Balance of Fragile Things (28 page)

T
he theater was a warm, velvet-lined womb, and Isabella let the room take her in. The scaffolding along the wall and ceiling above the orchestra area was heavy with lights, speakers, and props. Backstage was buzzing with excitement. Stagehands hurried to touch up the set, while actors paced and nervously recited their lines. Isabella peered through a gap in the curtain and watched her father and brother take the aisle seats beside the other family members in the back of the theater. Most seats were full; she was surprised.

The air tingled, and Isabella felt a chill run across her body. She thought of Michelle, and—as the cast gathered among the fake cardboard forest, folding chairs, and holiday props backstage—she silently dedicated her performance to her friend.

Isabella held her wrinkled copy of the script in her sweaty hands and read her lines over and over again. Her brain felt empty. Tewks, who was dressed head to toe in black, with a beret covering his head, took her script away.

“You know it. Just relax.” He smiled.

“Break a leg,” Tracy snarled. Her skin was pale yellow. Isabella was surprised that Tewks had let Tracy continue in the play, as she'd missed so many rehearsals that he'd shortened her role even more, which meant she was now only in one scene. But it was just like Tracy not to miss out.

Erik said nothing but squeezed her hand.

“Okay, people. Tonight we do as we've been doing every week in rehearsal. Remember, I'll be onstage just out of sight in case anyone forgets a line. I am so proud of each and every one of you. Everybody knows their job, so let's go out there and show them how it's done.” Tewks wiped his damp forehead with the back of his hand, then clapped his hands together. “Places, everyone.”

Isabella looked at the set. It was better than she'd imagined it would be. The detailed decorations made the Oval Office come to life, from the busts of former presidents and an enormous American flag to paintings in gold frames and red curtains. The audience's voices quieted to whispers. The lights dimmed, then total darkness blanketed the room. Tewks gave her a little push, and she rushed out to her mark on a stool. The curtain slid slowly open. In a few moments, a spotlight illuminated her and her shiny black shoes. She felt the yellow light in the darkness funnel the audience's vision; it was reminiscent of falling, she onto them, they onto her, like moths drawn to a light.

“There is a certain silence that settles in before a firestorm. Waiting for the inevitable, and knowing the size of the explosives the enemy has, freezes the air molecules into place. Your ears ring, heart throbs, as you wait for the wailing cry of the airplane.”

She was poised, serious, and eloquent. A student sitting in the scaffolding pressed a button on the sound system. First came a rumble evocative of an earthquake, a metallic wail, and then an airplane engine seemed to roar from one side of the theater to the other. The light on Isabella dimmed, she stood, and a figure dressed in black removed the stool and ducked off the stage. She ran to her next mark and hoped Erik moved to his. Spotlights lit the entire stage, and the audience gasped. In the background was an enormous window with a digital image of two mushroom clouds projected on the horizon; fire conflagrated in the foreground. In the Oval Office, it looked as if gravity had been turned off and on again: All the furniture was upside down, papers were charred, and books were scattered across the floor. Erik, dressed in a suit that had seen better days, stood off to the side, and Isabella sat on the floor shaking.

“I should have acted faster,” Erik said. “After the first bombs dropped, it was my responsibility.”

“Mr. Vice President, we need to get underground, please. There is no doubt that the next bomb will come soon.”

“They're all gone. They killed our families. I should have pushed your father to nuke them first.”

“The President was stubborn. You're still here, and it's your responsibility to stay alive.”

The play continued through three acts, and Isabella felt herself becoming absorbed into the role, until she felt as if she inhabited the character of Samantha completely. And then came the final scene, when Samantha and the Vice President emerged from the bomb shelter and saw the sun for the first time. And when the last line was spoken, Isabella felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She turned toward the lights and bowed, and she felt the applause surround her, escalating, until the very floor beneath her began to shake. And then she realized that it
was
shaking. Everything was shaking.

