East Is The Hope

Chapter One, Marking the Days

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.

Lana uses tallies (hash marks) on her compartment wall to track her days. One full wall from floor to ceiling is covered with groups of four vertical lines; a fifth line crosses diagonally from left to right to complete a tally. She begins this morning on her second wall, now numbering each group, allowing her to track days spent alone in her minimalist, sensory-deprived room. It was tiresome to continually count them: five, ten, fifteen, twenty, and on through all the marks to get a total number. Smiling now, she’s halfway through the numbering and is up to six thousand. (Six thousand is 1200 marks, equaling three years because one year is four hundred days). When finished with this wall, she will write the number on her table so she doesn’t have to find the count; it will be there when she eats, combs her hair, and takes her required sedatives; she will update it weekly. Lana takes a break, sitting at her table admiring the tallies - her wall art.

Thursday, a sunbeam arcs across her room from the top of her window and she rises, alert and ready, as the room brightens slowly. At the peak of the brightening, Lana leaps to the northwest wall, her forehead pressed against the area; it is shiny from the repeated contact with her skin. She takes in a deep breath, holding it, waiting.

A tiny aperture appears, the circle enlarging at a snail’s pace, faintly clicking as it stretches open. Lana’s left eye peers through it, roving right and left. The gap opening in the wall becomes large enough for both eyes to fill the space, and – luck! - on this day, her entire face fits. The aperture is a clear flat pane not quite as broad as her face, and the direction she is looking is north. Her nose is flattened as she tries to peer east but cannot. I’ll just be happy with how much I can see, she tells herself.

Lana grins at the boy waving to her from his window across the way and clasps her hands in gratitude as he slides the heavy draperies open. She watches as he moves quickly across his room and opens the drapes at the far window, making his room a floor-to-ceiling see-through sunroom. Thanks to this, Lana has a partial view of the cinder cone mountaintop westerly near his building; a mountain that was once snow-capped in white and admired by the world. Her aperture to the outside world faced more easterly, a symbol of hope for her people. West is behind, east is the Hope.

Chapter Two, The Mountain

The Mountain, as locals called it, was glacier-covered all year, but its snowy foothills cleared in the summer. High trails filled daily with hikers and had slivers of snow until mid-July, ice crunching under boots.

Lana vaguely remembered her botanist mother, Carla, sketching tiny pictures of plants in her notebook. She talked to herself as she sketched, naming the plants aloud and pointing to them as Lana looked on: “Indian paintbrush, orange; purple ones are the alpine aster, lupine, and penstemon; fireweed is hot pink; crimson columbine scattered in the fields along with yellow cinquefoil; under the trees, the delicate fairy slippers could be found if searched out.”

“Mama, can we go outside now to the mountain?” Her mother had looked at her sadly and responded, “There is no mountain now, Lana. It is just a burned cinder. It used to be beautiful when I was young. Remember what I told you? When the drought hit hard, the government contractor-scientists said to ‘seed’ the clouds for rain.”

“Did they? Seed them?” Her mother walked to the shelf and returned with a book. Holding it out to her daughter, she flipped it to a page showing the mountains and wildflowers. It was gorgeous and on each page was an animal that lived on the mountain; the book showed pages of the different seasons also. The last page displayed the destruction of the mountain and the surrounding area after the cloud seeding.

Chapter Three, Cloud Seeding

Seeding the clouds was a horrible idea. The Eastern Seaboard jets zipped up and down that coastline, while desert airships circled over the sandy wastelands which had been low grassy slopes before the drought. The air campaign continued for some weeks. The sky slowly turned from azure blue with wispy white clouds into a roiling miles-high inky gray, through which no sunlight could filter. Desert creatures skittled across rocky sand, climbing onto boulders and up cacti plants as dry creek beds became raging streams of orange water. Rivers spread from their crooked lanes to cover roads and farmlands. The High Lakes of the north overflowed, wiping out towns along their shores. Pasture animals tried to find high ground, but their bodies floated in the rising melee of debris and putrid water. Nature was upended due to human interference.

