In Days of Hope and Ash

The sky was always light, from the bottom of a hole. Horace climbed out his. The horizon glowed to the west, behind the factory. A black, ashy snow fell. He rubbed his bruised elbows. His had been a tight fit. All around, boys emerged from other holes. A few carried weighted satchels.

He drew an old black notebook from his own weather-worn satchel. Books had no value outside the wall. He’d found it quite by accident. His skin tingled against the warm cover, and he felt a momentary rush of hope.

“A good day, Horace?” Colin asked, in his small voice. Thomas, George, and Frank were coming up.

“ ‘Suppose. You?”

“Gettin’ rich today,” he said, patting the bulge in his pocket. Colin was too young for a satchel. “Yessir, rich!”

“What’cha got, Colin?” pressed George.

“Treasure, I tell you. Treasure.” Colin said everything twice.

“Let’s see already,” urged Thomas.

Colin produced a small metal object—a band of conjoined links interrupted by a round protrusion. Glass covered a series of numbers. He handed it to Thomas with care. Thomas wasn’t the oldest, but he knew the most.

“It’s a chronometer.”

“I knew it!” Colin exclaimed, slapping his leg.

“What’s a crony mutterer?” asked George.

“My mamma,” said Frank. “She’s the worst kind of mutterer there is.”

The boys chuckled. Frank had the best lines.

“Chronometer,” Thomas repeated. “It told time.”

“To who?”

“To yourself, ‘suppose. Kept one part of the day separate from another.”

The boys looked around, confused. Outside the wall, days had no parts. You worked and slept, though occasionally boys broke out in tag or fight. There was today and tomorrow. Three days in the hole and the fourth to pawn what was found.

“Daddy says life’s part misery and part drink,” Frank interjected, staggering, and falling to the ground. He lay motionless, then burst out laughing.

“You won’t get rich, but you might score a pair of gloves,” Thomas explained.

Colin smiled. Gloves were something. Most had less than that.

“What else?” Frank ribbed. In response, the boys brought bits of mud-caked manufacturing from their satchels. Thomas inspected, interpreted, and explained. Occasionally, he shrugged. The boys listened intently to the mystic words that connected them to an ancient world.

“What’s this?” Thomas exclaimed, picking up the notebook.

“It’s mine,” Horace confessed.

“Blow off!” Frank mocked.

“It felt warm.”’

Thomas held it in one hand then wrapped it with both. “It is warm,” he agreed.

The other boys reached in to touch with palm or fingertip, a knot of arms and hands pressed to the shoulders in a dying part of a dying world.

“What book gets warm?” Colin asked.

“Someone give a scrap of light,” Thomas urged. The sun had gone down. George lit his torch.

“It’s not English or Man-darin. Strange writing inside too, only someone’s penned out: ‘To wealth wealthy go. Life for living. Death to the dead. Naraka diyu.’ And here, ‘Name and claim the rights at peril.’”

Thomas flipped through the book. “Names. Maybe chaincode. Values—currency. That E shape is the mark of old Europa. I don’t know the rest.”

“Death to the dead,” George whispered. “What’s that mean?”

Thomas shrugged. A hush fell as they stood shoulder to shoulder with the notebook between them. The torch flickered, then faded out. The dark was quiet. The air was close.

“Aagggghhhh!” Frank wailed, violently grabbing Thomas. Thomas let out a short cry, dropping the book. Horace jumped. The other boys screamed. Frank fell on the ground, laughing.

“You lot!” Frank sputtered. “Narakie diarrhea—put my name down if it means wealth.” He grabbed the book, flipped to a blank page, and made his mark with the tip of a muddy stick. He drew exaggerated E shapes after it and cried, “A half Lirathium to me and mine!”

“Lirathium doesn’t come in halves,” Thomas corrected, but Frank just shoved him playfully and started off. The other boys followed. Horace picked up the book and fell in at the back. At the clearing, Colin and George turned right.

“Riches to us, tomorrow!” Colin crowed, and they were gone. One by one, they turned down muddy trails each called “mine.” Only Thomas and Horace remained.

“Not like you to have nothing but a book,” Thomas noted. Horace appreciated that Thomas never spoiled another boy out in front of others.

“The hole was too small.”

Horace watched Thomas look away toward the drab horizon, sniff, wipe his nose. They both knew holes didn’t change in size.

“Tomorrow,” Horace said, turning off into the space of emptiness that was his.

______________________________

Darkness spilled out of the house to swallow him, but the cold got there first. His mother was a shadow in the corner. The door slammed and she started up with a cry, then slumped back.

Horace found a partial carton of bone broth. Poured out two scant portions. Fell into the chair at the table. Sipped his.

“Tomorrow’s fourth day. We’ll get something to eat.”

“Bread’s fleeting pleasure,” his mamma replied. “Only the good book gives life.”

“I’ll take fleeting over none.” His cup was empty before his hunger was filled. “Don’t you ever wish for more?”

“There’s something sacred in contentment,” she replied.

“You always say the maker is good, but it seems his good hasn’t reached beyond the wall.”

“Maker gives, maker takes,” she answered. “’sides, wealth’s got a way of bringing sorrow.”

“Seems we got that already,” he said bitterly.

“The rich ain’t happy, Horatio. Just pacified.” She always called him Horatio.

“Frank says that’s what poor folk tell themselves to sleep.” He moved into the shadow and pressed the second cup into one of her hands. Her other hand clasped the tattered remains of a bible to her chest. He put his hand over hers and the bible. Her bones protruded from beneath her skin. She was frail. A dark thought sunk into the core of his chest. She was dying.

