Area 52

No one complains about the foot shortage, or the destroyed buildings. They say it will all be fixed soon enough. No one says that the houses were small and breaking down to begin with.

No one says anything about Logan unless it’s in favor of what happened to him. “Shouldn’t have run away,” they say. “Area 52 is wonderful,” they say. “He’s crazy.” “We can’t help the crowdedness or the rations,” they say. “We have to give back. It’s the least we can do.” “Here we will be healthy,” they say. “In no time diseases will be wiped out.” “Why would you take the risk of giving birth to a child who might carry on your disease?”

And when people hear something often enough, they believe it.

Besides, everything is relative. After you’ve been here a while, you don’t even think about it.

For most people.

Joe walks me through the rubble of his neighborhood, water swirling around our feet and soaking into my shoes. The sky is still dark and angry, and the air is bitingly cold. All the houses on this street ate devastated – it’s like walking through a disaster movie set. Hurricane Bruce hit us hard, and the houses that couldn’t hold up just caved. Which was most of them.

His house – or what he had of a house – is no matter or worse than the others. The roof has collapsed, windows shattered, debris and glass everywhere. The front door, which before hung on rusty hinges, is torn clean off, carried away somewhere by the relentless winds that came with the downpour. Inside, planks of broken wood and trash block the doorway. He violently kicks them all aside and leads me up the stairs.

The hallway is impenetrable. Metal and wood and roof tiles block the way in an enormous pile of rubble, which he immediately begins picking at.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking.”

“For what?”

He stares at the pile, his face stilling. “Anything,” he whispers. And then he remembers something. “My room! Under.. under the mattress… my pictures! I need them!”

I stare at the mountain of material that once made up the roof of this house. But, as my heart breaks inside, I move forward and help him, tossing rubble behind us down the stairs. But no matter how much we pull and toss, no matter how many splinters and blisters ans cuts we get, the pile doesn’t seem to shrink.

Both of our hands are bleeding and callused by the time we’re finished, but we manage to get access to the doorway of Joe’s bedroom/closet. Thankfully, the door pulls open, but we’re greeted with another pile of rubble to yank. I resist letting out a sigh. The light in the windows grows oranger and dimmer as evening approaches, and at this rate we’ll be here all night. I start working faster, uncovering clothing and papers, setting them all aside. But Joe pitches it all, focused on one thing.

We uncover his mattress bed, and I help him in lifting it with my bruised and bleeding hands, ignoring the pain to help my friend. He snatches a leather-covered book up off the floor, and by the way he clutches it to his chest, it’s the most important thing in the world to him. “Let’s go,” he whispers.

We climb over the pile of debris, stepping on glass and split wood we threw away before to get back to the broken stairs. He clutches the book as if he expects it to be ripped out of his hands, and my heart aches with the thought that just a few photos is all he has of his old life.

I wish I had something like that.

“Where are you living now?” I ask, and he shrugs.

“An old building on the other side of town that used to be a department store.”

He leads the way as we walk there – a building that did, indeed, used to be a Target – when we worried about buying our own food and clothes. Clothes and hygiene products are delivered to our door monthly – no need to make pointless choices.

With the exception of Joe, most of the people that lived in that part of town were the older residents, the one that have been here forever. The brainwashed ones that don’t even think to criticize their situation.

The building is much bigger than I remember, especially with everything taken out of it and just sleeping bags strewn all over the floor, with scattered belongings and bottles and food containers. The room is the loudest and most chaotic one I’ve ever been in, with teenage boys screaming and running around the room, adults shouting at eachother, a police officer spewing out propaganda and threatening to gun down anyone who gets out of hand, muddy-faced children fighting over food, and a baby crying. Joe leads me through the sea of identical blue sleeping bags to the far corner of the huge room, by the bathrooms. Loud, but convenient.

“Jeez,” I whisper as we pass a man with bad B.O.. “How do you shower?”

“You don’t.”

I grimace.

“I shower at school, or I use the sink. But there’s only five stalls in there, so that’s a rare chance. Most of us are more worried about food and keeping families together than keeping clean.”

I feel that sharp pang in my chest again. He sits down, still holding the album with it’s wrinkled cover, close to is chest. I sit behind him and he opens it up without a word. The pages are yellowed, damaged from the water, stiff and sticking together, and some of the ink in the photos has run. But they’re in pretty good condition considering the circumstances. I see a smiling baby Joe sitting next to a fuzzy-haired toddler. I don’t ask if it’s his brother, not wanting to bring back memories.

I see a picture of a young child on a swing, in front of a white brick grass on a dark green lawn. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a swing. Or grass. Or a bright blue sky.

