Nuclear Nowhere

Six months ago, Chris and I had been sitting in a cafe in the French Quarter, watching the small elevated TV set in the corner for the news while sipping lattes together. He held my hand across the small wrought iron table. He glanced at me occasionally for my reaction. The news was disturbing but neither of us could really remember a time when it wasn’t. It was easy to become anxious about these headlines surrounding the tension building with axis countries over trade disputes and sanctions but we both thought it would resolve. These things usually did resolve. We could not have been more wrong.

Now, I turn my silver locket over in my palm. Using my ragged thumbnail I wedge it open. His face, cut in the shape of a heart to fit inside the small frame, peers back at me. I haven’t seen him since the day it all happened. That was about five months ago. Five. I feel fairly certain this locket was gifted to me on our 5th anniversary. When you lose someone you love you feel confident that you will never forget them. But it doesn’t take long before you find yourself forgetting the facts of your own memories, before you discover you are having to try hard to remember the details of their face. It’s absurd to me how quickly I’ve forgotten the shape of his sparkling green eyes, the strength of his chiseled jaw, his thick, dark ruffled hair. I am thankful for this tangible memory in my hand. I spend a lot of my free time imagining Chris, attempting to recall my memories. But I also wonder what he might be doing now. I can only assume he is dead but the silly romantic girl in me still holds on to the hope that we might find each other again. I make a point to think about him because I can’t stand the thought of his memory slipping away entirely.

I am sitting in a broken chair in the hot sun. I don’t have anywhere I want to be right now so I am observing the others who occupy my camp. This is my only entertainment now. A little brunette girl is washing her hands from the spout of a large Gatorade bucket. Her mother is holding the button for her while she rubs them together frantically. They are being monitored for usage by a middle-aged man who is holding a clipboard. There are conservation efforts in effect due to the drought. Running water doesn’t seem like much of an amenity until you no longer have it. At least it wasn’t one I regularly considered. As I sit here in my filthy cut-off jeans and a grungy used-to-be-white tank top which I hand-washed in a bucket of rainwater about a month ago, I touch the ends of my ratty pony-tail that hangs over my visibly dirty shoulder and I begin to daydream about the last shower I took.

It was the morning that it happened. I was with Christopher in his small dated apartment tub-shower. For nearly ten years, we did everything together, showers were no exception. The water had been at its hottest, the small bathroom was entirely filled with steam. The tiled floor would be slick whenever we finally got out but we weren’t in any hurry. It was just another Saturday morning and he didn’t have to work til noon. I lathered my hair with the luxurious over-priced shampoo and combed the even pricier conditioner through my long blonde hair. He ran a shower pouf over my back and massaged my shoulders. The smell was thick and sweet combined with the humidity. It was a tropical rainforest with hints of artificial mango and papaya. I would have stayed here forever if I could, my eyes closed with the clear water running over my face. The shower was my favorite place, getting clean was always a good feeling. Now, I would settle for a bucket just to wash any part of myself. I wasn’t even going to be able to wash my hands again for several hours.

That morning, after our shower, Chris had left for work on foot. He would grab a trolley to the Garden District where he was overseeing a private event for the “frou-frou people” as he called the overly wealthy people living in the extravagant garden homes. My plans for the day were very few. I was going to walk our Yorkie, Sir Elton, through the Quarter, grab a coffee and come back to the couch, put on sweatpants and watch Netflix until 8 or 9 when Chris would be back. I was a nurse and worked long shifts so I took advantage of my time off.

“Best laid plans” as they say. I was half way through my walk, coffee in hand and the brightest light I had ever seen lit the space at the end of the alley and reached far into the sky. I shielded my eyes with my arm and picked up Elton under my arm to run but I stopped. Where was I going to go? At this distance, I wasn’t in the blast or we would have already been fried. I had seen enough movies to know I was probably going to be in the fall-out though. I needed to make educated decisions. I went into the nearest café, it was one I was familiar with. The staff who were ducked behind the counter did not stand when the door chimed to announce my entrance. I didn’t need them anyway, I just wanted to see the TV. I reached up and grabbed the remote which was cleverly stuck to the bottom by an old piece of Velcro. I planned on looking at the weather to see what direction the wind would carry but the news was on every channel. “Never had we ever witnessed this, a nuclear explosion perpetrated against the United States” the TV personality understandably struggled to say “Not just one, but five” and they proceeded to display a map of the country. So far they had hit New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, DC, and they were waiting for more reports. They didn’t even know about ours yet. With this level of wide-spread destruction, I had the unfortunate understanding that the response would not be focused here. We would not have a communicated plan for evacuation. I needed a plan.