Disruptions to the electrical grid and cell phone towers from the ensuing thunderstorms plunged the cities into darkness. As the storms grew, the sea rose, spreading over the coastlines, pushing water towers and power plants over, and carrying them away. Tangled wires mixed with cement and old-growth trees, vehicles, buildings, and shipping containers; all floated in swirling vortexes, heavy items sinking beneath the dark muddy mess. People drowned, starved, and died from cholera, snake bites, pneumonia, and tetanus.

As the land was inundated with water from the cloud seeding, the rolling foothills crumbled under the water’s force. Deep within the glacier-covered mountain, water that once spit in icy trickles, became raging malicious fingers digging into the mountain’s rocky gut. Unseen by humans, rifts opened wide, unstable rock altered by hydrothermal pressure turning into giant mud flows inside the mountain, ready to sweep across the valley once they broke from their confines.

Earthquakes rolled the land, tiny and spaced out over days at first; when they became larger and staccato in their rhythm, Bertrand, Lana's father, moved his family out of the valley and further from the mountain. Carla and Bertrand began watching The Mountain through scopes from a distance. On a Spring morning, to Carla’s horror, she saw the glacier glowing orange in the distance; then a small ripple of mud behind bubbling behind slipping, melting ice. As she watched through the scope, the glacier began to slide down the mountain face. Giant mud flows, known as lahars, flowed down the mountainside at a speed no one nearby could escape. The hot mud flowed fast and deep, covering the city, forest, and rivers. In one instant her beautiful mountain caved in upon itself, then exploded in a shower of hot cinders, ash covering the landscape and obstructing visibility. The wreckage from the seed storm was vast.

Chapter Four, Earthquakes

Lana was in the caves where it was cool and dark; her weeklong fever was finally subsiding. The physician-counselor had just checked her pulse and body temperature. He was preparing a hot broth when a slight rumbling began inside the cave. A minor earthquake followed, making the ground sway. Some items around the cave were tossed like leaves in the wind; it lasted less than a minute, injuring no one. Ever since the seeding, earthquakes had become common, and the geo team tracked their locations, length, and injuries. People reported them through the portal wave scanner.

In the nearby tower, Carla gazed out the window as the building swayed. She had no way to escape the high floor. From the window, she saw Bertrand running to save her, but there was no possible way he could get to her. The earthquake rolled the land, the ceiling of Carla's building fell in, its windows burst, and surrounding buildings collapsed; Carla and Bertrand were obliterated by the falling debris.

Chapter Five, Pills and Viewings

Lana used an old calendar and her hash marks to create her tracking system. On Thursdays, the boy opened all the draperies in his room, then left. Deliberately, he left all the windows uncovered so she had a view of the Outside. The only restriction to her viewing was the size to which her aperture opened; or if adults caught her looking and closed the draperies. However, on Thursdays, usually no one entered his room or shut the curtains.

This Thursday as Lana watched the boy through her tiny aperture, she felt the floor begin to move. Oh no, an earthquake! His waving hand paused as he felt it also, but then the quake subsided. He left the room, but a mist rolled in, and Lana could see nothing; disappointed, she went back to her table. On a piece of heavy paper, Lana sketched the boy in his window waving to her; the sky was heavy gray, the building black reflective glass, except for one window with the boy.

Every day Lana made a new sketch. She created works of art from her imagination, the boy growing taller, the window larger. She added green plants to his room, a sun shining over the building, and a lovely stream below with a small stone waterfall. Each drawing she hid under her table, using thumbtacks she had found.

Holding the paper up to the wall, looking out, then drawing, Lana is sketching what she sees and what her mind's eye sees. The aperture is open enough for one eye to peer out. She sketches the building; it is not quite as high as her tower. She adds a sundial to the side of it and draws in a few red birds. Suddenly her hand flies over the paper again and again as she lines out a snow-capped peak to the far back side of the boy's building.

She hears footsteps in the hall and hides her drawing, sitting with her hands folded at her table, facing away from the wall. In walks the nurse with her sedatives. “Here, child, take your medicine.” She didn’t see the opening! Lana is excited the nurse doesn’t know about her Outside view.

