Something to Cry About
BY SOFI PAPAMARKO
Fantastic Four, Marvelmania Poster (Marvel, 1970).
This is a survival guide for you and your family. It contains information on what to do before, during and after a nuclear attack. Read it with care as it could greatly increase your chances of survival.
There are one hundred and thirty-two thousand, four hundred and eighty-eight tiles on this floor. I know because I counted them. I tapped each one with the tip of my precision compass to ensure absolute accuracy. And then I counted them all over again, just to make sure. It took me three tries. I lost count twice because Dad started ragging on me to stop. I honestly didn’t mind starting over, though. We have a lot of time to count things down here. There isn’t much else to do.
So something happened. Something bad. Dad says there was an explosion. But not just any explosion. It was a nuclear explosion. (Mahkizmo didn’t even have anything to do with it, though.) It was caused by people who live far away. Very bad people across the sea shooting missiles at us. The explosion happened just after 3AM somewhere in New York State. We don’t live in New York State, but Dad says it’s not too far away from us. Not too far away from us at all.
The thing about nuclear explosions is that they’re poisonous. Like, there’s this poison that gets released—kind of like a poisonous gas but not— and the poison can travel really far. It can travel fast, too. Faster than I can run. Probably not faster than The Flash, though. Nothing and no one’s faster than The Flash. Not even cheetahs. Not even light. Poison released after a nuclear explosion is called fallout. Dad says our basement shelter will protect us from the fallout. Dad says he won’t ever let anything bad happen to his family. Dad says he has everything under control.
Last Saturday, Dad woke us up in the middle of the night.
“Get dressed,” he said. I thought I was in trouble. He put his hand on my forehead like Mom does whenever I have a fever.
“Mmnnphfwhaa?”
“This is not a drill,” he said. “It’s time.”
I said, “Time for what?” But he was already gone, knocking on Ginny’s door.
“Take only what you need,” I heard him tell her. “Pack only what is absolutely essential.”
I was already dressed. I like to sleep in my clothes sometimes. I slid out of bed and filled my backpack with as many comic books as I could grab. I used a flashlight because the power was out. I took a whole pile of Fantastic Fours, plus a couple of Richie Rich and Archie digests for Ginny, in case she forgot to bring hers. I also brought along a calculus textbook I got from the library, my geometry set, some mechanical pencils and the miniature abacus grandma got me for Christmas. Oh, and some clean socks and underwear.
“Always wear clean underwear,” Dad says. When I asked Mom what Dad meant by that, she said that we should always wear clean underwear in case we have to go to the hospital. This always confused me. Would the doctors not help me if my underwear was dirty?
“Jim, what’s going on?” Mom’s voice was shaky and my legs were shaky, like we were both standing in the middle of an earthquake. I’ve never been in an earthquake, but I’ve read about them. Mom says she felt one once when she was in California, before she met Dad, but it was only a 3.9 on the Richter scale, which isn’t such a big deal.
“Put these on,” said Dad, handing each of us a mask I’d only ever seen on TV. They made us look like insects. No, wait, they made us look like robots! They made us look like H.E.R.B.I.E. in the Fantastic Four.
“Manipulators extend!” I said in my very best robot voice.
“Be quiet, Marcus. Breathe normally, everyone. Got it?”
We breathed normally.
“Follow me,” said Dad. “Quickly, now. Don’t dawdle!”
We followed him. Quickly. We didn’t dawdle.
“Manipulators extend,” I said, but nobody heard.
***
Plan today for what you would have to do in order to survive a nuclear attack. The plans you make could also ensure survival of you and your family in the event of a local natural emergency. There is a checklist at the end of this pamphlet to help you plan logically.
Down here in Subterranea, I have counted fifty-six cans of creamed corn, forty cans of corned beef, twenty-seven each of kidney beans, whole new potatoes, string beans, butter beans, baked beans, canned peaches, tomato soup and seventy-two tins of sardines packed in oil. There are sixteen tins of juice: six apple, six grapefruit, one orange and four tomato. There are twelve boxes of cereal—six are Cheerios, four are Shreddies and two are Shredded Wheat. I hate Shredded Wheat. It tastes like cardboard. No, I’ve never actually eaten cardboard but I’ve eaten Shredded Wheat, so I know what I’m talking about. There are also eleven boxes of instant rice, thirteen bottles of red wine, twelve tins of—
“Marcus, that’s enough,” says Dad.
