BREATHE

I wear my post-apocalyptic heart shaped locket. It is made of steel. Inside one word BREATHE. My name is Angel, I live in New Mexico. I’m the only person left in North America who hasn’t committed suicide. I don't know if I'm going to live.

Angel runs donning full head gear to mount a motorcycle headed for the East coast. She hears people are living in Long Island Sound on a submarine anchored at New York Maritime College.

The sound of her breath can be heard through her mask, homemade from a metal motorcycle helmet plus two air filters glued into the visor.

Before this mass epidemic of electromagnetic radiation swept the globe the world seemed normal. Sure we had been hit by COVID-19, sure Trump’s presidency hurt domestic affairs, sure we suffered police brutality, the BLM movement, home-grown terrorists making pipe bombs, semi-automatic weapons being used in high school shootings, the September 11th attacks. We were clearly survivors. But then this happened.

This event took place like a slithery snake creeping in from the desert.

Day 1: You’d feel tired and heavy.

Day 2: Your eyes would see the light differently like overexposure created by a film lens.

Day 3: Then you felt a wave of electricity like a mammogram was being performed on your frontal lobe, the taste of it’s metal filled your mouth.

Day 4: Melancholia would set in smoothly, the air weighed you down, gravity had changed around you and it was hard to jump.

Day 5: You would hear the sound of a shortwave radio in the air, like speakers everywhere, random sounds, no order to them, pirate radio.

No one quite noticed this stealthy enemy rise to power. Not until the mass suicides began.

People disappeared from the streets inside their houses. No one entered or exited. 911 calls to the police sent sirens blaring through town. Loved ones missing for weeks had to be checked on only to learn of their suicides. First it was one house, then another and another till it was clear there was a crisis sweeping the planet.

“Esteem,” said newscasters, “was at an all time historical low.” Botox, energy foods, pharmaceutical drugs, vitamin supplements and beauty supplies were selling out. Anything to fight depression, sold.

I owned a non-profit making one-of-a-kind clothing for people with body dysmorphia. Needless to say, my sales skyrocketed. I could hardly keep up with the work, which made me not notice the heaviness in the air. Not until the suicides hit the news.

My company sold a locket in the shape of a heart. Inside one word BREATHE. I put that locket on when I opened my business. That's all I have left of it today.

I first noticed the electromagnetic radiation's effect on my body after sales at my company spiked. The news kept covering the death toll. Something was changing. My skin would sagg to the pressure in the atmosphere and then I realized I heard a radio spectrum in the air. An electrical current surged through me raising my body temperature everywhere but one spot, under my metal heart shaped post-apocalyptic locket. There I was ice-cold.

Apparently wearing metal can deflect the electromagnetic fields, which are from the sun. I believe the blips of radio messages I hear are from survivors talking. Their words carried at random range for moments through the radiation’s radio spectrum. I can’t quite make out where they are coming from or who the speakers are. It reminds me of the Titanic. How it's radio distress signals went nowhere the night they hit the iceberg. No order, no listeners, only pirate radio. No one could save them.

Everyday for one month from 12pm to 5pm I’d hear distress signals. First three horn blasts, then a voice repeats itself over and over. It breaks up every couple of seconds but after two weeks I piece together it’s clear parts to realize what the speaker says. It’s always the same voice, a man. Not sure how old. Not panicked but insistent saying, “This is New York Maritime College, survivors off the coast of Long Island living in the submarine stationed here, can anyone relay?” I hear this repeat for five hours daily.

I try to respond, “This is Angel. I’m alive because of my metal locket I call BREATHE. Anyone who can hear me wear metal, it protects you. Can you hear me?” But I never hear anything back. Only “This is New York Maritime College, survivors off the coast of Long Island living in the submarine stationed here, can anyone relay?”

I resolved to ride the 1,987 miles from New Mexico to New York to find out whether the speaker is real. I know I'll need a map of all the tire shops along the way since the new gravity not only saggs my skin, allows for radio waves to be carried in the air without radio towers, but also weighs down my cycle’s rubber tires till the tread wears away and they pop. This happens ten times faster than is normal. But I think the ride is worth the risk.

With enough food and water for 1 week's ride and a map of all the tire shops between New Mexico and New York I leave for the road, no one to say goodbye to. I know I’ll only stop long enough to sleep and I can only go 100 miles before I have to change my tires.

I ride in the first light of morning. Even as the sun rises these days the sky remains a shade of purple and I ask myself, what do we do to help the sun rise every day if we have to?

