a game of waking up in Colton’s arms and smelling peanuts on his breath.
She cleared the airport checkpoint without a hiccup thanks to the Virginia Mason nurse-permit. As luck would have it, others from her flight weren’t as prepared. A middle-aged couple with two teenage sons were detained for traveling with forged relocation permits and dispatched to confinement cells until the day of their voting executions. Because of the delay, Sylvya’s group arrived in Seattle after curfew and were forced to spend the night at a ULE detention center until their city permits could be processed the following morning.
The curfew horn woke Sylvya at eight-thirty-am and she held her breath, despite the sleep deprivation, at the view of Seattle’s majestic skyline flanked by the Cascades against the morning sun. The Puget Sound waters had devoured the city, but the mountains rose proud in the back, impervious to the human hubbub underneath. At noon, their paperwork cleared and the Timmonses were allowed in town. After an hour of navigating through suspension bridges and submerged neighborhoods, they reached the Virginia Mason. Defiance Day had so drained the city of nurses that, in addition to the employment permit, the hospital accommodated the three Timmonses in a rent-free condo downtown.
The quiet evening found mother and children in a new two-bedroom home with working lights and running water. Soon, the kids’ rhythmic breathing filled the bedroom with calming frequency. Sylvya, too, lay down feeling full. They had a safe home – dare she dream for more? Would it be greedy to wish Colton fell asleep beside her too, for months on end, and years, together with the kids? She knew he’d embrace her the moment they saw each other. Seattle was her American Dream, where she would reinvent herself for him.
The smell of rot didn’t feel repulsive anymore, the sights of desolated bridges felt temporary, and the ticking bomb of Defiance Day felt like another calendar date to come and go. She felt hopeful. She would claim the person who was hers and help him see life as she did. Sylvya Timmons fell asleep a happy woman.
seventeen days till defiance day (13
Natt Gurloskey scanned Seattle’s downtown from the precinct’s twentieth-floor windows and his heart wept. Drowning in the rain, the city had given out and the lives of the fifteen million Seattleites have become barrack lives. This defeat lay in the years before. In the decisions that weren't made and the visions that weren't there. But it was also his fault. This was his city, after all, and it had gone out for good, like a flare at the onslaught of a permanent night. Not the night that gave way to the morning after, but an incurable virus demanding capitulation. Once this virus had moved in, it refused to leave. It turned buildings into mildewy rubble. It took away the oxygen and sunlight, and demanded hope as a hostage, shipping it away somewhere far, never to return again. The night grew thicker with each new inch it captured. First, it took over one street corner, then a second one, then sprawled over to all adjacent alleys. The parts of town that fell under its control forgot what living felt like. The other parts bid their time until its inescapable arrival, assuring themselves they had lived well and that any life, no matter how good, had to end sometime. These were the depths to which Natt’s city had fallen. Except there was no night, but it felt like there was.
Yet again, Natt hadn’t slept. The three espresso cups he had downed earlier gurgled in his stomach, good for no more than inflaming his gastritis. He had to see the mayor today, sometime before the five-pm curfew, which his police department had imposed on this once vibrant, but now besieged, city. Natt walked on the beaten down linoleum and into the elevator hoping no one else would jump in with him. He disliked strangers. He disliked them even more in proximity. The elevator doors closed in unison with
She cleared the airport checkpoint without a hiccup thanks to the Virginia Mason nurse-permit. As luck would have it, others from her flight weren’t as prepared. A middle-aged couple with two teenage sons were detained for traveling with forged relocation permits and dispatched to confinement cells until the day of their voting executions. Because of the delay, Sylvya’s group arrived in Seattle after curfew and were forced to spend the night at a ULE detention center until their city permits could be processed the following morning.
The curfew horn woke Sylvya at eight-thirty-am and she held her breath, despite the sleep deprivation, at the view of Seattle’s majestic skyline flanked by the Cascades against the morning sun. The Puget Sound waters had devoured the city, but the mountains rose proud in the back, impervious to the human hubbub underneath. At noon, their paperwork cleared and the Timmonses were allowed in town. After an hour of navigating through suspension bridges and submerged neighborhoods, they reached the Virginia Mason. Defiance Day had so drained the city of nurses that, in addition to the employment permit, the hospital accommodated the three Timmonses in a rent-free condo downtown.
The quiet evening found mother and children in a new two-bedroom home with working lights and running water. Soon, the kids’ rhythmic breathing filled the bedroom with calming frequency. Sylvya, too, lay down feeling full. They had a safe home – dare she dream for more? Would it be greedy to wish Colton fell asleep beside her too, for months on end, and years, together with the kids? She knew he’d embrace her the moment they saw each other. Seattle was her American Dream, where she would reinvent herself for him.
The smell of rot didn’t feel repulsive anymore, the sights of desolated bridges felt temporary, and the ticking bomb of Defiance Day felt like another calendar date to come and go. She felt hopeful. She would claim the person who was hers and help him see life as she did. Sylvya Timmons fell asleep a happy woman.
seventeen days till defiance day (13
Natt Gurloskey scanned Seattle’s downtown from the precinct’s twentieth-floor windows and his heart wept. Drowning in the rain, the city had given out and the lives of the fifteen million Seattleites have become barrack lives. This defeat lay in the years before. In the decisions that weren't made and the visions that weren't there. But it was also his fault. This was his city, after all, and it had gone out for good, like a flare at the onslaught of a permanent night. Not the night that gave way to the morning after, but an incurable virus demanding capitulation. Once this virus had moved in, it refused to leave. It turned buildings into mildewy rubble. It took away the oxygen and sunlight, and demanded hope as a hostage, shipping it away somewhere far, never to return again. The night grew thicker with each new inch it captured. First, it took over one street corner, then a second one, then sprawled over to all adjacent alleys. The parts of town that fell under its control forgot what living felt like. The other parts bid their time until its inescapable arrival, assuring themselves they had lived well and that any life, no matter how good, had to end sometime. These were the depths to which Natt’s city had fallen. Except there was no night, but it felt like there was.
Yet again, Natt hadn’t slept. The three espresso cups he had downed earlier gurgled in his stomach, good for no more than inflaming his gastritis. He had to see the mayor today, sometime before the five-pm curfew, which his police department had imposed on this once vibrant, but now besieged, city. Natt walked on the beaten down linoleum and into the elevator hoping no one else would jump in with him. He disliked strangers. He disliked them even more in proximity. The elevator doors closed in unison with
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