can think of.”

“If the radios come back.” A look of concern shaped his bushy eyebrows whilst he looked at me.

“Maybe someone at the Freegan market can help.” I suggested.

The local Freegan market had changed after the blast, what started off as people giving away what they’d found in their latest dumpster dive or free language lessons had become a bartering market, though its former name held. I’d occasionally take down my homemade soap to make trades with as money had become null and avoid. o one could receive money from the banks.

Next day we took the kids to the Freegan market. It was reduced from its former grassy field to a full-on mud plane with constant tramping feet. Tents, stalls, and picnic blankets punctuated the landscape offering skills or homemade items. People hoisted with them bric-a-brac for trade.

We’d brought the household vacuum, giving up on the return of electricity. Perhaps a mechanic or engineer could make use of it.

Seren wouldn’t stray from our side, as though afraid we’d just suddenly disappear. Jase and Ethan however had to be called back frequently. I was keen on Ethan keeping hold of my hand in crowds.

We shook our heads no to the first crowd that you meet before entering the Freegan market; a clammer of people with photos of lost loved ones.

“Have you seen my son?”

“My twin sister! She looks just like me have you seen her?”

Everyone seemed to have lost someone.

“Mum, can’t we just go mudlarking with Max?” Jace whined.

“Jace, we’re trying to find something useful.” I retorted to my eldest child.

“Mudlarking is useful! Max found the cobblestones for the oven from mudlarking!” I looked at Jase as he said this, with his ginger hair he’d inherited from Levi’s mother. I wasn’t disputing that Maxes hobby had turned out useful.

“And! And! And!” Ethan piped up with his wide brown eyes and chocolate brown hair he’d gotten from me “Max found a toothbrush!”

“I won't use that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s gross.”

“Why?”

“Because it was in the mud.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why it was in the mud.” It wasn’t just Jase who’d a strong sense of curiousity.

“Why?”

“Do as your mother says.” Levi put to our sons, hefting the vacuum cleaner over one of his bolder like shoulders.

We walked past a pair of women who were signing when I grabbed Levis’ elbow.

An idea had struck me like lightning hitting a lighthouse and I stood bolt upright.

“Levi! They’re signing!”

“Yes.” Levi said, “they’re probably deaf.” He was being absurdly blunt, probably because I seemed absurd.

“Levi!”

“Julia?”

“They could teach Seren how to sign!” I got to my point, glancing at Seren. Seren looked between us both curiously. I put from my mind Serens' increasing balding patch on the side of her head.

Waiting for his response I watch watch the women. His mind turning my suggestion over.

“Julia, you’re on to something.”

“Seren” I turned to her “would you like to learn how to sign?”

Seren gave me no indicat, that this is what she wished. Only her eyes were large and aqua-marine as they met mine.

I grasped her hand then trailed her and Ethan towards the pair. Jase followed and Levi walked by our sides.

“Excuse me” I approached them “sorry, can you teach our children how to sign?”

This was a bit of an increase of a request as I’d originally given the idea to Levi as teaching Seren to sign. I glanced at him to gauge his reaction. He nodded.

The pair of women stopped and looked at me. One looked me up and down and then looked at all of us. She had sandy hair, was tall and thin.

“It’ll cost ya.” She said finally.

“What’s your price?” I asked.

“Why do you want them to learn sign?”

“It’s our Seren, my niece.” I gestured to her. “She needs to communicate.”

“Is she deaf?” The Sand-haired one pressed.

“She’s mute.”

“Indeed.”

The womans' companion looked at her in confusion and waggled a pointer finger left to right rapidly. She was a brunette with hair so dark it was almost black. The Sand-haired one responded. Their dictionary in choreography danced until they’d an agreement and nodded together.

“Ok, here’s the deal.” Begun the sand-haired one with the brunette solidly by her side “We’ll move unto your land, assuming you have land that is, and we’ll live outside in our campervan, though you’ll need to to it, it’s out of fuel.” A lot of people had become nomadic after the bomb.

“Yes, we have land.” I explained.

“That’s rather a big ask” Levi stated.

“We can contribute to the household.” The sand-haired one said “but if you want your kids to learn, you’d best all learn.” She motioned at myself and Levi.

I turned to Levi.

“I think we should do it.” I wondered to myself if we’d be sharing a bathroom with this pair on top of our already full household.

“Julia, we don’t know these people, they could be dangerous.”

“If they’re dangerous we’ll turn them out.”

“Not if they’re armed, they could turn us out.”

“I’m not getting that vibe off them. They’re homeless and need help.”

“You can’t really guess how safe someone is... would it just be them?”

“How many are you?” I enquired of them.

“Just us.” They explained.

I watched as Levi rippled his mustache.

“Ok,” he said.

“Ok,” I echoed. “you’ve a deal.”

Levi explained he was going to find someone to trade for the vacuum when the sand-haired one leant forward as though trying to rescue us;

“The camper van has solar panels and extension cables. You don’t need to give it away. I’m Roxanne by the way, and this is Cat.” As Roxanne said “Cat,” she mimed cat’s whiskers across her cheeks.

Arriving home, towing the campervan, Max was cooking with the cobblestone oven beside his nt.

Our neighbour “Lee” who’d lately resorted to using his BBQ as his primary form of cooking, was over investigating.

“How did you trade a vacuum cleaner for that?” Max was impressed.

“We didn’t.” Levi said.

“What silver-tongued skullduggery got you that then?” Max asked. I removed the kids from the car.

“...More like we’re adopting someone.” Levi said as Roxanne and Cat left their campervan.

Max looked incredulous. I sensed an argument.

“Mum?” Ethan began.

“Yes?”

“You know all those people who died in the bomb?”

“Yes?”

“Will they respawn?”

I frowned bitterly, resenting video games for this question.

“Let’s go inside and doing colouring.” Changing the subject, I ushered them inside.

The kids were eventually settled to colour –except Seren who day-dreamed blankly when Levi came in.

“How’d that go?” I asked.

“Our neighbour – Lee, is going to be neighbourly and let them use his bathroom when we’re too busy. Max is now camping in the back garden.”

The years went by. Roxanne and Cat became family to us. We all became relatively fine in sign language although my signing and understanding was haltering at times but our goal – to find a way to communicate with Seren was achieved. One day in passing she mentioned something in a photograph. I didn’t understand. Roxanne and Cat helped me understand what Seren was trying to explain to me, though this made Seren self-conscious. After a day or two she was more forthcoming. What she explained was this:

“A woman in a photograph I’d seen in my mums’ house. She Told me to hide in my basement and to take Mum. Mum didn’t want to play, but let me hide in the basement alone. There was all this noise. The noise stopped. I went to look at what happened. The house above the basement was gone and in flames. Everything gone. Everyone was ... dead or in flames. Maggots everywhere before you turned up. I saw the same photograph in your jewelry box.”

After Roxanne finished translating for me, I searched for photos, until I stumbled on a heart-shaped locket Levi inherited from his mother.

I brought the locket downstairs to ask if this was the photo Seren meant. Seren grinned, nodded her fist; yes.

“This can’t be the woman who told you to hide,” I said, again Roxanne translated for me. “She’s you’re great-grandmother. She died before you were born.”