Shintaro Dreams: Part 2

Shintaro woke to the smell of ocean brine. He pulled the dusty tarpaulin away and looked out at the light of day. No beach or sea, just the waves of porcelain bones, the same empty city streets, the stillness. He had the urge to talk to the bone piles this morning, but resisted, thought it ill mannered to address the dead, too cavalier. The morning clouds above the empty skyscrapers seemed thinner, maybe even a couple patches of blue sky trying to break in.

He turned to Niko. She was awake, eyes bright, the color of green glass, and she was staring at him. She babbled and tried to shimmy around in her papoose. Shintaro reached down and undid the wrap around her body. Niko cried out and giggled at the freedom, flexed her tiny hands, and tried to roll over on her stomach. He reached into his satchel and removed a small bag of diapers and cream. There was hardly anything left and he wasn’t sure what to rig next for diapers…torn clothes? Paper towels? Neither seemed like a great idea. He picked up Niko and carried her farther into the bank lobby. He wanted to shield her from the wind. Niko squirmed on his hip but calmed once he hummed a tune to her. Shintaro set her on the stone tiled floor, found some old cardboard and flipped a couple pieces over. Not perfect, but cleaner than most surfaces. He worked quickly, but gentle, and stripped the old diaper, wiped her with some tissue, and applied the last of the paste to her. He was about to zip her back into her pajamas when he spotted two new sores on the inside her left sigh. He let out a sigh, wiped the thigh clean, and put cream on the sores. He felt like he could never keep her clean, an impossible task in the constant dust. He wrapped Niko up and placed her inside his jacket to warm her. He paced around the lobby bobbing up and down, humming an old folk tune, and rubbing his hands up and down her back. She giggled while he took tiny hops and pretending he was a bird. Shintaro said: “Caw, caw. Niko, we’re birds today.” She smiled but began to cry. He said: “Breakfast, of course.”

They walked back to their pack and he zipped her into the papoose. She watched as he carefully measured powdered milk from a beat-up tin. Then he added the water, which was cold and clotted the powder, but he shook the plastic bottle to mix it best he could. Shintaro inspected the rubber nipple: it didn’t look great, had discolored slightly, but he hadn’t been able to find a replacement the last couple of weeks. He rinsed it with some water and placed it on the bottle and gave her the bottle. She drank the milk and looked at him with fierce hunger in her eyes. He said “I know. I know.” He ran the mantra through his head:

“I will find formula.

I will find water.

I will find food.

I will not despair.”

He rummaged through his bag for his own breakfast and found two weathered green apples. He munched on them, slowly, methodically, and tossed only the stem. He didn’t like the seeds or bitter middle, but his stomach told him to eat every bit. He washed the two apples down with the last of their water.

He packed their bag, slung it and Niko on his back, and made for the main intersection. He stood and slid his truncheon into his belt harness. His boots felt loose, his pants felt loose, he felt too thin, like he was running out of belt notches, like he was running out. It was a simple way to die: too many calories out, not enough in. Shintaro didn’t miss his old desk job, but he did miss running the numbers, massaging spreadsheets, predicting. Yes. That had been his favorite. Predicting. He was well paid in a former life. His wife had always teased him: “Shin, you can see everything but tomorrow.”

Shintaro stepped out into the shadow of the skyscrapers and checked the for movement. There were a dozen blue wisps making their way around the bone piles. He’d watched them many times, but couldn’t detect any pattern, any line, or purpose to the blue pulses. They were as alien to him as all the dead which lay before him.

He retraced his plan from the night before. East, passed the amusement park, to the Toyo Complex. He hoped to find supplies in the old corporate park.

Niko shifted on his back and he shifted his weight opposite to push her center again.

