Pavement of Sapphire

Deena’s younger sister Prairie was sitting on the faded floral couch in the living room of the ranch house, flipping through channels on the television. A look of boredom and pain was on her beautiful face. Deena knew the girl had fully expected to be on a pod. Prairie was used to getting what she wanted, because she had very little of a conscience. She was one of the many children who grew up hardened and selfish, believing wholeheartedly that there was no God above. Prairie had not always been this way. The family was not wealthy, but they had had more than some. Their father had done well. He had started as a laborer in a shipyard, but had been promoted to an overseer just after Prairie was born. Their mother had worked hard as well. She continued to work part time as a cashier in a fabric store, even after her husband’s money was enough to care for the family. In the past the sisters had been so close that Deena and Prairie would sleep in the same bed on nights when there were rumored searches of all houses for weapons. Deena would hold her sister’s sweaty hand when the officials did come, shooing the family out onto the dry grass as they left the house in pieces. The girls would be terrified of the officials with their joyless eyes and determined looks, but Deena’s mother would assure them that this had to be done. No one could risk another war.

It was three years ago that Prairie began to change, when she was eleven. It was only after the reports had been published to every citizen of the world, warning that the world was damaged beyond repair by the nuclear war. The gases released had almost destroyed the atmosphere, and it was a matter of time before rays from the sun would create an inferno that encompassed the entire planet. No one on Earth forgot that day. Deena had walked to a field where a shopping center used to be before a bomb dropped on it. She sat in the rubble, feeling no pity for humans whatsoever. She was thirteen years old and ready to die. She cried like most did on that day, but her tears were for the Earth. She wept for the deep ground, the home of a million earthworms; for the dandelions that stuck their brave yellow heads up to the sky no matter what, unlike the cowardly humans; for the ocean that wanted nothing but to perform its mesmerizing dance upon the shores. “What have we done to you?” she mumbled through her tears to the dry ground.

After that Prairie became miserable. She started to spend all of her time with a group of girls who were all gorgeous but fatal. They took what they wanted from people that they considered not fit to last until the end. They would take food off of the trays of kids who were given free school lunches, saying that no one should get handouts anymore. The weak should die. There were people like this in every grade at school. Deena had had her lunch stolen several times before, not because it was free, but because no one cared to stick up for her. She had never had many friends. She had hardly talked and when she did, she would usually say something that made sense only in her own mind. So Deena stopped buying lunch.

Everyone had expected that the scientists had known for years about the end of the world. If the West hadn’t known that their efforts were futile, they would never have surrendered, despite the fact that the civilian casualties were astronomical. Because the East had discovered Xintu, they had it thoroughly guarded, and there was talk that the West had only surrendered in order to get a small percentage of their civilians onto the pods. Without this deal all of Western Europe and North America would be obliterated. Deena hated the West, for not surrendering sooner. They had let their people die in order to prove some ancient notion that they were more civilized. Civilization never got anyone to heaven, Deena thought. There might not be anything that could save the wretched creatures of earth, but if there was something, it could never be civilization.

The people were confined to their homes for five hours while the pods took off. After they were gone, Deena knew that for once she shared the same feeling in her chest that most of the world did: emptiness. It was like that experiment they had studied in science class, where the cat was placed in a box with fumes that might or might not be released, and so the cat was considered alive until it was discovered dead. But it was just the opposite with the people left on Earth. Their cries would never be heard, so they were dead already.

It was dusk when everyone was allowed out of their houses, but Deena knew that she had to get out again. She suddenly despised all of humanity and could not stand to be around her parents who naively complied with society’s every wish or her sister who was becoming the very example of how nothing pure can last. After the recorded voice left a message on the telephone thanking the family for complying, Deena slipped on her sweatshirt.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said, peering into her parent’s bedroom where her mother sat folding laundry.

“Why, Deena?” her mother said, exasperated. Her voice broke on the last syllable, and Deena could tell that her mother was fighting sobs. “Why now? It’s going to be pitch dark soon.”

“Please?” Deena whispered.

“You have school tomorrow,” her mother said, staring intently at one of Deena’s father’s polo shirts.

“Oh,” Deena said softly. She had not realized that school would still be mandatory. There would be no purpose for her generation. They had no future to work towards. “Why should it matter anymore, mom?”

Her mother looked at her but seemed to see right through her. “What do you mean, why? It’s school. You have to go.”

Deena did not care to argue about her mother’s delusion, because she if she provoked tears from her mother tonight, she could not coax them back in as she usually could.

“Oh, right, I forgot tomorrow was Wednesday,” Deena said as convincingly as she could. Her mother smiled weakly at her, and Deena could read the gratitude on her face. So Deena took off her shoes and her sweatshirt in the hallway and walked into her small room. She pressed her ear to the door to hear the lock click into place. Maybe it was best to be alone.

But then she thought of Linus. Why? She asked herself. He was the closest thing she had to a best friend, but he would never call her that. She was pretty sure that to him, she was just some annoying girl that he talked to out of courtesy. They had met when Deena had signed up for a community class in Mandarin. His family was from Singapore, and his mother gave lessons to young people. The International Peace Fund, which later became the URC, used to pay Easterners to teach their native language to kids in the western hemisphere. Their goal had been to rid the white people of the idea that the European languages were superior, but after the end of the world was announced, only the ones chosen to be on the pods mattered. Deena had been fourteen when the classes were cancelled, but Linus’ mother had taken a liking to the girl and her determination to understand what she felt should be understood in the world. So she invited Deena to her house for private lessons, and there Deena had met Linus. They had seen each other in school, but rarely spoke. Linus, too, had had his lunch stolen, and far worse as well. He was an awkward, quiet boy with glasses and a round face. Linus was sitting on the couch when Deena arrived, watching an action movie from 2190. It was about a group of young priests fighting demons before life on Earth was ended by the mighty God. The irony of it fascinated Deena.

“I love this movie,” Deena said quietly behind him.

“Yeah, there are better ones, but I thought this was appropriate,” he said, glancing up at her with his deep, dark brown eyes.

“If only the demons could really be killed with crosses,” Deena said. She was prepared for him to look at her like she was crazy, like most people did. Instead, the next day at school Linus invited Deena to sit with his group of friends. There were only two in their lunch period, a boy from Afghanistan named Anwar and a tall, gangly boy with skin as pale as Deena’s whose name was Charles. Misfits, she thought, but they’re the best sort of people. The misfits stuck together, she soon realized, because whoever was targeted by the groups of people like the one her sister was in could be shielded by the others. Those kids were rendered cowardly by their own power.

Deena slipped off her jeans and T-shirt. She stood in front of the mirror for a moment in her undergarments, and then grabbed a pen from off of her dresser. She propped herself up against her pillows and drew her left leg in towards her body. Then she let the pen sink into her flesh. “Alive” she wrote again and again, until her skin was pierced and the ink had left a stain that would stay, at least for now. Slipping under the sheets, she lay motionless until she fell asleep.