The
priest is huddled in the tall grass, beyond the tarmac. Waiting.
Watching grasshoppers flick from stem to stem, in dissatisfaction.
After
time, he notices a hum building in the air and crouches lower in the
grass. Above him, a plane is bearing elegantly down to the runway. As
it sweeps in, he can read the blue AEROLINEAS ARGENTINAS lettering
across the side, and the roaring high-bypass turbofan engines press
him to the ground, hands clapped over his ears.
The
jet drags to a manageable pace by the end of the runway, where it
turns westward. It taxis past the gutted carcasses of other
aircraft. Their scattered remains. The quarantine canceled all
outbound flights; fuel will be siphoned out soon after they land, and
the wings and tail gradually torn away for scrap. Not this one –not if
he can get to it in time.
The
jumbo jet comes to a halt on the open concrete, about a hundred yards
from the terminal. The priest checks his watch, and crawls in the
grass to the edge of the runway. There, he settles down to wait
again. The sun is high overhead, and far away to the south he can see
gray smudges on the horizon. From here, barely visible. From the
plane, as it circled before landing, the billowing plumes of smoke
blotted the landscape like pinpricks, hemorrhaging the murky blood of
America.
The
priest checks his watch again, twenty minutes later. Gunshots,
ringing from the plane, have begun to taper off like a bag of popcorn
at the end of the microwave cycle. He stands, and checks the horizon,
then moves fast and low across the broad hot expanse of tarmac toward
a parked movable staircase.
-
Fourteen
hours later, the jet tears across the sky with a roar that echoes
away and dies on the vast African savanna below. The priest is
sitting alone in the cockpit, idly attending to the dials and gauges.
A smaller plane would be more efficient, but he prefers the 747 for
simplicity. It more or less flies itself, holding steady on a high
subsonic cruise velocity without much need for active piloting. When they
designed the jet, they thought it would soon be rendered obsolete by
the looming specter of supersonic air liners. They planned it for a
smooth transition into future service as a shipping freighter. The
entire nose cone actually folds down, for easy front loading, and the
cockpit is in a bubble on top, a safe distance from the cargo hold
below.
The
Ebola outbreak awakened a morbid nationalism in Americans living
abroad. Images of decay and death, broadcast around the world,
inspired a dormant sense of kinship, rooted somewhere in the
accumulated genetic memory of the American people. An urge to return
home to die among their brethren. In this case, a group of
expatriates living in Argentina had pooled together, hired a pilot,
and commandeered a jet home.
It
became a uniquely American endeavor, walking the tightrope of
cognitive dissonance in arranging the logistics of mass suicide. They
prepared fastidiously: settled any remaining financial obligations,
placed their affairs in order, packed food and drink for the journey.
Most importantly, their inalienable right, endowed by their creator –
a firearm, primed and loaded, for every man, woman, and child. No
other supplies; no intention of even disembarking. Enough to absorb
the view of the dying country from above, steeling themselves for the
final return to their native soil.
When
the priest climbed aboard, the plane was a tomb. Upstairs, he
unstrapped the pilot from his seat and pulled some papers from inside
the flight jacket. Then he dragged the body out of the cockpit and
shoved it down the staircase.
Now,
approaching his destination, he eases the jet towards the dusty
plains below, reddening as the sun dips below the horizon.
-
The
plane wheels, and begins the approach for landing, ignoring the radio
advances of Khartoum International Airport ground control all the way
in. It touches down jarringly. By the time it comes to a stop the end
of the runway and the entrance hatch swings open, a small band of
Africans in fatigues are standing below. They keep their weapons
trained on the priest as he drops a rope, and lowers himself to the
ground. The nearest African steps forward.
“Point
of origin?”
“Argentina,”
he says. “Cordoba.”
“Not
US?”
He
produces a green and gold embossed passport and flashes it across.
The
African nods. “And inside?”
“No
people. Electronics.”
“What
cargo?”