Shintaro looked one more time around the streets: quiet. He turned right and made his way through a tunnel of bone. He tried to ignore the skulls and femurs best he could, and was rarely spooked in the streets, but this morning, he felt weary, felt like the bone piles were going to come down on them. They made their way through intersections and streets for thirty minutes when smell of ocean, surf, and salt hit him again. He didn’t think he was that close to the sea, or was he? Was in a different city? The wrong map altogether? Panic ripped through him. He wanted to climb to the top of a building and look for a landmark, but what would he look for? All the cities looked the same at the end — all empty, dust filled, boneyards now. Shintaro took a long draw of air into his nose; it was absolutely ocean smell: seaweed and fish and cooked rice. His stomach did a flip, all but contracted in spasm. He struggled to move, the need to eat overwhelmed him. It passed, and, slowly, he continued down the sidewalk, winding around bone piles, turned left and found a carnival.

By reflex, he ducked, turned and fled behind a burnt out city bus. His heart pounded in his ears. Adrenaline coursed. He pulled the nightstick from his hip and gripped it in his left hand. Niko let out a whimper. He shushed her and peered out from behind the bus: Red, green, and yellow lanterns were strung between buildings; the bone piles were cleared from the block; people walked from tent to tent, vendor to vendor, snacks and beers in hand. Shintaro let out a whimper, rubbed his eyes and looked again.

The carnival was gone.

He sat down against the bus rim and began to weep. He pulled Niko from the pack and held her. She looked at him, mute, tiny, and helpless to console him. After a few minutes, Shintaro said: “Okay, okay.” He wrapped her back in the pack, shouldered her and they walked through the midday street. He muttered to himself: “You’re going crazy Shin. Too many hungry days. You’re gonna go crazy.”

He pressed on, one deliberate step at a time.

Two hours later, the business district was behind them and they skirted around the deserted theme park. Dragons and broken weathervanes twisted and creaked in the afternoon wind. Shintaro had never visited Medieval Land when it had been up and running and had no intention of visiting the dead version now. He paused though, and looked at the park: would their be food there? He didn’t think there would be any diapers or baby goods, but there could be leftover snacks or soda?

But something about the place scared him, gave him a sinking feeling in his gut, so he pushed off the chainlink fence and continued east for Toyo.

The clouds shifted from thin gray to heavy, blue, threatened rain. He took shelter under a bus stop and waited out the storm. They were exposed to the wind, but able to keep dry. Shintaro feed banana flavored wafers to Niko who gummed at them and cooed over the food. They were out of water, so he set out the poncho to collect rain. He was able to strain a few ounces through a sock and they split the water. His upper lip had cracked the day before, and the water burned when it hit it, but he relished the drink anyways. Niko sucked down her water and let out a burp. He thought her eyes said: more. But that was the default of humans anyways: more, more.

The rain let off and they moved east. At least they had enough water for the day.

He was crossing a street when bone clatter and a dust plume from a couple blocks over froze Shintaro in place. He looked for shelter, a place to wait and watch the intersection, but there was none. Four strangers turned the corner of a large bone pile and stopped thirty paces away. Shintaro drew his truncheon and flicked the prod on. It crackled and popped. One stranger called out: “We’re not looking for trouble.” His voice was deep and tense and his eyes were bloodshot. Two women and a child stood behind him.

There was another crash of bones and dust rose up behind them.

The four strangers fled from the piles as more and more began to domino against each other. Shintaro held up his nightstick. He shouted: “Stay back!” But the four made for him anyways, didn’t seem to hear him as the snap and crash of bones was deafening. Shintaro fled too, away from the collapsing piles. He pumped arms and legs, gulped air, tasted acid on his tongue, and didn’t look back. He felt his wind flagging and he crouched between a few rusty cars. He was in the shadow of a some old mom and pop store fronts. They were boarded up and covered in faded, pink and green graffiti like some apocryphal message in a foreign tongue. He coughed, spit up a wad of snot, and peered down the street he’d just fled. Shintaro didn’t see any movement. He waited, stared without flinching, and tried to slow his breathing through his nose. The man had seemed nice enough, but Shintaro didn’t trust anyone out here. He’d seen too many people turn on each other, too many strangers cut each others’ throats over canned goods. Groups were no good.