And suddenly, there was an enormous cracking sound, like a tree trunk splitting in half. The sound-effects student shrugged at Tewks, who was frantically looking around the stage. Isabella searched for the source of the noise, and she saw that Erik looked just as startled as she was. The noise grew in volume; then they heard a woman in the audience scream.

Tewks manually switched on the lights in the theater and illuminated the cause of the sound. The red-carpeted aisle that divided the theater into two seating areas had fractured like a fault line and exposed a deep hole. Huge pieces of concrete, red carpet, and wood had already plummeted into the expanding abyss.

The stage shook beneath Isabella's feet, and she and Erik got separated in the chaos. She froze, paralyzed by the magnitude of the scene, and watched for a few seconds as mayhem ensued; people ran frantically toward the exits all at once. Some fell. She saw a few people get trampled by the panicking crowd.

Isabella watched as the fissure expanded and water spewed from the chasm. Soon some were knee deep in water. She saw her parents in the back of the theater, waving for her to follow them. Oma and Papaji must've already made it out.

She headed toward them, but her path was blocked by the swaying scaffolding that was dangling from the ceiling. She saw Vic push past their parents and begin to maneuver his way over the seats toward the stage. The ellipsoidal lights short-circuited and flashed different colored lights until they showered the entire scene in throbbing red. Sirens wailed from the PA system. Isabella made her way to the front of the stage and looked for the best way down. There were still many people in the front, climbing over the seats, trying to get out. She saw Mr. and Mrs. Finch making their way through the crowd from the first row. The ground shook again, and Isabella gasped as the red lights fell from their support onto Mrs. Finch. Isabella watched, stunned, as Mrs. Finch fell to the water-covered linoleum, her floral dress flailing wildly, the water rising around her. The red luminescence made the water look like blood, and Eleanora's body was now motionless.

Vic reached the stage, helped Isabella onto stable ground, and signaled to their parents to get outside. A few minutes later, the entire Singh family was huddled in the Cutlass Supreme. Isabella looked out the window and saw Erik jump into Tewks's van with some of the other actors.

Her mother backed out of the parking spot. As she drove over the slick asphalt, Isabella turned around just in time to see the sinkhole swallow the entire theater and part of Cobalt High. Water splashed up like a great whale's blowhole and drenched the already sopping campus. Her mother continued down Main Street, maneuvering around signs that blocked off parts of the town from street traffic. She turned onto Peregrine Court, and when they approached The Commons, she pulled over. Brown water was rushing up to the front windows of their house.

“Maija, the water's coming,” Paul said. “The river is breached. We need to get to higher ground!”

Oma closed her eyes.

Her mother drove up the back roads that zigzagged through a hemlock forest in an old part of Cobalt. When they reached the top of the mud-covered hill that overlooked the entire area, she put the car in park. Though it was raining, Isabella rolled down the window, and they all looked down at Cobalt in awe. If it wasn't for the devastation caused by the flood, the homes now submerged, it would have been beautiful. The trees were the only obstinate survivors of the cataclysm; their saturated, naked limbs interrupted the singular plane of gray sky and water. The PMI campus, most of Main Street, and even the lower portion of the Heights had been softened by the deluge. Manmade edges of concrete and steel were no challenge for the water.

“Everything's lost now.” Oma dabbed tears with the back of her hand.

“Not everything.” Isabella drew the Star of David necklace from inside her shirt and showed it to Oma. “I borrowed it. Hope you don't mind.”

“Darlink.” Oma placed her hand on Isabella's.

“Where are we going, Mama?” Vic asked.

“I don't know, dear. I don't know.” Her mother's voice shook. “There are supplies in the trunk. We can last for at least a day or so in the car.”

Oma sniffed. Papaji held her hand.

Isabella and Vic watched the horizon as Cobalt disappeared behind the last hill.

Paul looked at his family. “I am tired of the rain.”

Maija drove on.