“Electronics.
iPods.”
Eyes
narrowed. “Real? From US?”
He
nods.
“Could
be infected.”
He
shakes his head.
“Could
be.”
He
says nothing.
“Can't
let in.”
“Destroy
it,” he says. “I don't care. Burn them.” He turns and walks
away. The guards watch him for a few paces, then lose interest and
turn towards the jumbo jet.
The
priest wanders until he reaches a road. It is poured black across a
wide tract of pale dirt, stained with receding puddles from a late
afternoon rainstorm. Now the light is fading. He is passed by few
cars, which rush past in shimmering air. The road is lined by
concrete apartment blocks, packed tightly along the sides of the
road. The dwellings shoulder closer and closer, until the way is too
narrow for a car to pass and the black road fades into a uniform
dusty brown. By the time he enters the city, night has fallen. Food
vendors line the roadside and crowds swarm between them, softly
illuminated by bare light bulbs swaying overhead like fireflies.
Set
back from the roadside, a painted sign reads ENGLISH WINE & BEER
SHOP. He drags a rusted metal stool up to the counter, sits down,
asks for a beer. The shopkeeper gestures at the stacked crates of
bottles behind him. The priest frowns, looking back down the road,
towards the airport. Vaguely, the dancing light of a bonfire glimmering in the distance.
He
looks back to the shop. “Got anything American?” he asks.
The
shopkeeper looks, and points to a faded case of Corona on the dirt
floor. The priest sighs. There's another customer, sitting a few
seats down the counter, who looks like a fellow compatriot. Thickset
guy, wearing a rough gray shirt and blue jeans, and steel-toed work
boots. He should have a cowboy hat to complete the look, but he's
black, and a hint of irony may emerge. The cowboy finds irony unbearable.
“I'd
go with bourbon,” he advises, indicating the bottle and
tumbler set out before him, and the priest nods. The shopkeeper retrieves a bottle, drops broken chunks of ice into a glass and
splashes some whiskey on them. The priest slips a large bill across
the counter, and the man leaves the bottle.
-
“How
long since you left home?” the priest asks.
“Less
than a year,” says the cowboy. “Feels like longer.”
“Any
family?”
“Not
out here.”
“I
don't suppose you're still in contact with them.”
“No. Power died in their area a few months back.”
The
priest lets his gaze droop and stares at the ground, rubbing his
earlobe between thumb and fingers. “I'm sorry to hear that.”
The
cowboy shrugs, and takes a sip of bourbon.
“They
seemed all right, last I spoke to them,” he says. “Told me
Funkadelic was getting back together. Farewell tour.”
The
priest leans his head back and breathes deeply. Overhead there is no
sky, just the reaches of space, crossed by a starry lattice. “I
think,” he says, “that George Clinton has passed away. The
southeast was hit badly some weeks back, and Mississippi in
particular.”
The
cowboy swears, “Christ!” with surprising violence. Then he
shudders, and breathes. “Should have expected it, I guess.” He
reaches forward and drains his glass. Signals for another. “What
about Sly Stone?” he asks. “Is he dead too?”
“I
believe so.”
“Prince?”
“Yes.”
“Michael
Jackson?”
“Yes,”
the priest says. “But that was earlier. Not Ebola.”
“Oh,
that's right.” The cowboy offers a faint, faraway grin that lingers
as he drinks deeply and swallows hard.
The
moment passes. Now the cowboy is all business. “Who are you looking
for out here?”
“What
makes you think I'm looking for anyone?”
“Everyone
comes out here looking for someone. You know, Osama bin Laden used to
hide in Khartoum at one point.”
“The
Sudanese authorities are an optimistic lot.”
“Yeah.
It's an Islamic state, right. But,” he says, looking up, “they
have a cynical take on Islamic morality.”
The
priest studies the cowboy, like a poker player reassessing the
strength of the hand he's dealt. “From what I hear, there are still
some pretty interesting characters hiding out.”