I could only go 250 miles the first day, stopping twice already because of my tires. The sound of the random radio waves dizzying my head with still nothing cohesive except the New York Maritime College relay over and over from 12pm to 5pm. To break the monotony I repeat “This is Angel. I’m alive because of my metal locket I call BREATHE. Anyone who can hear me wear metal, it protects you. Can you hear me?” But still I never hear anything back.

I almost made it all the way through New Mexico before I had to stop at a Motel 8, only 93 miles left to the State line. I was happy to find it empty. No one at the front desk. I saw room keys undisturbed and prayed there’d be no suicides in the room I selected. I headed to room 9 and unlocked the door. No one in there, I closed the door behind me and went to inspect the bathroom. No one was there either, I could breathe.

I took a shower and replaced the metal helmet on my head for sleep. I had not been able to sleep without it once I figured out metal repelled the crushing radiation from the changing gravity. At least my head was protected. My bones hurt. My body was heavy but I propped my helmet head up on the pillows against the headboard and passed out cold to the sound of the radio waves in the air.

As the sun set that day, the night sky remained a shade of purple and I asked myself what can I do to help the sun rise everyday if I have to?

Violet has become the primary color in the atmosphere entirely erasing the color green. It’s because of this high concentration of electricity in the air that we can see it’s color. It's made of a gamma ray colored violet. This ray is the radio wave that carries sound. The higher concentration then we lived with in the past is why we can hear those far away without the help of radio towers and why the air is ten times as dense.

As my eyes drift asleep this reminds me of a quote on the color violet by Eugene Delacroix a French Romantics Painter, “I see the red flag outside my window; the shadow, in fact, appears violet and dusky to me; it has an orangish glow, but why isn’t there any green? First of all because red needs to have hints of green, but also because of the presence of orange and violet, two tones that introduce yellow and blue, which make green.” He describes a color coming into existence. Outside my window the color forming in the sky proves the gravity has changed.

I dreamily remember a painting of his. A red, white and blue flag flying over a woman, Lady Liberty Leading the People, the color white and blue in the flag almost disappears surreal into the multi-color clouds above her. The flag becomes part of the sky. Delacroix emphasized color rather than clarity, soft focus like what's outside my window. Inspired by humanity, he painted "forces of the sublime, of nature in often violent action." The world I am living in has become what looks like a Delacroix painting. Soft focus, no clarity, a new color coming to be. A violet world.

Delacroix became known in Paris in 1822 when his painting of Dante and Virgil’s descent into Hell premiered. Illustrating Shakespeare, painting Greece, Syria and Morocco he died August 13, 1863 leaving diaries about his life and his paintings. His words and images now soothing me in my sleep.

The sound of my alarm clock jolts me awake. Visions of Delacroix’s paintings give way to the pain in my neck so heavy I have a hard time lifting it off the bed. I could not wait to get to the submarine to see if it’s real. To know what a full regale of metal around me would feel like. To walk around without a helmet on again. This new heavier gravitational force was exhausting. I could hear the bones cracking under its pressure.

By reflex I grab the remote to click on the motel television set only to find color bars on the screen. The memory of the last local news casters signing off to the sound of gun blasts to their heads that final day came back to me. It made me sad. I turned the television off.

I drove the rest of the way through New Mexico before having to pull off for a tire replacement in Texas. Again, grateful no one was around, I grabbed a set to replace my already disintegrating pair. It took only minutes. I noticed a refrigerator stocked with glass bottled cokes. I cried at the sight before heading back onto the road, no one left to drink them. I had 6 more days left to ride. Days 2 through 7 would only look the same as the 1st I surmised.

When I finally arrived at the coast in New York that final day I saw what appeared to be hundreds of people walking toward the submarine. I was amazed. They had all heard the same transmission and come to this place, even vessels approached from the harbor, coast guard. Ships made of metal, people wearing metal shields, metal helmets, and carrying metal scraps all drifting toward the coast.

The violet sky hung heavy in the air. I asked, what could these people do to help the sun rise everyday?

Nature in violent action. The color forming in the sky proves it. It was clear the sun was sinking closer to us everywhere.

As I got nearer on my motorcycle to the submarine I saw on its deep green side painted in bright white U.S.S. BREATHE. In a word I knew the voice on the relay had heard me all that time. Maybe posthumously Delacroix could too. A smile dawned across my face.

Maybe we could all do something together to help our sun rise everyday if we had to?

Maybe I would live after all.