She's decided to be stubborn today and refuses the medicine. “Lana, you know you have nightmares if you don’t take your medicine. You know your bad thoughts affect us all poorly. Please, Lana, I don’t want to punish you or report you.” Lana glanced sideways at the nurse; she liked the nurse; it was just that the pills made her sleepy and delayed her ability to make the sketches. It was a once-per-week dose, but it impaired the artist's side of her brain.

She decided it wasn’t worth the punishment and dutifully chewed up the pills. Widely displaying her empty mouth to the nurse, she was rewarded with a sweet ginger ale and some smoky cheese to rid her mouth of the chemical taste. She hugged the nurse kindly and was held close by her for a few seconds. “You are a dear child. I knew your mother, and you’re a lot like her.”

Lana cocked her head to the side and slyly asked, “How am I like her? Why am I kept a prisoner here?”

“You aren’t a prisoner, dear. It is protection. The Outside is dangerous.”

“How will I know if I can never go and see for myself? How do you know?”

That question she had deliberately saved for this moment. It threw the nurse off keel. Lana had suspected the nurse had never been Outside either; now she knew she was right.

When the nurse left, Lana pulled her sketch out. This time she drew the nurse into the top right of the sketch, adding mouse ears and a tail on her to signify fright. The boy was yet to be drawn, so she added him. After a minute of observation, Lana added herself beside the boy, in his room, with a face like hers, but of course, different clothes and hair. Lana was the important one in this sketch, in the forefront, signifying strength and power.

Chapter Six, Monday

Mondays were outing days; Lana was allowed to leave her room and venture to the great balcony. It was an inside balcony and gave her something new to see - the comings and goings of various lower tower residents. She sat in an upholstered chair with her eyes above the heavily carved railing and watched the people hurrying to their tasks below. Today she was startled to see a familiar face. It was THE BOY; he was much larger in person than he seemed in his window. She shoved her fist into her mouth to stop from crying out; by chance, he glanced up and looked directly at her. He closed his eyes quickly, then opened them, to signal he recognized her.

The nurse came. “Come, Lana, time to go back.”

“I just got here!” she grumbled, shrugging the woman’s hand off her shoulder.

“Back to your room, Lana, NOW!”

She broke away, skittling down the stairs like a cat, weaving between furniture. Lana hid in a crevice behind a heavy velvet curtain in front of which sat a carved chair. She was able to stay hidden until the people left, then stealthily made her way around the gallery, looking at objects up close for the first time. Wonderful odors of food drew her to a dining area; peeking in, she spotted THE BOY. Somehow, he sensed she was there and as his head swiveled in her direction, they held each other’s gazes.

Lana felt jerked to her feet; looking up, she saw the nurse and a butler who gave her a glare that dared her to break free. They escorted her back to her room. Expecting no view today, it was no surprise to find the aperture in her wall closed. When alone, she searched under her table and was relieved the sketches were safe.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday all passed, and the aperture didn’t open. Lana had been made to chew her pills in the morning; yes, this was Thursday morning, pill day. She went to sleep in the afternoon and didn’t awaken until late that evening. Taking a piece of her sketch paper, she drew a large mountain with a white peak and snow creeping down its side. She included her mother in this drawing, sitting with her own book, sketching. It was laborious to draw tonight, due to the drugs in her system. Lana slowly sketched lupine and columbine, just as her mother had done in her botanist's book. Lana paused for a drink of water and a peppermint candy; she rested her head on her table while sucking on the peppermint.

Refreshed, she made a new drawing of the mountain erupting, shooting out boulders, smoke, and mud; a second was of people screaming and running from raging muddy rivers. She continued with sketch after sketch of destruction and spread them over the floor of her room. No one came to visit her; her trays of food were shoved through the food slot in the door at regular hours. They asked for her to push back the used trays, but she refused. Lana was in full rebellion this week and continued to pile the food trays in her room; she did new sketches each day, all worse than the previous, showing extreme destruction.

