HOPE

(This story is written as a diary entry and touches lightly on multiple heavy topics centered around loss.)

Diary of: HOPE

Date: ???

I've hated my name ever since I was a kid; ever since I was able to understand the irony, how unfortunate my life would be. Life seems like a comic series of unfortunate events, a cycle doomed to repeat until it inevitably ends in death. I can’t say that I feared death; like most people, I hardly thought about it at all, until reality reminded me that nothing’s forever. After I lost my husband, I welcomed death. A couple years later I got my wish and was diagnosed with cancer. I can't say that I was filled with glee by the form my ending would take. I'd always known cancer was a terror no matter what area it attacked. Mine is in the lungs: Stage-two when I found out six years ago, the first bomb dropped on me that year. I fought it at first for my daughter, Emily. She and her husband Ethan had a beautiful daughter of their own they named Faith and Emily said that they needed me. I'll admit, I was afraid to die back then because I knew I'd have to go through the process of dying, of having the cancer eat away at me. 

I was afraid.

I was afraid of letting go and being let go. That’s why when my daughter and her husband Ethan decided to move to California I refused to go with them even though they'd graciously offered. I explained it was on the grounds of wanting to stay in the home I'd grown up in, the home Jennifer's dad died in in New Jersey. Yeah, I played that card. I'm not proud of it. It put my daughter in an impossible situation and I knew it wouldn't work. It didn't. It only caused upset.

Ethan was kind enough to try one last time to convince me to go. He visited while I was in the hospital doing one of my chemo treatments while Emily stayed home to pack. I'll never forget that moment. How many decisions can you look back on and know the weight of that fork in the road? To know for sure what the end of the other road looks like, the one you didn't travel? There are nights I cry myself to sleep and wish I'd died with Emily and Ethan that day. 

I’m a coward. Like I said, I was afraid.

I'm afraid of different things now, like who I've become. If my granddaughter will recognize me anymore. If she'll be willing to listen, or if I'd even know what to say if I found her. It's been six years since I last saw her. Since I set out to find her. I'm sixty-seven years old now. I started keeping this diary to try to explain myself. I was sixty-two when I was diagnosed with cancer. The first bomb.

I wish I'd left with Ethan; faced my cowardice, instead of paying for it.

I didn't though. I refused to go, told Ethan off and said some unkind things that I hope he didn't repeat to my daughter before they died, because hours later that day the second bomb dropped while I was wrapping up my treatment. Alarms blared to life in the hospital. The TV in my room switched over to the news and my phone started buzzing like I was receiving an Amber Alert. The man on the news looked grave as he reported in a hollow voice that ICBMs, otherwise known as Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (funny how I’ll always remember what it stands for) were headed towards multiple states. One of the missiles was confirmed to be hitting  New York City, where my hospital was. The news reporter cut in with multiple reports at the same time, each somehow worse than the last: Attack submarines had been spotted off the coast and were beginning to bombard Wall Street and the surrounding buildings; a bomb had detonated in the White House; Napalm had been deployed over crops in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska; trains carrying vast amounts of cargo containing oil had not only been derailed but used as incendiary bombs to go off near various towns or forests. The cascade of events and news was an overwhelming tinnitus ringing in my ear.

Emily called me in a panic. I could tell she was in the air somewhere, an airplane engine roar droning over her frantic voice as it cut in and out. There was a moment of clarity and I was able to hear her. She said Faith was about to land in California and be picked up by Ethan's sister. Her and Ethan had just taken off from La Guardia. Seconds later a surface-to-air missile hit my daughter’s plane and I watched it burst into a fireball in the distant sky. I couldn't blink, the image seared into my mind without understanding. Gone like that? It didn’t make sense.

Faith–or whoever's reading this–I just hope you know that your parents were trying to get home to you that day.

Moments later the background of the city erupted into a wall of fire. A nuclear bomb had gone off and the tidal wave of destruction was rushing its way towards me. I can't tell you how I survived. I don't think it was a miracle or an act of God, mostly because I hate the fact that I'm still here. At first I thought I had a purpose, you know? Get to my granddaughter, protect her and provide for her however I could. Be the grandmother she needed in her mother's stead.