The
cowboy waits.
“I'm
looking for a kid with the immunity.”
The
cowboy looks long and searchingly. “Why?”
“He's
here?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The
construction projects near the Nile Delta. North of here.”
“And
you've met him?”
“Yes.
He knows about the virus.” The cowboy eases forward on the bar,
rubbing his shaved head. The priest leans in, to listen. “There
were breakouts before, you know.”
“That's
right,” says the priest. “But they never spread very far, because
Ebola was so deadly. It killed everyone faster than they could spread
it.”
“He
told me that it burns too brightly. Devours its own fuel.”
“This
time it's different,” says the priest. “People always died within
a couple of weeks after the symptoms first appeared. Now, sometimes,
we can last much longer. Three months. Three hellish months, to
infect everyone we can breathe on. So what changed?”
The
cowboy doesn't know. “Mutation?”
“No.
Ebola stayed the same. We became stronger.”
“Humans?”
“Americans,
specifically. Our emphasis on medical technology. Advanced to the
point that no matter what, our bodies can fight, and that's our
mistake. If we went down easily, we'd be spared. By fighting, we doom
ourselves to the truly evil virulencies of nature. Do you follow?”
The
cowboy nods, slowly.
“Ebola
was always there. It was always waiting. So long as men respected
their place in the world, it posed no danger to us. Only at the
vicarious heights of our society were we susceptible. We flew too
close to the gleaming peak of immortality.”
The cowboy's eyes are wide. Then he blinks, and takes a sip of bourbon. “Sure, old man,” he says. “Whatever you say.” Each turns back to the bar, lost in thought.
-
The
silence is broken when a skinny, floppy old man walks up. He looks
Arab, but he sits at the bar between them and points fearlessly at a
pile of cans on the floor. The shopkeeper snaps one open and clunks
it down, and the old man takes a long, lithe pull. When he looks up,
the shopkeeper is waiting expectantly. Delicately, he
begins rummaging through the folds of his robe. After a time, he
withdraws a wad of wet paper, from which he peels two notes, and
places them on the bar.
“Will
you take Euros?” he asks. “They are covered in vegetable oil.”
The
shopkeeper looks down at the soaked bills. They glisten on the
polished counter. He shakes his head with distaste, and the old man
thrusts the bills back into his robe.
“Racist,”
he hisses. He turns to the black cowboy. “So much for the first
black president, huh?”
The
cowboy sips his whiskey.
“Yeah,
so much for post-racism.” He is rummaging around for more money,
and he pauses, and exhorts the cowboy again. “Does it bother you,”
he asks, grinning with maniac innocence, “if I refer to myself as
colored?”
The
priest takes a gulp from his drink and swallows a small chunk of ice.
It slides frostily down his throat and he closes his eyes and
shivers. He imagines the cowboy gripping a whiskey bottle by the neck
and whirling it out in a tight arc. At the point of impact, the
bottle shatters and the old man's neck snaps back and he slowly
careens off the stool in a languid parabola, glittering amber
whiskey and shattered fragments of glass spraying away.
The
old man is still talking. “What do you mean, fifty dollars on my
tab? At what interest rate? I don't have fifty dollars.” He takes
another long swig of beer. “Where's my bailout?” The
old man brays, head tossed back uproariously.
“That's
enough,” says the priest. “Show some respect.”
The
old man plows on. “For who? The bailout? The guys that ran the bailouts?”
“That's
right.”
“Like
who? Ben Bernanke. Is he dead?”
“He's
dead.”
The
cowboy interjects. “What about Barack Obama?”
A
pause. Both looking at the priest, but the priest says nothing. His
eyes are closed and he refuses to speak. The old man begins to laugh
again. The harsh nasal tones ring in the priest's ears and he opens
his eyes and leans across the bar, grabs a nice solid bottle and
clocks the old man right under the nose. The shameless laughter cuts
off sharply. There's a small chink as the glass impacts his front
teeth, blasting them out of the bloody upper gum, and his nose
crumples back. The bottle doesn't break, it just smacks in with a wet
thunk. By the time the old man topples, the priest is up and walking
away. To the north, towards the Nile Delta.