On The Wing

Extinction

Posted on November 14

I found a sad little picture of a dried Xerces Blue corpse online, and beside it was a photo of the fat French entomologist Boisduval. He supposedly “discovered” the Xerces Blue, though I imagine it existed long before the robust man found it. (I think someone sent him the specimen, but I'd rather imagine history with him discovering it in the wild.) Boisduval was dressed in a long coat and shirtsleeves, typical of mid-nineteenth-century attire. He looked proud and confident as he leaned unnaturally against an oversized leather wingback, as though he were Napoleon.

Let me paint the picture for you: a fat French man trampling through the coastal lupine with a net chasing a butterfly no larger than an inch across. The butterfly coasts low above the ground looking for nectar or a salt puddle. He catches it, admires it, impales it with a pin, and declares it a relative Persian king of long ago, naturally. In reality it probably went like this: a fat French man opens a package with said dead butterfly inside, impales it on a pin, and declares it Xerces. Did he see himself in the butterfly and want to draw a connection between his own lineage and the name Xerces? Perhaps he just wanted to lengthen his own name: Jean Baptiste Alphonse Dechauffour de Boisduval. To him, it probably would have been folly to name a discovery after anything less than a crown, and Monarch was already taken.

I learned about the Xerces Blue's last flight recently. It was last seen on San Francisco's Presidio in 1941. I wonder if W. H. Lange, the last recorded person to see the Xerces Blue almost one hundred years after Boisduval's “discovery,” knew he was witnessing its last flight. Perhaps he caught the last lonely butterfly, the omega Xerces, as it searched for companions that no longer existed. His habitat was gone, no eggs were laid, and that was that. The more construction in San Francisco encroached upon the Xerces' land, the fewer flowers were available to drink, and the fewer eggs it laid for the next season. The Xerces Blue was unique in that it was a sub-species that only lived in that one small location; studying it would have offered some insights into evolutionary theory.

I see ghosts all around me. From our escape from Cobalt to our drive south to Florida, to my family's new home, I see them. They crowd me. There in Cobalt it was the Singh Blue and the endangered Karner. Here in Florida, it's the Miami Blue that's vulnerable, and the Schaus' Swallowtail is nearing extinction. In the history of the planet Earth, scientists have identified five mass extinctions. These vast annihilations of species have killed around ninety percent of all living creatures on the planet. Some extinction is natural, or caused by a massive cataclysmic event like a meteor. However, hunting a species to death (buffalo, Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, gray wolf, etc.) or destroying habitats through slash-and-burn agriculture is not natural. The rate of our CO
2
emissions has altered the planet's atmosphere. Climate change is natural, yes. Our acceleration of a natural process is not. Some scientists believe that we are upon our sixth extinction. I don't know about this. That no one will ever see another Xerces Blue drinking nectar from the lupine is a loss for us all. All I know is what I see. And what I see are ghosts.

Glossary

achchhá
(Punjabi):
good
or
excellent
, used when one is in agreement

ad sach
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
truth/God was true in the beginning

ajuni
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
beyond the cycle of birth and death

akal murat
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
the truth is a shapeless form

anddá
(Punjabi):
egg

ārprāts
(Latvian):
mad, insane
, or
crazy

bachchá
(Punjabi): male child

bháí
(Punjabi): brother

bháíjis
(Punjabi): Sikh preacher or holy person

bahut kharáb
(Punjabi):
very bad

badmásh
(Punjabi):
evildoer

chaliá/chalo
(Punjabi):
to go, go on, let's go

daal
(Punjabi): lentils

dacoit
(Punjabi): a member of an armed band of robbers in India

dátrí
(Punjabi): handheld sickle

dhí
(Punjabi): daughter

dūre
(Latvian): fist

ēzelis
(Latvian): donkey

fiftee
(Punjabi): the first layer of cotton wrapped around the head under a turban

frikadelu zupa
(Latvian): dill and meatball soup

goonda
(Punjabi): a gangster or individual involved in corruption

gurdwárá
(Punjabi): a Sikh temple

gur prasad
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
his grace extends to all his creations