I don't know anymore. As I stare into the campfire listening to the crackle of flame writing this entry in the low light, I start to lose myself in the memories of what I've done to get here. I've always seen the world in black and white, and I don't mean metaphorically. I was born with monochromacy, a rare genetic disorder where I can literally only see in black and white. My parents said that's why they named me Hope; something about the disorder and my birth where I had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving, and that since I'd survived, they'd been filled with hope that I’d have a wonderful life. 

I think it's cruel. Being color blind turned me into a party trick, something people were curious about for all of a second. I feel like I was robbed of life's riches, forced to exist in a perpetual state of dull and muted shades. My husband Kenneth thought differently, however. He was a professor of history from Germany and had hunted with his father growing up. I abhorred the idea of hurting an animal but my husband convinced me to do some target practice with him on a gun range. He believed my monochromacy was a gift, something that removed life's distractions and allowed me to distinguish fine details like patterns, distant movement, and that I had exceptional vision in low light. Turns out I'm also an excellent shot as a sniper; I've had to prove that too many times since the bombs fell.

As I look around the campfire at my unlikely group, I think back to how I met each of them, how they all believe in me and my crusade. Sandman, Jockey, Bet, Orbit, Sax, and Sax's falcon that he named Hawk. We all tried to get Sax to change Hawk's name, but he had taken up falconry long before the attacks. It doesn't matter. Names kind of lost their meaning after all the pain and suffering we've been through. The identities my companions have taken have helped distance themselves from themselves, allowing them to do some terrible things in the name of survival.

I get it. I’m not without blood on my hands. I was able to excuse it, adopt a me-or-them attitude against whoever would stop me from getting to my granddaughter, but I have had some real long nights on the road and too much time to think, and I just don't know anymore. I've been through what’s left of cities and towns, and when those fell to ruin and people fled outwards, I visited the shelters and shanties that sprung up, and at each stop I showed a picture of Faith and told my story. Some listened; most didn't. As the years went by more and more people began asking the same questions. How do you know she's still alive? How do you know you'll recognize her if you see her? Do you really think she's still in California?

I don't know. I'm constantly second guessing myself, wondering how I came to be responsible for the lives of the people following me out West. They're here because they believe in me, but more they must be fools because six years into this and I know the cancer has spread, that I won't make it. My morning's start with coughing fits that have more and more blood in my spittle. I can't ask anyone else to make this journey for me because the one question that hurts the most is: What would you even do if you found her?

The answer is nothing. What can I do? What can I contribute? I'm an old woman who's somehow survived this long and goddammit that has to be enough. It is enough. If I can find her, it'll prove that she can make it in this world.

It's hard to believe that my neighbor Dale had been right. He predicted the cascade effect that would take place and that we would more or less destroy ourselves from the inside. It happened even quicker than he said it would. When the masses tried to cross the borders into Canada and Mexico the borders were sealed and turned into a demilitarized zone. Major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and the like fell into anarchy the quickest, but it was really only a matter of time before the realizations began to sink in when the supplies ran out. Dale said the global grain supply would only last fifty-six days if production stopped. As a former navy seal and self admitted doomsday prepper, that's about where he would have put the United States if we didn't receive monumental help.

Help never came.

I can't say I blame the rest of the world but it does hurt for the ones left behind. How could they be expected to shelter and feed a few hundred million people? Dale said it's estimated over seven million people died of starvation during World War II. We still don't even know who attacked us. I've heard a little bit of everything in the intervening years but who's to say for sure? All I know is when it first happened it happened fast and a lot of the systems I took for granted like cell phones, the internet, electricity, and running water went out the door almost immediately; the same could be said for most agencies too, like the police, fire department, and local and national government.

In the distance, a bear roars, one of several that has been following us from earlier today. We're somewhere in the forests of Utah, hoping to cut across and through Nevada to make it to the California coast. We'd been able to kill a deer and make jerky from it, but the scent of meat allowed us to be tracked; abandoning the jerky didn't work.

