Pretend It's Just Another Day

I couldn't tell you when the explosions started. Sometimes I count the sounds of them at night, as if they're fireworks from that bygone age when loud noise wasn't the coming of some threat to our shores. At night, each bomb blast ignites the sky with fire, but so far they are just warning shots—the sign to tell us that the invaders are out there and that they know they can come to us any time as if there's an outstanding invitation.

"Mama?"

Nina's eye blink in the dark, rapid fire, and I rub gentle circles into her head. "Yes, little one?"

"Why don't you ever sleep? Don't you get tired?"

I know what a sight I must look to her—all drawn and pale shadows in the dark. The sky even at night is littered with a red smog, and I can't remember the last time I saw the moon. I might have still been pregnant with Nina when I glimpsed a crescent against the dark blanket of the atmosphere. But then there were the traffickers who corralled us and stranded us on this island for no purpose but to die.

Nina and I—we're the only two left. Charmed, if you look at it one way, or cursed, if you look at it the other way. I think the invaders leave us alone because they know we're paltry prey. No meat, no challenge, no prize.

What I didn't expect was that I would watch the end of the world begin from these quiet shores.

"I sleep," I say, "just not as much as you."

"Will you tell me a story? About your life before?"

I make a humming sound. "What do you want to know?"

"Your favorite things," Nina says. "Those things that made your heart race."

I could tell her of the bad times—the hunger gnawing at my stomach, the way my feet ached from walking from one coast to the other in search of a place that was peaceful, the night I slept with a man who ended up selling me to the traffickers the next morning—but my daughter's head is already filled with nightmares. I don't want to add to the misery. How I've painted the world before—well, she thinks I was happy.

Children should know the light of hope, not the depths of despair.

And so I fill her head with the things I dreamt—the colors of vibrant cities I never visited, the rooms of homes I never lived in, the faces of parents I never knew—just to make her sleep more easily at night.

For all it's worth, Nina may never know anything beyond this island. If I can, I want to make each moment as sweet as I can. Tomorrow isn't a guarantee, but I can make it so she doesn't close her eyelids and imagine the worst before she leaves this plane.

I would have shielded her from death too—but we buried the five other women who came to the island with me. Mira, the crier. Halcyon, the optimist. Nitta, the forager. Sonya, the analyst. Lynn, the doctor.

The only reason Nina and I are still alive is that Nitta taught me how to find food sources and Lynn had delivered Nina when the time came. I'll always remember those women's faces for as long as I live. I try to imagine they're stars somewhere in the sky now.

"Mama?"

Nina's voice draws me from the last memories I have of each of the women. I try to shake myself of the lingering negative energy, but I can only go so far for so long before I fall back into a bad place. Nina says sometimes I don't talk to her for hours, instead just staring blankly at the cave walls where we shelter every night.

"My favorite things," I repeat again, as if I've simply just been pondering the words and trying to come up with the best answers. "Well, you know you're one."

I tap a finger against Nina's nose, and she giggles. "I know that. But before, Mama, before."

"Before, I liked watching the sun rise every morning. I liked the warmth and the feel of it on my skin. I never felt unhappy looking at the sun."

"It didn't hurt?" Nina asks. I know where she's leading: on the few clear days we have, free of smoke or smog, the sun is so strong that it can leave welts and burns on human skin. Sometimes we have to be careful not to start any fires for that reason. Once, a fire almost got out of control and could have destroyed what little foraging ground we had left.

"No, no, not at all," I say. "Some people even sat in the sun to help their skin get darker."

Nina murmurs, "Wow," while I try to remember the last time in the before that it was safe to try and tan. I was probably still a teenager then, back when the system still functioned and I was moved from home to home because no one wanted a child who didn't score high on Aptitudes in the government-run academies.

"What else?" Nina asks.

"Hmm. I liked clothes. There were so many colors and patterns, Nina. You could dress like a rainbow if you wanted, and no one would have cared. But soon enough we had to start wearing standard-issue clothing that was the same in each community."

"I think I would have liked clothes," Nina says, "not these scratchy things we wear."

I've never told Nina where the clothes we wash in the ponds came from. I fear for the terrors she would have from knowing someone died in the clothes I make her wear. It was Halcyon's idea to recycle what little clothing we had, even if it meant stripping the dead.

"You would have liked clothes," I agree, "and in another world you might have designed them someday."

"Another world," Nina whispers, and I can see her eyes starting to drift shut. I've lulled her into a place of imagination and hope. When she finally breathes easy, I kiss her forehead.

I almost don't hear the explosion that resounds in the distance, but my attention is still on Nina. She's so used to the noise that she just mumbles something in her sleep and turns over.

Now that she's asleep, I stand up and walk to the cave opening. Staring out into the red clouds, I see the tell-tale plume of smoke from a fallen bomb. It's closer than it was yesterday. I don't know what that means, but I'm not scared. I just feel a sense of numbness.

Let it come. Let them come, whoever they are. Let's end this once and for all.

But the invaders, as Lynn called them, like to play their games. They're testing us, I'm sure of it, to see what we'll do. They know we can't hide forever.

I shut my eyes and clutch at the heart-shaped locket I wear. It was the one thing I carried with me from home to home, wandering to wandering, and it's a small miracle no trafficker stole it from me.

Someday soon, Nina will inherit it. Someday soon, she will be left alone on this island. Someday soon, it will be she who stands against the threats that still eist in this world.

But not tonight. Not today. Hopefully not tomorrow.

And we'll go on pretending it's just another day. It's the only way we can cope in this mad world hanging by its last thread.

In the distance, another explosion erupts in the ocean. It's even closer than the last.

I close my eyes to block out the sight like it's just a mirage.