“I found a book, mamma. Feel it. Maybe it’s good.” He forced the notebook into her empty hand.

“Ow!” She gasped and jerked away, dropping the notebook. “It burns. Ow. No. That’s not right. Something dark there, Horatio. Take it away. We got our book.” She closed in a ball around the bible.

Horace picked up the notebook, set her cup of broth on the floor beside the chair, and went to the bed. He thought of his mamma’s cold hand, and the colder bible. Chilled, he wrapped himself around the warm, black notebook, and slept.

______________________________

“Horace! Horace!” He saw Colin running pell-mell.

“What’s this?” he waved. Colin stumbled over the piles of dirt in abandon.

“Frank’s done it. Got his half Lirathium.”

“Get off!” he exclaimed, watching Thomas and George make their way over. “Thomas said Lirathium don’t come in halves.”

“Sure as day,” said Colin, as Thomas came up from another direction. “Said it was enough for his daddy to furlough.”

“Frank’s daddy mined a share of old crypto,” Thomas explained. “Equal to half Lirathium, or $20,000 at conversion.”

“Twenty-thousand!” Horace exclaimed.

Thomas expounded, “It won’t get you in the wall, but it will fill you up for a dozen cycles.”

“Half a Lirathium,” George repeated.

“Half,” echoed Thomas.

“That’s what Frank said when he signed the book,” Colin recounted. “Half to me and mine.”

“Show us the book again,” George urged.

Horace brought it out. They all stared wordlessly.

“To wealth wealthy go,” Horace recalled aloud.

“It’s the book’s doing,” George said, giving voice to all their thoughts.

“Let’s all sign,” said Colin, wide-eyed, taking up a muddy stick.

“What about death to the dead, and peril?” Thomas asked.

All the boys looked at Horace. Frank made jokes of death. George knew the best holes. Thomas had information, but it always fell to Horace to decide their course.

“We could wait,” he suggested, hesitantly. His words lacked conviction.

“For what?” George asked. For what indeed?

“One could sign,” Thomas suggested, but the other boys tensed. That they rarely fought didn’t mean they couldn’t.

“No,” Horace corrected. “Nobody signs. Or everybody does.”

“Life to the living. Life to the living,” Colin said, repeating the phrase.

“But what of Naraka diyu?” Thomas reminded them.

Horace thought hard. This was the kind of moment Frank knew how to break and hold at the same time, falling down or flailing, quoting his daddy, and cursing the factory. But he wasn’t Frank.

“All or none,” he repeated soberly.

“All or none,” chanted the boys, taking up muddy sticks.

Horace felt the sacredness of the moment. Thomas wrote for them, as each boy in turn whispered his heart’s desire then made his mark. Thomas went last. Horace and the other boys watched Thomas close his eyes, mouth his claim, then write it and sign his name proper, because he could. Nobody asked what another wanted. A holy silence bound them up together, alone in the field. Mamma once said the deepest prayers were between a boy and his maker. Said God gave folks, Priests she called them, to help hold the most important. Thomas was their priest. Here, in the empty world, only Thomas knew their hopes: Thomas and the notebook.

Horace returned the notebook to his satchel.

“Tomorrow,” he nodded.

“Tomorrow,” they all replied.

______________________________

Mamma was in her chair. Her pale skin, stretched thin across her gaunt face, glowed in the ambient light of day’s end. Her bony hands clung to the bible. He held out a bit of protein he got for trade. Third day had only turned up the bible, but first and second days turned up a few items of value.

“Mamma. Eat something,” he urged. She roused, took a bite, then took another. Slowly, he fed her the whole piece and part of another. It was more than she had eaten since the last new cluster.

“Water,” she said, hoarsely. He filled her cup. She drank it all, then drank another. A soft warm color spilled into her face. Her hand felt warmer.

“Mamma?”

She sighed and looked around as if waking from a long, deep sleep. “I’m okay, Horatio. I…feel good. I…want to lay down. To sleep.”

He helped her to the bed. On the way, she set the bible on the table. He lay down beside her, and she put one arm around him tenderly. He touched the black notebook under his pillow.

Was this really all there was to do—scratch a mark, make a wish, throw mud in a notebook? Was good always there to claim? He fell asleep.

He woke sometime in the night to his mamma’s soft voice: “Even through the valley of death…

“… though evil…

“…no fear.”

______________________________

The sky was light from the bottom of Horace’s hole. He climbed out. His empty satchel hung at his side. It was first day.

“Horace! Horace!” Colin called, running. George was there. And Thomas. “It’s Frank.”

“Frank?”

Colin gasped, swallowing breath, “Fire…house…lost….”

“Lost?”

“Naraka diyu.” Thomas said it, but they were all thinking it.

Horace dropped his satchel and sprinted over the mounds of upturned dirt and mud. The ground was snow and ash. The others called out, but he didn’t look back.

______________________________

The house stood empty.

“Mamma!” he called. “Mamma?”

On the table were two empty cups and the bible.

Outside, he found footprints in the gray ash and followed them. He knew the cliff where the prints ended, where the mud welcomed his body as he collapsed to his knees.

When he could cry no more, he dropped the warm, black notebook over the edge.

______________________________

At sunrise, the boys huddled together while George assigned holes.

“Horace—you good?” Colin asked him as he came up. Horace dropped his satchel in the empty space between them.

“For Colin,” he said.

“Horace?” the boys called after him, but he didn’t answer. He walked alone down the worn tracks of mud, past holes too small.