“But I’m taking inventory of our food!”
“What don’t you do something else?” says Dad.
There are two hundred and twenty five emergency candles—in forty-five packages of five. Four gas masks. Three 100-litre water storage tanks. I have previously counted and noted sixty-four rolls of single-ply toilet paper, a box of one hundred blue nitrile (surgical) gloves, two first-aid kits, five flashlights, one box of flares, five boxes of strike-anywhere matches, six blankets, ten rolls of duct tape, four packages of moist towelettes, three fire extinguishers, two cans of kerosene, one bungee cord—
“And a partridge in a pear tree,” says Ginny. She flicks a pink snap barrette at my head.
“Marcus,” says Dad, a little louder than last time.
“What?”
“I already told you, son. Do something else.”
“But I am!” I say. “I’m taking inventory of the non-food items.”
“Holy smokes, Marcus!” says Ginny. “Can’t you shut up for even like five minutes?”
“I am simply counting,” I breathe. There are miniature nuclear explosions in my brain. Fallout everywhere. I feel poisoned. I feel poisonous.
“Ginny, don’t tell your brother to shut up,” says Mom from the cot in the corner. “Leave Marcus alone, Jim. He finds numbers smooooothing.” Mom is wearing her old pink bathrobe and drinking out of a mug that says Thank God It’s Friday. Her mouth is the colour of Welch’s grape juice.
“Jesus Christ, Donna,” says Dad. “It’s not even noon yet.”
“It’s noon somewherrrrrrre,” sings Mom. “Over the rainbow!”
“I can too shut up for five minutes,” I say. I start counting to three hundred in my head. That’s sixty seconds times five, which is five minutes. Eight. Nine. Ten.
“What in the hell does it matter what time it is anymore?” Mom’s voice is loud and she sounds like she’s about to cry. “What in the hell does anything matter?” Mom stands and drops the mug she’s holding, maybe by accident but also maybe not. It shatters and I smell the sour smell of definitely not grape juice. I’ll have to count the pieces later, before Mom cleans it up, which she will. Maybe she’ll do that tomorrow. She will clean it up when she is feeling less upset, because nobody else will. It’s a mother’s job to clean things. Everyone knows that.
Thirty-nine. Forty. Almost one whole minute of me shutting up.
Dad has grabbed Mom by the shoulders and is shaking her. Mom is really crying now.
I love my little mommy. She used to sing me lullabies and is such a nice singer. She used to act in musicals, did you know that? She always played the biggest and best roles because she is so pretty and such a nice singer. Maria in “West Side Story.” Kim in “Bye Bye Birdie.” Julie in “Carousel.” She showed me all of the playbills once. She acted in them before I was born. Mom is really so beautiful. Even when there are bruises on her face. Even when she cries.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Hold it together. Be a man.
Forty-seven. Forty-eight.
***
Whether you choose to evacuate or take shelter locally, you should have a roadmap with you. You can then relate the information about areas under fallout, which you would hear about on the radio, to your actual location. Toys, games, books for your children would help to occupy their time. Your battery-powered radio will keep you in contact with the outside world.
Ginny’s iron has just landed on my hotel on Baltic Avenue.
“Four hundred and fifty buckaroonies,” I tell her. “Pay up, miss.”
“I’m shaking in my boots,” says Ginny. “Whatever, Marcus. It’s only stupid Baltic Avenue anyway. It’s the most welfare property ever.”
“Pay up, please,” I say.
Ginny makes a farting noise with her mouth and counts out a rainbow of Monopoly money.
“There!” she says. “Happy?”
I nod and twirl the ends of my pretend millionaire’s moustache.
Ginny makes another farting noise and flips over the Monopoly board.
“Hey!” I feel every drop of blood in my face drain into my belly.
“Gross, there was a centipede on it,” Ginny says. “Guess we have to start all over again.”
“But I was winning!” I start to cry.
“Oh grow up, you big baby! I don’t play games with babies.” Ginny walks away and opens up an Archie comic book.
Mom and Dad aren’t yelling at us because they aren’t paying attention to us. They’re talking in low voices. I can hear them in bits and pieces, between sniffles.
“My mother,” says Mom. “No way she could have . . . it’s gone now. Everything.”
“Not all bad.”
“How could you say that?”