Chapter Seven, Truth

Thursday came again and the aperture opened. Face pressed so forcefully in her eagerness to see, she hurt her nose and strained against the steam on the pane from her body heat. This day the opening became a full window, bowing out so she could look right and left. My little rebellion worked; now they let me see more of the Outside. The aperture slammed shut, a blank wall in her face, startling her. She stomped her feet in frustration and threw the food trays at the door. She heard the lock click; the door opened and there stood THE BOY. He was inches taller than her but had her hair and eye color. He couldn’t take his eyes off the hash marks. “Lana, you marked the days they - ”

“Kept me drugged and imprisoned,” she finished his sentence. “So many days!”

He took her hand and led her through the tower, across a footbridge to his building, and up to his room.

The draperies were closed, and he asked if she wanted to see out. She solemnly nodded yes. He pulled her next to him and they slipped behind the draperies, up against the glass – the floor-to-ceiling glass of the far wall.

What Lana saw matched her sketches. There was a cinder cone mountain; she had never seen the wreckage of the old tower which was visible below some blackened boulders and mud.

“Lana, I’m your brother, Jason.” She stared at him. In front of her stood a young man, not THE BOY. “You experienced the earthquake in the cave when you were recovering, remember?” She nodded at him. “You had drawn a picture of a cinder cone mountain the week before, then went to the caves due to an illness. It wasn’t your fault.”

She looked at him, eyebrows raised. She didn’t remember him at all. “You don’t know me, do you? We are twins. I received the science capabilities of Father; you always drew what your mindsight showed you. Once you drew an ice storm, and it came over the city. You drew a springtime of drought; then a summer and winter of no water, and that also happened. The next year you drew firestorms in the forests and so the trees burned until you sketched a picture of heavy snow blanketing the ground and forests; the fires stopped. Mother and Father became frightened, and the Counselor prescribed sedatives, rest, and isolation. We took you to the caves where you seemed to be all right. Maybe it was the depth of the caves that calmed and protected you.

“I don’t remember any of the sketches or incidents you mention. I do remember the caves and tiny earthquakes.”

“I think the coolness coupled with the darkness calmed you. Your sketches in the caves were always cheerful and bright and so were the days for us above ground. You were not always in the caves; you spent a lot of time with us in the tower. There were good and bad days, and we learned to judge your moods from the sketches you created.

When you fell ill, you had a very high fever and were not able to keep food or liquid down. The physicians put you in an ice bath, but it didn’t help bring down your fever. Our father carried you to the deepest cave and laid you on the smooth stone ledge, using it as a bed for you. Days went by with Mother visiting, burning herbs, and giving you sips of a special healing broth.

The day your fever broke you became agitated. The final earthquake, on that day… was a minor quake in the caves, but it reverberated through The Mountain. Mother was in the upper tower and ...”

“I killed her,” she finished his sentence as he looked down at his sister, grief-stricken for her. She stared out the window at the land of which she knew nothing.

“What do you see now, Lana? Your mind is clear of the sedatives, and you are with your twin. Draw what you see.” Jason waited for an interminable time as his sister stood in silence. Near the door was a desk with markers and paper. Finally, she selected a bright blue one, and forgoing the paper, walked to the eastern wall and drew a sky, adding a bright yellow sun with another marker. She drew a boy and a girl, twins, holding hands. An enormous white-capped mountain with a universe of colored flowers creeping up its hills was added next. Lana moved to the west wall and drew an enormous cinder cone. Deer and rabbits were in the grass at its base, some snakes sunned on rocks and Bald Eagles soared above its scooped-out peak.

“The truth is painted here, Jason. East is our future; West is what we left behind. The Mountain from the West is going to rise again, but very slowly, and wildlife will return, but we use the East as our Guidestar. It was wrong for them to drug me. It didn’t stop what I saw; it just stopped me from drawing it. If our parents had seen it, they might be alive; we can't know. While I was drugged by the Counselor, I couldn’t draw what I saw; only when my mind is clear am I connected to nature. And you.” Smiling at him, she walked to the east wall and gazed at it, reaching for his hand.

“Something is missing.” She moved to the west wall and wrote a number in large black letters. 12000 tallies, 6 years captive.

On the east wall in bright blue script letters, she wrote Lana and Jason, Reunited Twins, Free in the East.