Some pages rip when he has to pry them apart. I watch him and his brother grow up from sleeping and bouncing in cribs to their first days of school to batting on the softball team. “Look at all we used to have,” Joe whispers, running his hands over a plastic-covered page. He’s sitting in front of a Christmas tree, leaning over his mother and giving the camera his hugest, cheesiest smile. I haven’t gotten a Christmas present in years. At least not a wrapped one that sat under a tree. He turns the page again, but I only get a glimpse of it’s contents before he snaps the book closed.

“Wait. What was that?”

“Nothing.”

I take the book gently. He doesn’t fight, but he resists a little. I open it up and return to the page, and I see Joe again. But it’s not Joe. He’s maybe ten years old, but it’s hard to tell because he’s sickly and skinny, and missing his hair. In a hospital bed, hooked up to dozens of machines. And smiling.

I flip to see more. Joe with little tufts of hair in the early growing stages, or none at all, always hooked up to dozens of machines in a hospital bed, or sitting in an obviously hospital-esque setting. Always smiling. They cured the common forms of cancer ages ago, but a few types still exist.

“Cancer?” I whisper.

He nods, and I close the book, not saying anything. I know now, but it’s in the past and I’ll keep it there.

Then, something hits me. “Do you still have the camera??”

“My mom might – “ He freezes, and I know we’re thinking the same thing. His eyes widen and his face takes on a look of realization. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before! If she still has it… we can take pictures! And send them out-!”

I get excited. “Get the word out so everyone can see what really happens in here. That it’s not perfect, or even close!”

“Yes!”

“Where’s your mom?”

“I’m not sure. But she should be here soon.”

We have a plan. Just an itty-bitty sliver of a plan, but it’s something.

______________________________________________________________________________

“Joe, I’m sorry, but I got rid of that thing long ago.”

“What?? But we need a camera!”

She frowns with sadness and apologies in her soft brown eyes, and my hear hurts for her. “Joe, I’m sorry. There must be another way of getting one.”

“From in here? We can’t even buy toilet paper. This is our last hope!”

“What about Nick?”

They turn to me. I look up. “What?”

“Could you write home? Ask them to send you one?”

“I… Maybe…”

“Please, Nick. It really is our only hope.” Joe takes both of my shoulders. Stares down at me. I look down again. The chances are slim, and I doubt they’d even let packages through the mail. But I whisper “Okay. I’ll try.”
______________________________________________________________________________

I write my Mama as promised, telling them about the flood, but expressing explicitly that I’m completely fine. I tell mom about Joe and his family, their house, and everything, but spare the gory details. I don’t want them to worry – they have heard all the propaganda about how great and happy and wonderful it is here, so I’ll just ask them to send me that ancient camera that I vaguely remember Dad having in his office. I doubt it’s possible, but I must try.

I walk almost two miles to the nearest post office and drop my letter into the dark box, watching it fall.
______________________________________________________________________________

The rain leaves behind nothing but mud, destruction and lots of restlessness and tension. All the older, unrenovated buildings are destroyed, streets covered in trash that’s carried down a mud-brown river.

The death rate is rising – people drowned or buried under their collapsed houses. But all I can (selfishly) think is Good. More food and space for the rest of us.

I haven’t gotten a response from mom yet. We rarely write eachother anymore. She doesn’t know that one of my four roommates beats me up every day, that I’m always hungry, that my best friend is living in a department store or that I go to school with fifty or sixty kids in a classroom and eat food that I can only identify as Green, Yellow or Brown Slop. I don’t want her to know – she’d either constantly worry or she’d come down here herself, and then she’d suffer. No, best she remains blissfully unaware.

The sky remains dark and foreboding, and the weather calls for more showers. And they come, on and off, but there’s an almost constant drizzle.

Joe and I hang out in his new home, though it’s hard. I know no one’s trying to rebuild their houses, and I know people outside the Area are unaware of the destruction. And we can’t do anything, either. All the newbies try to speak out, and they’re all killed. The government will tell their families about some tragic accident, when they were really shot dead on the spot. And the rest of us quickly learn – or are scared into knowing – how to survive in this awful world.

The whole purpose of ‘Area 52’, or Texas, was to eradicate diseases by isolating us, letting the viruses die out. It was supposed to be a peaceful, clean sanctuary. But they only treat us like rabid animals, killing us by the hundreds every day. The hospitals are, indeed, amazing, but they’re the only clean and safe places here.

I have been here since the age of eight, learning all the tips and tricks of surviving, learning to just go by unnoticed. Until recently, though, I was clueless as to what was actually going on. Now, I look at my life completely differently, but being powerless, I don’t know what’s worse – living ignorant bliss or helpless awareness.

I have to admit, though, the method works. It just comes at a price.