“I guess your good friend Richard is gone, too,” Dad’s voice is louder now, and shaky. Dad never shakes. Dad never wavers, quavers. “Won’t be bumping into him at the grocery store anytime soon, will you? Going over for a morning coffee to chat and all that.”
There is quiet for a while.
“I told you. Was already over. Already done.”
“Like I’m supposed to believe that,” Dad says. “Once a lying bitch, always a lying bitch.”
Mom goes to the washroom and slams the door shut. I hear the lock click, even though Dad tells us we’re not supposed to lock the door in case of an emergency.
Dad wanders over to the corner of the room where he keeps the transistor radio. He moves the dials back and forth dramatically while looking at us. He does this every single day, like an anthem or a prayer. I never hear anything coming out of it. Not even static.
***
Persons who become emotionally disturbed following a disaster should be treated calmly but firmly. They should be kept in small groups, preferably with people they know. They should be encouraged to talk out their problem. If they are not otherwise injured, they should be given something to do. It may be necessary to enlist the aid of another calm person to help restrain the over-excited person. If a stunned or dazed reaction persists for over six to eight hours this should be reported to a doctor or nurse immediately when one becomes available.
Ginny cried and screamed a lot for the first forty-eight hours or so in Subterranea. She was worried about Grandma and her best friend Carol. Were they dead? Was everyone dead? What if everybody we knew was dead or dying? How could we not go find them and help them? Would she still get to go to high school in September? What if all of the teachers had already dropped dead from radiation poisoning? Would she never get to be in a high school musical?
I cupped my hands against my ears to try to block out all the noise. I tried to focus on the sounds of the ocean in my hands but she would not stop crying and she would not stop screaming. She even tried to open the door to the main part of the house, but Dad wrestled her to the ground.
“You do not endanger your life like that,” Dad screamed into her ear and she yelped. “Do you hear me? Do you understand? You do not endanger our lives like that!”
Then Ginny quieted down and Dad got all quiet and gentle, while still pinning her arms and legs. “Baby, we are safe here. This is a safe, private fortress just for us. For you, your brother, your mother and me. No bad guys are getting in and nobody is getting out. Do you hear me? Do you understand? Tell me you understand.”
That’s when Ginny exploded into bloody murder screaming, which was not very fun, believe me. Murder bloody murder bloody murder screaming. I never want to hear that sound coming out of my sister or anybody else ever again. Dad put his hand over her mouth but that only made things worse. She gnashed and bit and howled like a trapped animal.
Then I heard someone else start crying. A little kid. I didn’t realize it was me until I put my hands to my face and felt the tears.
“Keep that up,” Dad glared at me. “And I’ll give you something to cry about.”
Ginny kept crying and screaming. That’s when Dad slapped Ginny’s face. Hard. Ginny went all quiet and Mom started to sob. I shut my eyes and tried to think of something to count.
Okay but don’t worry—I found something. It was the seconds between Mom’s sobs. I counted longer and longer between each time, just like with the pauses between lightning and thunder during a storm as it passes us over and the thunder sounds get farther apart from the lightning and you can finally, finally fall asleep.
***
It is important to provide your family and yourself with shelter. But what kind of shelter? This is a decision you must make yourself after studying the problem. Study your shelter requirements in the same way that you would accident or fire insurance. Decide upon the degree of protection you want for yourself and your family. Shelter is your insurance against something you hope will not happen, but if it does, it will give you protection.
Here’s what it looks like in our real-life Subterranea: a cold tile floor. There are one hundred and thirty-two thousand four hundred and eighty-eight tiles, as I’ve said. They are white and in the shape of hexagons. If you stare at the floor too long, it starts to shimmer and move and make you feel kind of dizzy. The floor is cold, even though it’s summertime. We have to wear our shoes at all times because otherwise our feet get cold and dirty and there’s no hot water because the hot water tank isn’t working.
There are three cots: mine, Ginny’s and a bigger cot that Mom and Dad share, which is in the corner of the basement. Dad’s made sort of a separate room for their cot by hanging a yellow blanket on our indoor clothesline in front of it, like a curtain.
They leave the curtain open, mostly. Dad is already dressed in the mornings. Mom doesn’t usually change out of her robe. Last night, though, they closed the curtain after lights out. I could hear them talking a bit. Whispering. Mom said something like, Are you kidding? What about the kids. She was saying no. No no no no no. Jim, the children, are you kidding me? Dad kept shushing her and saying, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Then they made noises like grunting and the bedsprings made noises like when I jump on the bed.