Orbit motions with his hands in quick succession that he hears roars from three directions. There's at least three bears, still off in the distance. The man is a bear himself, large and with Slavic features. Orbit's been with me the longest, all the way back to the first day of the attacks in New York City. His wife and son had died that day and he was at hospital when the nuclear bomb went off. I can't honestly tell you how many times he's saved my life; I’m thankful to have returned the favor a few times. Orbit and I made a great pair early on, although our situation was uniquely difficult. I'm an old woman surviving with cancer and he's mute. He wrote the name “Orbit” when asked his name and it's stuck ever since. We worked on our non-verbal communication early on and have a certain synchronicity. He's the closest thing to a guardian angel, even if he's probably in his fifties.

Bet was the next to join. We ran into her in West Virginia while we were resupplying. She was from a small town with an abusive alcoholic father and drug addicted mother. Orbit and I met while we were at the town hall meeting trying to get some information and had heard that food and water were going to be passed out. Bet was only seventeen at the time but could already see the writing on the walls when she predicted there wouldn't be enough to go around. When the riot broke out, I followed her and was able to escape the scrum before the shooting and looting began. Call it a grandmother's intuition or what you will but I decided to thank her. Bet invited Orbit and I over to her parent's trailer home where we had discovered her mom had overdosed. I couldn't believe it then and I can't believe it now, but she didn't even blink, like she'd already known this exact thing was bound to happen. For Bet, she was able to see the fork in the road before she went down it. That's why she asked to join me and that's why I said yes. She's been invaluable ever since.

Sandman was third, and totally a different story. He's wrapped head to toe in medical gauze like a mummy to cover the substantial burns that are covering a majority of his body. The large black goggles he wears to cover his eyes add to the intimidation factor. When the crops in Illinois were napalmed, Sandman and his girlfriend were driving their car and got caught in the disbursement. Sandman did all that he could to save his girlfriend but she had already melted away. I swear the only thing keeping him going is his anger and whatever antibiotics we come across because there's no doubt he should be dead by now. He doesn't talk much, but I know there was a kind soul there before all this.

Sax and Jockey were last to join and came as a pair, or should I say trio if you count Hawk. The four of us ran into Sax in Louisiana having been pushed south from the radiation fallout from a nuclear device being detonated in Nebraska four years earlier. I'll be honest, the radiation never seemed to bother me as much as my companions. I was used to my hospital treatments and still kept up on taking an oral pill form of chemo from a previous hospital raid our group had to do. Sax had taken in Jockey a couple years back since Jockey was only twelve or so by his count, and Sax apparently liked to joke that Hawk had taken him in. Sax had a dilemma though–they had run out of food. He suggested that since we already had one musician with us, that there might be room for one more.

I don't know who was more surprised between Sax, Orbit, and myself. Sax had recognized Orbitaley Vasilyev for the opera singer he had been and had even seen one of his performances where he sang with his wife. I understood why he had chosen to remain mute. We obviously accepted Sax and Jockey into our group but I did want to know about Hawk. Turns out that Sax was a blues musician who was forced into an early retirement due to his ever worsening arthritis. It didn’t explain why he chose falconry; he just said to leave that one a mystery.

It's been six long years since I first set out to find my granddaughter, Faith. I've felt the cancer wriggle its way through me slowly, but now I can tell that there's more of it than there is me. I've been on the brink of starvation more times than I can count; killed more people than I can remember; faced cannibals; watched cities burn; seen the worst of humanity and even a few of the best. We’ve got bears behind us and God knows in front of us. I hear stories of small settlements, patches of camps across America where they live off the land and they have peace. I’ve heard a rumor of a train that’s been fitted with tank treads on each car so it can cross where roads don't go, acting as a moving city that offers trade. It doesn't sound possible but I've seen some incredible things. The horror stories prove to be true more often than not, though. I'm hoping the most recent rumor of a man named Harper taking over the California coast and turning it into a warzone isn't true.

I took a photo of my granddaughter for my journey but I wish I had a photo of my husband. It's hard to remember what things were like. To actually visualize them. I remember the lines and creases of each of my husband's wrinkles… but I can't remember his face. There's a small part of me that's worried there is a heaven, because if there is, I don’t think I'll be allowed in to see him. I keep telling myself that it's worth it, that it's all for my granddaughter.

I have to find Faith.