Shintaro Dreams

A Short Story

“He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.”

From The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Shintaro thought: The milk powder. There’s no other reason to be in the bone piles.

He clambered about with Niko on his back, she barely six pounds, looking from house to daycare to hospital. If he was lucky, they might find some bottled water or food, but the synthetic milk came first.

He sat in the nearly dark bank lobby and looked out at the city street: wave upon wave of ribcages, skulls, and femurs ran right up to the skyscraper foundations, like some demented cathedral buttress, a church of silent remembrance.

He would have left the cities in an instant, but he could not make milk.

The only thing Shintaro did like about the cities were the fireflies. They weren’t real fireflies, of course, but they reminded him of the summer bugs from his childhood. He sat next to his bundled daughter and looked out at the dusky city block and waited.

A slow pulse of light, another. And another. The bluish orbs floated around and danced amongst the bone piles.

Shintaro was neither superstitious nor believed in gods, but he did wonder about the orbs. Their movements were lazy; their color: crystalline blue. He thought: iceflies for the long winter. But he didn’t like the sound of iceflies and decided fireflies were still better.

He reached inside Niko’s papoose, a hiking pack he’d rigged out for her, and found her breathing, asleep. Her tiny eyelids fluttered, eyes twitching. Shintaro wondered what she dreamt of.

He looked back out to the city street. His own dream land lay, silent, save for the low whistle of wind through the calcified remains. The rattle and crunch of bone had disturbed him in the first cities, but now, well, he wasn’t comforted by the piles—but he’d made peace with them. They were still treacherous to hike over, could cut your clothing or spike your boots in an instant, could shift or collapse—no the piles were a threat—but they no longer spooked him.

The dead were only that.

A lazy blue orb floated through the bank lobby. Abstract paintings, glass and frames cracked, came to life on the far wall: triangles and pyramids in blue and white. The orb danced out the front doors and Shintaro sat in the gloom, alone save the tiny child.

He whispered:

“I will find formula.

I will find water.

I will find food.

I will not despair.”

Niko let out a whimper and her eyes opened, then rolled back and closed. Shintaro leaned over her and hummed a lullaby. She relaxed and her breathing returned to normal. He reached a hand in her papoose and smelled. She didn’t need a new diaper. He turned back to the city block. A congress of orbs hovered, flocked, and scattered in random patterns. He thought: how many dead out there? How many in just this one city block? Thousands? Too many.

He tried to imagine the city free of the bone piles: blue sky instead of the endless gray clouds, real birds and bugs, and people out and about, shopping, eating, working, but he couldn’t believe that world would ever return.

He unzipped his parka, removed and unfolded a tourist map of the city. He found his red pen from the backpack. He’d seen a street pole with 2nd and Church towards the end of the day’s march. He traced the red X’s from previous searches and guessed their spot on his map. He drew a precise, small X over the block on the map. He thought: this is my calendar—each X a day. He’d scrounged three liters of bottled water and a lone Snickers bar from a canteen closet that morning. Shintaro’s stomach lurched at the thought of the candy bar. He removed the chocolate bar from the bag, peeled its wrapper, and nibbled a small bite. The rush of fat and sugar almost made him sick in the first couple chews, but it passed, and he relished the moment. Shintaro had to resist shoving the whole bar in his mouth. Chew. Chew. Swallow. Another small bite. He opened a bottle of water and took a couple sips. He licked his lips and swished another mouthful of water before capping the bottle. He considered where to search next and traced a finger over the map. To the east: a children’s theme park. Two kilometers past that: another corporate center. Shintaro decided to check the center for daycares. He nodded to himself, refolded the map, and pocketed it.

Niko looked more and more like her mother each day, had her mother’s tiny upturned nose and wispy black hair. It was wonderful and awful. The pang of remorse, longing, the old life, was there in his daughter’s face.

He turned from her, considered their supplies: half a tin of formula, a handful of diapers, two liters of water, and some canned goods.

Rattle of bones made Shintaro jump and he scanned the city street but saw nothing in the gloom. He looked down and saw his truncheon in his right hand; the electric barb crackled and popped. He’d grabbed it and switched it on on reflex. Shintaro relaxed his grip, switched it off, and leaned the nightstick back against his pack. He shivered, zipped his parka all the way up, and lay next to his daughter. He pulled her in close, reached over and pulled a tattered tarp over them and feel asleep on the lobby floor. He felt her warm breath against his face and fell asleep.

Shintaro dreamt he and Niko were hiking across a ridge of bones. Metal towers, windows blasted out, loomed overhead. He surveyed the city block below him but couldn’t decide which row of bones to climb through; the skeletal mounds wrapped and doubled back, labyrinthine, a topographical riddle he could not solve. Frozen in place, not sure which way to go, Shintaro knew that they were being watched, that they had stumbled into a dead-end. He turned to go back but could not for the path was closed, a bone wall where he had just stepped. He scanned high and low for movement, for ambush, but saw none. His daughter let out a whimper, somehow knew they were in trouble. He shushed her and told her to stay quiet. Then the blue orbs came out and danced amongst them, slow, lethargic, a dance of the dead, a winter dance. Shintaro calmed down, thinking that he’d stumbled into the source of the orbs, some kind of nexus, but the orbs floated off as they always did. He stood in evening gloom. To his surprise, he felt refreshed—his daughter didn’t seem as heavy. Shintaro relaxed his shoulders, wanted to take off his pack, and massage them. He let out a sigh of relief, but then his daughter began to rise. Shintaro turned to reach for her but it was too late. He watched her rise up and up on a single thread of black, spider silk. Her cloth papoose was gone and replaced by a bone carapace. She was perfectly enclosed, save her face, wrapped in curved ribs, hip sockets, tiny skulls, and tibias. A spider pulled her up from some unseen nest. Shintaro jumped and screamed for her but she was too high. He looked for something to climb and make a jump for her but there was nowhere to make a foothold. Niko rose, higher and higher, still asleep, perfectly wrapped in human remains, and disappeared into the gloom.

Shintaro woke, drenched in sweat. He clutched for his daughter and found her asleep in his arms. Their tarp was pale blue with morning light.

He whispered:

“I will find formula.

I will find water.

I will find food.

I will not despair.”