So maybe you think I’m a stupid baby who doesn’t know anything but I’m not. Even though Ginny says that I am a stupid baby like every single day. I’ve read a lot of books and comics, you know. I’ve seen a lot of movies and even more TV shows. I know about the things that happen in the nighttime between moms and dads. I’m really glad it only happens at nighttime. I was glad Ginny was asleep so she didn’t have to listen to it. I could hear her snoring. Or maybe she was fake snoring.
I am going to tell you about the rest of the basement now.
There is a laundry sink and a washing machine and dryer, but we’re not able to use anything that needs electricity. The power has been out since evacuation. I flick the light on and off few times every day, just to make sure. Dad gets pretty mad at me about that.
There are six sconces built in but we’re only allowed to burn candles in four of them at a time. We can use a kerosene lamp if we want to play board games or cards or read, but that’s only allowed for two hours out of the day.
There are no windows.
The walls are gray and rough. If I ask for permission first, I can light matches on them. Poured concrete, says Dad.
“Nothing’s getting through these walls.”
There is a small washroom in the left-hand corner. Inside, there is a flashlight and a neatly printed sign that reads, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” We keep the door closed all the time now, because of the smell.
***
Cooking in any confined shelter poses problems of fire hazards and potential poisoning by carbon monoxide gas. The choice of a suitable cooker means balancing risk against necessity. Small quantities of liquid may be heated in the shelter space using, for example, a candle-heated coffee warmer of the type often used at the dining table. This will do well for baby foods. More serious cooking requires some form of cooker, and the kerosene wick-type cooker is probably the safest, followed by primus Coleman-type stoves and butane cookers.
“Who’s ready for breakfast?” says Dad in a singsong voice, sounding happier and more cheerful than I’ve heard him sound in a long time. He is stirring a pot of Boston baked beans on the kerosene stove with a wooden spoon.
Ginny groans. “Not baked beans for breakfast again.”
“It’s important to start the day off with protein,” says Dad. “Would you prefer sardines for breakfast?” Ginny makes dramatic gagging noises.
It’s my turn to wash the dishes and cutlery in the laundry sink. I hum quietly to myself until Ginny tells me to stop being so annoying. The liquid dish soap is a dark, chemical green. It makes me think of Dr. Doom’s cloak. What would my superpower be? Could I defeat Dr. Doom?
“What would happen if we went outside right now?” I ask.
“You don’t want to know,” says Dad.
“Your skin would turn black and fall off and cockroaches and earwigs would eat your eyes and your dumb face,” says Ginny.
“Ginny, that’s disgusting!” says Mom.
“Okay but! What if, instead of dying, we got superpowers?” I say. “Like Reed Richards!”
“Who in the hell is Reed Richards?” says Dad.
“Reed Richards is the alter-ego of Mr. Fantastic,” I say. “That was his identity before his spaceship got hit by cosmic radiation and he became a superhero.”
“Marcus is like obsessed with the Fantastic Four,” says Ginny. “Do you ever listen to a word he says?”
“Who’s up for Canasta?” says Mom.
That’s when Dad’s watch alarm goes off.
“Canasta will have to wait,” says Dad. “Time for morning calisthenics.”
Ginny moans and groans and makes a big show out of not wanting to do them. I pretend I like them. It’s one of the only times Dad isn’t on my case or yelling at me, really. I just smile and smile and do all of the motions. Most of the time, I barely even sweat.
So Dad wakes us all up at 6 a.m. by clanging a pot with a wooden spoon. He’s already been up for hours he says, and tells us to move our lazy bones. It’s so hard for me to wake up in the mornings, but Dad doesn’t need an alarm clock or anything. When I ask him why his body automatically gets him up so early, he tells me he’s been doing that since he was in the military.
“If we don’t exercise every day, our muscles will turn to mush,” says Dad. “That includes our brains, which is why we’re going to do some crossword puzzles later as our scheduled group activity. Your brain is the most important muscle in your body. When your brain goes, you’re just meat.”
“Brains are actually organs,” I say.
“What was that, Marcus?”
“Nothing.”
We gently stretch first, then we run some laps around the basement until we’re out of breath. After that, we do some sit-ups and push-ups and like a million jumping jacks. After that, we walk around the basement, shaking out our hands and arms and legs and feet. We end the session with more gentle stretching.