-
Khartoum
is bordered to the north and west by two major tributaries, feeding
the Nile River. The White Nile, which flows up from deep within the
jungles of Uganda to the south, is traditionally thought to be tinged
with some essence of the dark, mysterious soul of the African
continent. The Blue Nile, which twists around from its sacred source
at Lake Tana in Ethiopia, is purported by certain scholars of the Old
Testament to be the actual Gahon, a river named in Genesis as one of
the four ancient waters emerging from the Garden of Eden. It is at
Khartoum that the two merge into the mighty Nile, vital current of
civilization and fertility through the northern deserts.
Post-colonially speaking, the delta at Khartoum is the confluence of
African mythos: the primal, savage birthplace of humanity.
The
priest slows his pace, drawing near to the river bank. Shrouded, the
skeleton of an unfinished skyscraper towers above him in the dark,
and beyond it the moonlight dances over the chaotic surfaces of
water. His eyes travel briskly up the skyscraper, mentally numbering
the stories, until he settles at the faint blue glow, spilling out
from the seventeenth floor. He approaches cautiously, anticipating
security around the construction site. But there is no personnel, nor
equipment in sight. The skyscraper has been abandoned in its
partially completed state. The priest stalks around the tower, guided
by an entrenched instinct for reconnaissance. Halfway around, a
rickety metal staircase runs up a scaffolding. He ducks under a chain
draped across the stairs and begins climbing.
Seventeen
stories up. He's not cut out for this sort of thing. By the time he
stumbles out onto the occupied floor, he's gasping for air.
In
the center of the floor is the source of the electric blue glow. Four
plate glass walls enclose a small chamber. Inside, computer monitors
shine, casting their faint aura on the floor. The priest moves forward, and inadvertently snaps a sheet of plywood, and it coughs up sawdust. He holds his breath. Through the dust, he sees
the chair swivel around inside the glass room. The entire level is
empty. Nowhere to hide. A silhouetted figure is fumbling around in the
desk drawer. Then, he pushes open a panel of glass and steps
out. Now, he is bathed in the bluish light, and the priest can see
that his features are smooth and youthful.
“Who
are you?” asks the kid.
“I'm
Priest Macallan.”
“A
priest?”
“No,”
says the priest. “That's just my first name.”
-
“What
is this place?”
“An
abandoned construction project,” the kid says.
“Abandoned
for what?”
The
kid rolls his eyes, but actually he doesn't mind talking. “If you
really want to know,” he launches in, “it goes back to Darfur.
The genocide. You know what I'm talking about? Those celebrities used
to campaign for it. George Clooney and Elie Wiesel. Bono. Are any of
those guys still around?”
“Bono,
probably,” says the priest. “Isn't he Irish?”
“Oh
yeah. He's probably fine.” The kid drags up a stack of cinder
blocks and leans on them, tentatively. Trying to look suave.
“Anyway,” he says, “look. Darfur was a perfect storm, as far as
charitable causes are concerned. Really terrible, and Sudanese
government wasn't doing a damn thing to stop it.”
The
priest shifts his weight, but he doesn't move his feet, and the boy
seems not to notice.
“And
the Janjaweed,” the kid continues, “were roaming around on
camels, raping everything in sight. Gruesome stuff. The whole thing
was begging the UN to get involved, whatever that means.”
“Send
peacekeepers,” says the priest.
“Yeah,
that. The other thing is, Africa is a big draw for charity types,
you know? It's useful to have up your sleeve. You're at a dinner
party, right, and you want to talk some shit about, say, the Iraq
War. You say, what about Darfur? Morally upstanding Americans should
want the US government involved in something like Darfur. Better than
some over-hyped weapons of mass destruction bullshit that's really
all about oil, anyway. So everyone got caught up in it, and the money
came pouring in.”