The street remained empty. Shintaro hummed and cooed to Niko to keep her quiet. But he began to cough and then Niko began to cry. Her wails grew louder and louder. He pulled Niko from his back and pleaded with her: “Shhhh, shhh, quiet now.” But she screamed all the louder. Shintaro dug through his pockets and found a gritty, pink pacifier. He popped it into her mouth and she began to suck with great joy. He turned back to the street and checked for movement. Still nothing. His breathing had calmed but he still had the taste of acid, the feeling that his muscles wouldn’t repeat the sprint. He remembered his last physical, two or three years before. Shintaro laughed to himself at the memory: His doctor had told him to lose weight. Lose weight. What an insane idea now.

Movement down the street. He set his backpack down with Niko and gripped the truncheon. He hated to separate from her, but he couldn’t fight with her on his back. The movement was only a blue wisp. Shintaro felt like his nerves were getting yo-yo’d. Exhausted, he reached down, said: “Come, Niko.” and shouldered her again. They moved down the street, careful not to make noise. He wasn’t sure if they were still heading east and checked their map, but it only showed downtown. They were off grid now. He pocketed the map as fire tinder for latter. Which direction had he run when the piles started collapsing? He thought northeast, but he couldn’t be sure.

He checked their backtrack again and made for a road that cut through rolling hills, curved along a dry river bed, and down into a small town. Shintaro crouched and stared at the town. He didn’t see any movement and would have preferred to skirt it but needed to find food. They were down to a couple days of formula and nothing for him.

Shintaro whispered to himself as they walked through a row of townhomes.

“…I will not despair.

I will not despair…”

The homes were identical brick, two story, and covered in gray ash. A couple had scorch marks along their roofs. Truncheon in hand, he tried a couple doors, found them locked, and went around the rear of the houses to find any low windows. They all had a ground level window at each base, but most were smashed out already. He sighed to himself and prepared for the houses to be cleaned out.

He crouched low in a window, careful not to hit Niko’s head, and turned his flashlight on. Two cars were parked, tarps over them, undisturbed. He walked over to one car, pulled the tarp up and searched for a gas cap. He didn’t see one on either side and realized it was an electric car.

Shintaro moved to the corner of the garage, climbed a flight of stairs, and tried the door which opened without issue. He flashed his beam around the kitchen: cabinets were tossed, trash along the counters, and the fridge was turned on its side. He stepped through and looked for a nursery. He went up a level, searched through a master bathroom, found a few bandaids and some toothpaste.

Light flashed on the bedroom windows and rumble of lightning shook them. Niko let out a whimper and he sang to her. Shintaro took his time in the next few rooms and found a sleeve toddler diapers in the back of a closet. They were too large for Niko, but he could find a way to cinch them on her. Under that, he found a box of sealed formula tins. He wiped away the dust from the box and began to weep. There were six tins — a month of milk. He hugged the box and was afraid to set it down, afraid it would be like the carnival that morning.

They camped in the kitchen that night. Thunder and wind rocked the house and he was grateful for shelter. He gave Niko a double ration that night and considered a third but didn’t want to make her sick. He cradled her in his arms as she slept. Her face relaxed and a line of drool crept down her check.

They curled up between a few old kitchen chair pillows and dozed off. He woke to pee in the middle of the night and the storm was still whirling outside. He lay back down and ignored his empty stomach.

He dreamt of a great world storm, the world storm. He stands, exposed without cover in an open field. The tornado bears down at him, all smoke, masonry, skyscrapers, towers, stone walls, monuments, metal girding, faces, ears, breasts, Japanese castles, clock faces, cables and ribbons — all whirl in horrible blue and black cloud. Worse, are the rolls of fat and oil which pour out from the world twister’s base, and Shintaro knows the people in the tornado are being squeezed. They are the old tourists, the world travelers, the frequent fliers, the people of the air, and now they are dead and spinning and mute within the storm. Shintaro knows they are coming for him, descending, crashing down towards him. The tornado moves and veers, spins, and makes a horrible wrenching sound, steel beams twisting and popping, stone crushing stone, bone snapping bone. He puts his hands over his ears to try and stop the sounds but it’s no use. He closes his eyes and wonders how long until the wind picks him up and the storm sends him flying. He knows he needs to run, to flee, to carry Niko, but he’s done, has no strength left. And, where would he go? This is the world storm, the all-storm.