“And we’re done!” Dad always says at the end of our workouts. We all clap.
That evening after crossword puzzle time, Ginny suggests we make shadow puppets. We hang a sheet up on the indoor drying line and use the big flashlight. Even Mom joins in and we retell the story The Princess and the Pea.
I have to pee in the middle of the night and the big flashlight dies as soon as I turn it on. So I fumble around for the radio on the shelf near Mom and Dad, and I am thinking it is broken anyway, so why would we need to keep batteries in the radio if the radio isn’t even working?
I feel around and find the radio. Then I feel around and find the battery pack at the back. And then it clicks open and my fingers scoop around in the empty space. No batteries here.
I don’t want to miss the toilet or stub my toe in the dark, so I pee into the laundry sink instead. I worry Dad will wake up and hear me, but everyone stays fast asleep.
***
Radiation illness develops slowly. It cannot be spread to other people. Except for temporary nausea shortly after exposure, evidence of serious effects from radiation may only appear after a few days to three weeks. A combination of loss of hair, loss of appetite, increasing paleness, weakness, diarrhea, sore throat, bleeding gums and easy bruising indicate that the individual requires medical attention. Other symptoms such as nausea and vomiting may be caused by fright, worry, food poisoning, pregnancy and other common conditions and should not be taken as positive proof of radiation sickness.
There is no birthday cake down here in Subterranea. Instead, I get a gelatinous cylinder of cranberry sauce with an emergency candle stuck in the middle.
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear Marcus!
Happy birthday to you!
I make a wish and blow out the candle.
“What did you wish for, baby?” asks Mom.
“I wished for everything to go back to the way it was before,” I say.
“Are you retarded?” says Ginny. “You’re not supposed to say your wish out loud! That way, it’ll never come true.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
Mom starts to cry.
“Listen, I got you a present,” says Ginny, a little more softly. “It’s a birthday balloon. Everyone should get to have balloons on their birthday.” She hands me a blue surgical glove blown up and tied off at the wrist.
Last year, I had real balloons. Last year, I had real presents.
It was sunny and it was summer and we threw a barbecue and there was me and Ginny and Mom and Dad, plus my friends Craigger and Jake from school and their moms and dads. Ginny was allowed to bring her best friend Carol. And a bunch of our neighbours were there, too. Including the Williams family who were Black and who had just moved across the street. When they showed up, Dad slapped his forehead and said really loudly that he’d forgotten to pick up the fried chicken and watermelon. A few people laughed, although I don’t know why. Mr. Williams didn’t laugh. But I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who smiles or laughs too much, anyway.
Us kids got to drink all the orange pop and cream soda we wanted—my two most favourite drinks! The adults got to drink a special fruit punch my Mom made. The colour of the punch matched the colour of Mom’s blouse, which had a kind of tie-up thing in the middle above her belly button. It looked really nice with her dark blue shorts that had little white anchors on them. Mom told us the punch was only for the grown-ups. I said I was the birthday boy and I should be able to eat and drink and do whatever I wanted, but she said that I would hate the taste.
“It’s like Brussels sprouts,” she said. “Kids don’t like the same tastes grown-ups do.” I thought she meant the fruit punch tasted like Brussels sprouts. I stuck with my cream soda.
Mom lost her balance a little and spilled some punch on Mr. Williams while she was refilling everyone’s glasses after we ate. Dad got mad and called Mom a useless klutz in front of everyone. He also called her another word that also sounded like klutz, but I didn’t know what it meant.
“Relax, Jim,” said Mr. Williams. “It was only an accident.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Mom. “I’ll get you cleaned up,” and he followed her inside.
I went inside after them because I had to go pee but then I got distracted and started playing with my new The Thing action figure in my room. When I came out, I saw Mr. Williams in the laundry room without a shirt on. Mom must have spilled some punch on her red blouse, too, because Mr. Williams was helping her to untie it. I told them I was having a good birthday so far and when they were finished doing laundry, was it time for cake?
***
For wounds, you must 1) stop bleeding (haemorrhage) and 2) keep out germs (infection). Cover the wound with a clean dressing to keep out dirt and germs. Bandage it on firmly to stop the bleeding. If a wound is bleeding profusely, hold it firmly with your hand until you can secure an emergency dressing. Any thick pad of clean, soft, compressible material large enough to cover the wound will make a good dressing. Clean handkerchiefs, towels, sanitary pads, tissue handkerchiefs or sheets all make good emergency dressing.