“It
helped?”
“Not
really. Sometimes. A lot of it just went into the massive refugee
camps. That's no good. No real authority. I mean, it's just not a
permanent solution. And a bunch of Nigerians turn up and start
selling guns and drugs. It gets pretty ugly.”
“You've
been there?”
“Briefly.
Only, look. Sometimes the money helped. When they put it into
infrastructural things. That's what this building was. A lot of money
was coming into Sudan for the genocide, and they'd send most of it
south, but some stayed in Khartoum. At the same time, Dubai was going
bankrupt. I don't know if you remember that. Some big developer
bailed on a project over there, and started some major construction
here. If the oil money is running out, might as well go for blood
money.”
“But
that ran out too,” says the priest.
“Pretty
quickly. Something else happened. A coup in Thailand, I think. Thai
kids are cuter than African kids. And Dylan even wrote a protest song
about it, as some kind of throwback. Hey, is Bob Dylan still alive?”
“No.”
“Jesus.
But Bono is. Ain't that a bitch. Like Lennon and McCartney, it's
always the wrong ones that die.”
“But
the sickness will take us all, in the end.”
“Not
all,” the kid says, smiling cherubically.
-
“You
live up here?” the priest asks.
“Yes.”
“And
your family?”
The
kid shrugs. “I get along without them.”
“Ah.
Adolescent angst.”
“It's
not like that,” says the boy. “It just isn't a phase, it turns
out. I'm genuinely too cool to hang with my parents.”
“I
see,” says the priest, barely amused. “How long have you been
here?”
“Eight
months.”
The
priest frowns. “The quarantine was in effect by then. How did you
go?”
“They
just let me,” smiles the boy. “Everyone seems to have a pretty
good protective instinct around me. It's something in the genetic
memory, I think.”
“Genetic
memory?”
“Like,
subconscious memories passed from generation to generation. Living in
society, people build up instinctive guidelines for how to behave.
The way we venerate rock stars, for example. We've learned to protect
them, because they're so valuable to society. They're the talented
few that provide something beautiful. I think it's all stored in our
glial cells, actually.”
“Music?”
“No,
I mean, that's where we store genetic memory. Glial cells are these
brain cells that aren't actually connective neurons. They're partly
structural, to hold the neurons in place. You know how sometimes
people used to say we only use ten percent of our brain? That's why,
because by mass, most of the brain is glial cells.”
“Okay,”
says the priest.
“So,”
he says, “I mean, that statistic is bullshit. Glial cells are
functionally important, probably. I think it's where we store our
genetic memory.
“Think
about whales,” he suggests. “Right? Their brains are almost
human-sized, even though they're nowhere near as smart. They've got a
ton of glial cells. That's why they're so, like, ancient. Timeless.
Because they've got all this aggregated genetic memory of the whole
species, going back millennia, probably.”
“You
think we're smarter than whales?” asks the priest.
The
kid's eyes bug out, and he splutters.
“Fine,”
says the priest. “So you think you're some kind of rock star.”
Now the
kid grins, despite himself. “I didn't say that.”
“You're
not a rock star,” says the priest. “You're an aberration. A
mistake.”
The
grin fades. “That's a little harsh.”
“It's
the truth. No one is meant to escape. America is dead.”
“Whoa,
man. You've got it all wrong,” says the kid. “I'm the next step
in human evolution. Sorry if that's hard to swallow. The fact is,
you're outdated. You're last year's model.”
Now
the priest is forceful. “Where did the sickness came from? Did it
just come about by random chance? No. It's always been here, and now
it has destroyed America. That's not random chance. Civilizations are
not just wiped out at random. It is part of Divine Order.”
The
kid steps back. He is frightened. “What about the dinosaurs? They
were wiped out.”