I don’t like to think about that day but I find myself doing it anyway. Retracing my steps, criticizing every decision I made that brought me here, without Chris. After the café, I had returned back to his apartment and swiftly packed my backpack. I kept my own place but for the past several years, most of everything I used was there. I took some iodine from my own first-aid kit and brought the rest for later. I proceeded to walk the trolley’s line. It took me an hour to arrive at the ostentatious home where he should have been, only to find the remnants of an untouched party, completely desecrated as a result of the giant looming cloud I had seen in the distance. The windows were shattered, the balloons withered or popped, the tables of pretentious foods had been knocked over. A previously pristine swimming pool was now full of debris. He had left, possibly to find me. Perhaps we had even crossed paths and missed each other. It was fairly obvious, we were closer to the blast here. Sir Elton, tucked under my arm, looked up at me. He whined. He knew I was upset.

As I stood aching in my apparent loss and considering our next move, a city bus pulled up along-side me. A kind Black woman opened the door by used of the driver handle “Honey, come on, get on, we are gettin’ the hell outta-dodge”. I didn’t know what to do now, could I even walk back? Immersed in my own thoughts, I must have looked at her like she had three heads because she rolled her eyes and threw the bus in park. Evelyn, as I later learned was her name, came off with her heavy set, almost-waddle and genially guided me onto the bus. She was trying to clear the area of all remaining people. She had volunteered to make trips to move the people on her normal route to safety. The bus was not full, however, I remember there only being about 15 people. “This is my second trip, the first one was to the train station but we leavin all the way with this load. Ain’t no one else ‘round now”. I tried to ask her about her last pick-up, hoping maybe she had seen Chris but she assured me she hadn’t seen anyone by his description and then she hushed me, like a mother placating an unreasonable child, and my protest ceased.

There was a mother with running mascara and a small child tucked under her arm. A little boy, about four, with a small stuffed giraffe. His giraffe yielding arm led to a tiny thumb placed squarely in his mouth. I focused on this little boy and his creature, and realized he had done the same with Sir Elton. The thoughts were too many and too difficult and I allowed myself to be lost to my gaze. When Evelyn finally woke me from my trance, we were in the heart of Alabama, far from every reported blast.

But the blasts were everywhere. Camp officials, who were comprised of the most capable of volunteers, told us the six cities, including ours, had just been the beginning. The world had been all but annihilated in the matter of a few minutes. There were marks on the table map that signified each of the reported blasts. There were dozens of them showing each place the earth had received a glowing murderous assault. I assumed there would be more than we knew about. The news had ceased when we lost power and the generator, fuel. It really was the worst case scenario. Russia, China, US, Israel, and some European countries had all been targeted in some form of retaliation. Northern Africa, Australia and Antarctica had made it out mostly unscathed. But the tragic effect of all this nuclear material would extend far beyond the blast radius and that the inconceivable miles of fall-out would eventually destroy every aspect of the environment, likely resulting in extinction of all earth’s species. It didn’t matter now, who was initially at fault - who had started it. The point was, we were all going to be finished by it. My world, which I understood to be temporary, had shrunk to the size of a few dusty acres inside of a quarantine camp fence.

Living in this barren campground, outside of Birmingham, I had already witnessed an enormous amount of death. As one of the only nurses in this camp, I had volunteered to help administer anything we could get our hands on to help the poisoned people pass peacefully. The sense of doom and grief that hung over us was heavy. I knew from the start that it would just be a matter of time, we had all been too heavily exposed. That is why I also knew it was silly of me to think about Chris.

I glance down at the silver jewelry in my palm, warm from the heat of my skin. His charming smile. I remember the sound of his laugh. I will fight to keep these. I clasp the fine jewelry behind my neck. I need to get back to work soon, there’s a medical tent full of people, in pain, waiting for me, I will help them while I can.