On the bottom of Ginny’s big toe, there’s a blood blister that looks like a drop of squid ink behind her skin. It’s sick. She let me touch it as long as I don’t push on it too hard.
“It’s from doing all of his stupid calisthenics,” Ginny whispers into my ear so Dad can’t hear. Her shoes are pink with glitter but also see-through. They’re called jellies. The jellies rub on Ginny’s feet and make them hurt.
“We’re a family,” Dad yells this. “Nobody whispers in a family. There are no secrets between flesh and blood.”
“It’s just my toe,” says Ginny. “It hurts, okay?”
“Which toe?”
She shows him.
“Your mother will get that all bandaged up,” says Dad. “Why are you wearing those horrible plastic nets on your feet, anyway?”
“They’re my summer shoes, so they’re what I’m wearing,” Ginny says. “If you want, I can just quickly run upstairs and grab my sneakers.”
“Very funny,” says Dad. “It won’t hurt you to sit with the discomfort for a while. Discomfort builds character.”
“Fine,” pouts Ginny. “Can I go to the washroom?”
“You’ve already gone twice today.” Dad says. “Hold it in for a while.”
Dad lectures us every day on the importance of minimizing our trips to the washroom. We have to conserve the toilet tissue we have, because it’s not like Mom can just run to the corner store to get us some more.
“Well, I have to go again. Okay?”
“Just let her go, Jim,” says Mom.
“Number one or number two?” he asks.
“Number two.”
Dad carefully measures out four squares of toilet paper and hands them to Ginny. If she had said number one, she’d have only been given two squares. I know she’s been saying number two when it’s just a number one so she can get more toilet paper. We are already learning the tricks of Subterranea.
Ginny has been in the washroom for a long time. Girls usually take longer than boys, but I’m starting to wonder what the heck she’s doing in there. I wish I’d been counting. I bet she’d been in the crapper for at least a thousand seconds.
“Ginny!” says Dad. “Hop to it!”
“Ginny, honey?” says Mom. “Everything okay in there?”
“Mom?” Ginny cries out.
Mom runs over and opens the door to the washroom.
“What is it, hon?” says Mom.
“Close the door!” Ginny yells. “Close it! Close the door!”
The door shuts quickly behind them. I can hear them whispering.
“No whispering!” shouts Dad. “Enough whispering!”
“The madness of the mole man!” I announce. It’s from Fantastic Four.
“Marcus, be quiet,” says Dad.
Mom opens the bathroom door. “Marcus, honey,” she says. “Be a doll and grab us the first-aid kit, please?”
“Why?” asks Dad. “Is she hurt? What in the hell is going on in there?”
“Nothing much,” says Mom. “She’s fine. Just needs a little clean-up.”
I’m looking through our supplies to try to find the first-aid kid but things have been moved around. I find the package of emergency candles they used for my birthday cranberry sauce.
“This says ‘Keep Out of Reach of Children,’” I say, holding them up to Dad. “I’m a child. These shouldn’t be down so low.”
“Don’t be a smart aleck,” says Dad.
“My name is Marcus,” I say. “Not Alec.”
“Goddamnit, get out of my sight before I smack you, you annoying little faggot!”
I retreat to a corner to count the floor tiles again and just go into my brain go into my brain go into my brain. Mom asks for the first-aid kit again through the door and I hear her voice like a dream but I don’t respond. I think Dad goes. He knocks and Mom takes the kit. I hear a tiny bit of what they say, even though it’s mostly quiet. Even though it’s mainly whispers.
“Just a minor scrape. It’s nothing.”
“You know I know it’s something.”
“Well, we just used a little gauze, that’s all.”
“What was the gauze for?”
“Jim,” says Mom. “For god’s sakes, you didn’t think to stockpile any sanitary napkins?”
What happened next happened really fast. Or it happened in slow motion. It’s hard to tell. I can’t really describe it, but when I think about it now, it feels like a movie. It happened when I had counted only fifty-nine tiles.
Dad screaming. Ginny and Mom crying. Dad calling Ginny words that I’d never even heard before. Ginny calling Dad words that I’d only ever heard on the playground. The next thing I knew, Dad’s giant hands were wrapped around Ginny’s skinny chicken neck and he was screaming and Mom was screaming and I was screaming but Ginny couldn’t scream because she couldn’t breathe and then I couldn’t breathe but my heart was pounding so fast, so fast and I was thinking about Mr. Fantastic and wishing he could come and rescue us but then I remembered how he couldn’t because he lived in comic books. I had to be Mr. Fantastic. I had no choice.
