Perception

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Suburbia: where they tear out the trees & then name streets after them.

Anonymous

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Our tent like almost every other in Dicksonville, the little shantytown located inside one of the city’s larger parks, had been utterly destroyed.  We passed what remained of it on our way into the camp stuck high in a tree like one of Charlie Brown’s kites. Apathetic to the destruction, we simply climbed one of the wider trees and fell asleep in the branches.

    The hand shaking my leg grew more insistent, forcing me to wake up yet again. Petra was taking her assignment so seriously that I had moved to a higher branch to get away from her.

    “Amy. Amy, wake up!” she growled, shaking me harder.

    Groaning, I pulled my leg out of her grasp, careful not to overbalance her. “Pete, go away. I am not dead yet, come back in an hour.”

   “No, Ames it’s late. You have to get up.” I felt the air brush against my leg in her effort to grab it again.

     “Go away,” I moaned, still not ready to face the day.

     “Almost everyone has gone salvaging. If we don’t leave soon there won’t be anything decent left. Do you want to be sleeping in this tree for months on end?”

    Obviously not. Listening hard, I understood what she meant; the camp was never this quiet. With almost a hundred and fifty people living in tight quarters, there was always something going on; the silence was almost eerie. As much as I’d have loved to stay in that terribly uncomfortable position, it simply wasn’t safe to sleep out in the open this time of year. Struggling to sit up, another groan escaped as I felt the full extent of my injuries for the first time. The painkillers had unfortunately worn off.

    “How long have they been gone?” I started to stretch but stopped when I felt a pull.

     “The last ones left about forty minutes ago. I thought it was better to let you get a bit more rest, but now it is time to go.”

   Nodding, I made my way slowly to the ground, breathing hard as each jarring step echoed up my bruised frame. Lifting up my shirt, I looked at the swirling mix of blacks, greens and blues; my stomach and chest looked like a child’s finger painting. Pushing down my top in disgust, we headed out into the city.

   The destruction was impressive and widespread. The looters must have come out in force last night, no doubt trying to take advantage of the confusion. A few cars even had their bodies dented from the trample of many feet. The glass walls of bus shelters were smashed in and some of the water had yet to recede. Residents and employees were out in force with mops and brooms cleaning up the mess.

   We skirted the CBD as best we could, trying to avoid detection. We managed to find enough scraps littered around the place to build a decent shelter and two shopping trolleys to help carry it all in. Pushing the trolleys down the cracked footpath, I could see we weren’t the only ones to have returned.

    “Hey, girls, what you got?” Saul, a friendly middle aged man called as he jogged over. Saul used to be a very successful defense lawyer but he had drunk away his career and his family long before the economy ‘turned down’.

    Stepping in front of the cart, I blocked his view. “Enough, we hope. What about you?”  

    “The same… enough.” He tried to look over my shoulder but was stared down.

    “Well alright then, we will be on our way,” Petra said from behind me.

   The camp rules were simple and had to be obeyed:

    1. Keep the camp clean.

    2. Help out where you can.

    3. No fighting.

    4. No stealing.

    5. No discrimination.

    6. No noise after 9 pm.

      But the no stealing only applied to what was already inside your tent. Until then, it was fair game.

    Stopping under last night’s tree, we began to unpack. I found myself having to stop and rest more times then I’d have liked. Lifting the heavy footings for the temporary fencing we salvaged into place had been the hardest step. Wheezing and rolling, we finally got them approximately into place.  While I rested, Petra had to keep running off some of the more ambitious scavengers. After tying down an abandoned tarp, we were able to move our stuff into the cage and lock it down. It was bigger than our last shelter but unless we found some more tarps, there wouldn’t be anything to stop the winter chill.

    “What time is it?” Petra asked as I bent over, trying not to puke out my guts in pain.

    “Captain Granger gave me the next few days off, remember? Arh!” Moving was so not a good idea.

    “I know that but isn’t today the seventeenth?”

    Oh, help. As soon as she said the date I remembered. Struggling, I tried to stand up. “Fredrick’s! Come on. If we hurry I might still make it in time to call.”

    Pushing me back, she cautioned, “You can’t go anywhere like that. Look, you can barely stand. She won’t penalize you if you miss one phone call.”

   “Petra, she's my probation officer. That is exactly what she’d do. Hell, it is basically a job requirement.” Wincing, I finally straightened and staggered towards the entrance to the park and the bank of public pay phones.