Life is precarious, and special, and it should always matter. It should always be protected.
That’s what my reverend said, and it’s what I believe.
But life is mysterious too. We think we understand what it means to be alive because we are, but we don’t really have any idea. Maybe our perception of a life is just someone else’s dream or fantasy, and we only exist as long as that someone maintains the dream.
If I am real, if I am alive, then I want to protect the lives of the people around me. Even if other people think their lives don’t matter.
– Rodney Coffey
December 19, 20XX
Every morning, Rodney played public radio while he made coffee and waited for his family to wake up. He usually woke in his bed on the second floor of his home in Matthews, North Carolina and, after brushing his teeth and showering, he made his way to the room of each of his three children, stuck his head inside and yelled at them to get up, then went down stairs to run on the treadmill for half an hour. When he was done on the treadmill, he usually made a second round to everyone’s room to make sure they were awake and out of bed, and then he made coffee, bacon and eggs with public radio in the background.
On that day, he woke at the normal time and after his second round waking the kids – just two of them, his daughter Lashon left to study in Europe a month before – when the eggs and bacon were done and steaming on a plate, the news in the background reported a mysterious disease out of China. Rodney barely listened, he was trying to get his coffee just right; too much cream, another scoop of sugar.
Then, Deshon came into the kitchen and grabbed most of the bacon.
“Your brother gotta eat too,” Randall said.
“He don’t eat pork, daddy,” Deshon said and sat at the kitchen table.
As the kids got older, Randall lost track of the smaller details. When they were young, it was easier to keep track of the things they liked and the things they avoided, young kids were easy. Sugar good, vegetables bad. But as they grew into adulthood, they grew into individuals and Randall had trouble keeping it all straight. Not that he didn’t care about the people that his children were becoming, he was just getting older and being a single father meant a lot of things to juggle.
Randall smiled as he watched Deshon devour the plate of bacon, and then he screamed for his brother.
“Trayvon! Hurry up before you miss the bus!”
Deshon reminded Randall of his late wife more than any of his children. He had a very commanding presence and he kept things in line like she had.
“I can’t find my shorts! I got a game after school!”
Deshon rolled his eyes and looked at Randall.
“He asked me to wash em last night and they right over there so he would see em when he came down to eat.”
The basketball shorts were on the back of the couch in front of the stairs. Randall hugged Deshon and they both laughed, then Deshon went to pack his bag for the school day.
“Son, come on down,” Randall called up to Trayvon. “Stop wasting time. If you miss the bus, I’m not driving you.”
Trayvon jogged down the stairs and instantly saw the shorts on the couch. He grabbed the shorts as the whistle of the school bus’s breaks sounded from the street in front of the house. Deshon rushed to the front door and Trayvon jogged past Randall.
“Have a good day daddy,” they both called as they ran.
“I love y’all,” Randall said, but they were halfway across the yard as the bus came to a full stop.
Randall closed the door behind them and the sound of the radio filled the house. He went back to the kitchen to clean the dishes.
“…alarming reports out of China. The government has issued a stay at home order, essentially shutting down the entire city of…”
Randall was filling the sink with soapy water to wash the dishes, and when it was half full, he turned off the water.
“…despite the US government’s ban on travel from the country, experts are convinced that this virus will spread beyond China, it has likely already happened. Sufferers of this new illness present with flu-like symptoms that last for 24 hours, before the sufferer seemingly dies according to the traditional meaning of that word. The sufferers have no measurable heart or brain function, but they continue to talk and think as they did before contracting the virus. People are calling this the zombie apocalypse, though the infected do not attack the living. The infected show no cognitive decline, they appear to be the same people, only they do not eat or drink water for sustenance, and they do not require oxygen. There have been many stories on social media about these infected people attacking the living, but there have been no verified accounts of this. Even though the infected are dead, there is no noted change in their personalities, aside from the very understandable trauma that one may experience at learning that they are no longer alive as measured by traditional medical standards.”
“What in Christ name…” Randall said. He had stopped washing dishes and was staring at the radio.
“Officials in the European Union stopped travel between member countries because it is believed that the first documented case of this virus outside of China has occurred in Germany…”
“Oh god,” he said. His daughter was in Hamburg, and he searched frantically for his phone so he could call her.
PRL Serials 