“Annihilus!” I scream. “The living death that walks! It’s clobberin’ time!”
And so I attack Annihilus. I throw myself at his monstrous form and stab him in the back of the knee with my precision compass. All the way deep. The monster howls and falls to the ground, hitting his head on the hard, white tiles below. There is a sound like clattering metal. A silver key at the feet of the beast. I make a dive for it. Instinct.
“Let’s go!” Ginny says in a strange gargly voice, gesturing towards the door.
“But the fallout!”
“It’s better than being here. It’s better than this.”
Ginny takes the key from me and unlocks the door from the inside, slamming it behind us. I can still hear Mom weeping, Annihilus roaring.
Feet pounding the ground, blood singing in our brains, we dash through the house, open the front door and burst into the screaming bright daylight.
***
“Here,” says Mom, opening a can of orange pop and plunging a white straw into the dark opening. “Have a sip, okay? You haven’t had anything to eat or drink this whole trip.”
I’m staring out the smudged window at the lake. It’s the biggest of the Great Lakes. It even has a big name. Lake Superior looks more like an ocean to me than a lake—the waves are huge and grey and seem to lap up all around us. The train gently rocks back and forth and I am terrified that if I get up and move around, shifting my weight from one side of the car to the other, we’ll all fall into the dark, churning water.
“Not thirsty,” I tell her. She makes a frustrated clicking sound and lowers the blue plastic tray in front of me. She puts my pop in the rounded hole moulded into the tray so it doesn’t spill.
“Grandma hasn’t seen you since Christmas. She’ll be so surprised at how much taller you’ve grown.” I keep staring out the window, my nose against the glass. Ginny has been asleep across the aisle from us for the whole trip. I can hear her snoring. If I tell her when she wakes up that she was snoring, she’ll get mad. “I don’t snore, idiot!” she’ll say, and sock me in the ribs.
“How long are we going to be staying with Grandma?” I ask. “A week or—?”
“We’ve been over this,” Mom says quietly.
“Well, I’m just triple-checking—okay?”
In my backpack, I’ve stuffed in as many comic books as I could. Spiderman, Batman, He-Man, Richie Rich and a couple of Archie digests—for Ginny, in case she forgot. I also packed a university math textbook, my protractor set, the miniature abacus grandma got me for Christmas last year and some granola bars. Mom said there would be food on the train that we could buy, but you never know. You always have to be prepared. In case of an emergency, you know. Like a fire. Or nuclear fallout. Or forcible confinement. That last one was what I heard the policeman say when he was filing the report.
Mr. Williams was watering the front lawn when he saw Ginny and me making a break for it. Within a minute of explaining, he brought us into the house and dialled 911.
“Richard Williams, 38 Chokecherry Lane,” he said and then told us kids everything was going to be okay from here on in. Everything was going to be fine.
I look over at my Mom on the train. Her shoulders are heaving along, even though the bumpiest part of the ride is past us now. Her cheeks are wet. I hold her hand. With the other hand, I take a sip of orange pop. It’s cold and sweet and the fizz tickles my nose and make me hiccup.
It’s raining outside and the waves on the lake are huge and greyer than the sky. They look dangerous. There was a tsunami last fall, in France. I saw the pictures on the news. Some people died. But no, these waves are not the bad kind. These waves are the okay kind. The go-away-without-hurting-anyone kind. They do look pretty big but I think that’s just the wind. These waves, they’re supposed to be here. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to be doing—washing away everything old and sick and broken and bringing fresh clean newness along with it.
“Something to Cry About” is published in Radium Girl (Wolsak & Wynn, 2021).
Nuclear fallout tips taken from 11 Steps to Survival (Ministery of Supply and Services Canada, 1980).
SOFI PAPAMARKO is a former regular columnist for the Toronto Star, Sun Media Newspapers, and Metro Canada. She’s also written for the Globe & Mail, Chatelaine, Flare, CBC, Reader’s Digest, Salon, Exclaim!, and many other publications, both living and dead. Her short stories have appeared in Taddle Creek, Maisonneuve, Room and the Toronto Star. She lives in Toronto with her partner and their children.