hánji
(Punjabi):
yes
or
okay
, with respect

haveli
(Punjabi): a private mansion in Northern India or Pakistan

hai be sach
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
it is true today as well

ik
(Punjabi): one

ik onkar
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
there is but one God

ik mint
(Punjabi): one minute

Japji Sahib
(Punjabi): Guru Nanak's poem in the
Sri Guru Granth Sahib
that one recites usually in the morning

jap
(Punjabi): to recite or chant

jhutá
(Punjabi): liar

ji
(Punjabi): sign of respect, can be added to words and names

jugad sach
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
was true in the primal age

kaccha
(Punjabi): one of the elements of the Khalsa, a loose-fitting undergarment like shorts or boxers

kara
(Punjabi): one of the elements of the Khalsa, a simple metal bracelet

khanga
(Punjabi): one of the elements of the Khalsa, a small wooden comb used and worn in one's hair

karta purakh
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
only the truth can give creation existence

Khalsa
(Punjabi): meaning
pure
, Khalsas are Sikhs who have undergone the sacred Amrit Ceremony initiated by the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh

kesh
(Punjabi): one of the elements of the Khalsa, the practice of not cutting one's hair

khichuri
(Punjabi): a combination of lentils and rice

ki halle
(Punjabi):
how are you?

kirpan
(Punjabi): one of the elements of the Khalsa, a ceremonial sword or knife

kokle
(Latvian): Latvian string instrument related to the zither

kurta, kurta pajama
(Punjabi): long and loose shirt that falls around the knees and pants worn by men and women in India

labrīt
(Latvian):
good morning

mané Sikh han
(Punjabi):
I am a Sikh

mans zvirbulis
(Latvian): my sparrow

mazmeita
(Latvian): granddaughter

mazs dēls
(Latvian): little boy

meita
(Latvian): daughter

mundá
(Punjabi): boy

Nanak hosi be sach
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
Guru Nanak says this truth shall be forever

neyji
(Punjabi):
no
, but with respect

nirvair
(Punjabi): without hatred

nirbhao
(Punjabi): fearless

pakora
(Punjabi): battered and fried snacks usually made with vegetables

págal
(Punjabi): crazy person

paranthas
(Punjabi): stuffed flatbread made with whole wheat flour

patka
(Punjabi): the under-turban that Sikh boys begin to use in preschool; they can tie the larger turban, called a
pagri
, at any age

pavan guru pari pita maataa dharat mahatt
(Punjabi): roughly translated as
air is the guru, water the fa
ther, the great earth the mother of all

pippal
(Punjabi): fig tree of India noted for great size and longevity and regarded as sacred by Buddhists

piyar
(Punjabi): love

potrí/potrá
(Punjabi): granddaughter, grandson

putns
(Latvian): bird

puttar
(Punjabi): son

samajhna
(Punjabi):
understand?

saibhang
(Punjabi):
the truth is self existent

sardarni
(Punjabi): female Sikh

satnam
(Punjabi):
whose name is truth



sat sri akal
(Punjabi): a greeting between Sikhs,
sat
meaning truth,
sri
, an honorific,
akal
, the immortal being, God; the whole phrase may be roughly translated as
God is the ultimate truth

sohná
(Punjabi):
pretty
, also means
gold

spec piragi
(Latvian): small yeast rolls stuffed with bacon

starpība
(Latvian): difference

svieki
(Latvian): welcome

sivēna galerts
:
(Latvian): an aspic loaf usually made with pork head, feet, and neck meat

tabla
(Punjabi): a pair of drums played by hand

tatha
(Punjabi): fabric worn around the jaw to fix the beard in place

tatte
(Punjabi): testicles

uz redzēšanos
(Latvian): goodbye

vīratēvs
(Latvian): father-in-law

wahe guru
(Punjabi): is a term most often used in
Sikhism
to refer to
God
; also a greeting, it means
wonderful teacher
in Punjabi

wie ist
(German):
what is?

yár
(Punjabi): friend, between men

zeÄ·e
(Latvian): sock