“And
none survived. His Will leaves no exceptions. Particularly not for
arrogant children.” The priest takes a step. “You've put a lot of
stock into genetic memory. But I feel no protective instinct. I am
driven only by Divine right. What protection have you?”
The
kid raises an arm, and in his hand is a revolver. “Look, man, I'm
not stupid–”
The
priest charges forward with astonishing ferocity. Too close, coming
too quickly for the kid to aim or fire. He can only stumble back as
the priest cannonballs in, low and fast. The kid loses his step, his
arms swinging wildly forward to counter the momentum and regain
balance, but he is falling, and his eyes are filled with terror. The
point of impact crushes the air from his lungs. But the butt of his
revolver, still swinging around, connects. A glancing strike to the
back of the priest's neck, and the broad shoulders are no longer
driving him back. His ears are suddenly filled with the sickening
crack, and the priest goes limp under him. The kid looks down in
surprise, and they collapse onto the concrete floor.
-
When
the priest opens his eyes, he is flooded with light and the shocking
intensity of sensory awareness knocks him back out of consciousness.
-
Later,
he begins again, more carefully. The sunlight still, is bright and
unrelenting. He is sprawled face-down on the dusty floor. He forces
his leaden body over, and tries to sit up. A hot wind carries wisps
of sand through the air, and he narrows his eyes and shields his face
from the whirling grit and dirt. The kid is gone. The priest is alone
on the seventeenth floor of the abandoned, skeletal skyscraper. It is
the first time he has felt the breeze through Khartoum.
At
the center of the floor is the small glassed-in room, sealed and
sheltered from the sand. The priest begins crawling to it, stabs of
pain shooting down his spine. His long, coarse hair is matted across
his face and forehead, sweaty, dirty. When he reaches the room, he
presses against the glass until a panel gives way and he slips
through. The air inside is still and hot, but clean. He pulls himself
into the soft leather chair, wincing as he straightens his back. On
the desk, the computer is humming. The priest touches the keyboard
and the monitors blink awake.
“The
Book of Genesis,” they read, “tells of a great flood. At a time
when the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
He said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of
the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the
sky; for I am grieved that I have made them.'
"And He selected Noah,
whom He knew to be a righteous man, to build an ark to carry Noah and
his family safely through the flood. He instructed Noah to take
aboard the birds and animals of earth – seven pairs of the birds
and clean animals, and two of the unclean animals. But what about the
animals that live in water?
“We
did not go aboard the ark with Noah. We remained on land as the
fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven
were opened, and the rain was upon the earth. And as the waters rose,
we walked to shore and swam with the ebb tide until we came upon
whales, who carried the ancient wisdom of the world. We spake, and
the whales understood. We asked that they bear us, and riding out
upon them, we traveled the land, now flooded with water. Even the
highest mountains were covered, fifteen cubits deep. In this manner,
we rode across the world during the Great Flood.”
-
Wind
is whipping past the glass outside now, peppering the walls like a
fine mist of rain. The priest rises shakily to his feet and pulls off
his shirt, wrapping it over nose and mouth. Then he forges into the
arid air, walking to the northern face of the building. Shimmering
below him is the thin band, the Blue Nile, flowing over the dirt.
Beyond,
the desert stretches interminably, and a dust storm is building in
the distance. The haboob is a common
phenomenon during summer in Khartoum – a massive wall of sand that
builds from collapsed thunderstorms deep in the Sahara Desert and
advances upon the city with terrifying speed. The priest can see
nothing beyond the dust storm. The rolling wave of sand is fifty
miles across and nearly a mile high.
The
storm is approaching, churning violently through the desert like a
plague. Somewhere out there is the kid with the immunity, and the
priest is tingling at the prospect of the chase ahead. He steps
forward to the edge of the building and stands with arms
outstretched, held back by the buffeting wind. The lives of men, he
feels, are brief, jarring and acute. Gazing out from the seventeenth
story of the skyscraper, the priest considers the rise and decline of
great civilizations.
