Going Away

I am not afraid.

I whisper it to myself over and over again, as if, through repetition, I might make it come true. I never think long enough about it to see if it’s finally worked.

When you start developing the signs, they come for you. And you happily go along with them – quietly, because, on the off chance you have family left, you don’t want them to see what you’ll become. I know this song and dance quite well – for ten years now, I’ve been the gentle voice that comforts them, that helps them figure out their plans, that listens as their families reminisce about someone who will never come back.

And now, it’s happening to me. I’m going Away.

For each person, it’s different – the gods – whichever ones you believe in, if you do – have a variety of punishments to cycle through, and they are ever inventive. I’m hardening, my skin ripping itself out to make way for something gray and cold to the touch, a kind of granite. My heartbeat grows slower every day, winding down like one of those ancient clocks. Still, it’s not the worst I’ve seen. I shouldn’t be this afraid, not when, compared to others I’ve seen, the gods have been merciful to me.

I once saw someone who was beginning to grow a whole new face – a gaping mouth of pearly white teeth, long-lashed blue eyes, the vestigial beginnings of a cauliflower ear. The problem was, the face was growing on their stomach – and the muscles of their chest, unused to controlling a mouth, meant they could never really keep food down. Their face – the real one, the first one – sagged, missing the weight it once had, dwindled down into nothing.

You can never tell when it will strike you, the contagion our ancestors left behind, when they fought each other, when they decided they were willing to destroy the world – obliterate everyone else in their way – if it meant some of them got to win. Even after the terrible cloud faded, even after survivors grieved and rejoiced in equal measure, they found it was still there – a curse, lingering in the soil and groundwater, in the blood of some who thought they’d gotten out alright. It spreads about us still in the air, the rain, the food we grow, through families and children. For most of us, it’s only a matter of time. If a parent goes Away, you know you will too, given enough time. The contagion rewrites you on the most basic level, and, if you have children, it will rewrite them too.

I’m the first one in my family to have to go Away, and as much as I’ve coached other families through their relatives going Away, I couldn’t bear having to tell mine. Thankfully, I’ve been training Janine, and she’s more than capable – even if I thought my retirement was a ways off.

There she is now. Standing in the doorway of the room I can no longer leave – my feet were some of the first parts of me to turn to stone – she waits for me to signal her forward.

“Come in.” The muscles of my mouth are already tightening – but I can still manage short, slurred bursts of speech.

“Good morning, Lynn.” She smiles, and, though she’s not particularly beautiful, seeing her face – her perfectly ordinary, freckled face – makes me ache for what I used to look like. Not that I’ve seen a mirror since I’ve been here – no one is that cruel – but I know from the tightening in my forehead – how I can no longer move my eyebrows properly – that my old face is starting to go.

“I hope you’re doing well today.” She switched to that from asking how I was a couple days ago, when she realized I wasn’t much of a talker anymore, couldn’t tell her if I was in pain or not. Hearing is the last sense that goes, I told her before, so talk to the people going Away for as long as you can, even if they can’t respond. She’s doing well. I never knew I was preparing her to talk to me one day, but she’s doing well.

If I could, I’d smile at her, let her know my pride for her in this moment. I never had children of my own, and her accomplishments are the closest thing to a child’s that I can celebrate.

“I don’t think I’ll read you all the news today. It’s kind of depressing – but then, I think you probably thought it might be, anyhow.”

That was something that survived the old world – written news. The survivors – when they were still alive – used to say things about screens that held all the information you could ever hope to find – if you entered the right words, that is. A pocket prophet in your hand – though some apparently were bigger, lap-sized, and others bigger still. But that all ended with the terrible cloud, like so many other things.

“I did think you should know, though..." Janine carries on,

“They’ve decided it’s time it ended.”

Ah. I thought this might happen.

No more children. They’ve asked all of us in Haven what we think of that, and more and more, the numbers have come back in favor. No more children. An end to us all. What do you expect, when everything is so fragile? When flesh rewrites and reconstructs itself in more than half the people left, when parents and children need to be sent Away more often than not, what about a family is solid? No. The children who have already been born will be our last.

I don’t know if there were other survivors – at least, outside our Haven. The only way anyone leaves is to go Away – in the deserts outside, a quiet wasteland, for all we know – where, depending on how the contagion shapes you, you either start a new life, or end it altogether.

For me, that may be about the same thing. I get the feeling I’m destined to become a statue – though maybe that’s generous. A rock formation – a funerary cairn to myself - might be more realistic. My face may not be recognizable by the time I’m done transforming. Maybe it already isn’t.

I’ll still be wearing the locket though. I’ve worn it – with its little gold chain and delicate heart – ever since I was ten, when my mother passed it on to me, a heirloom from before the poison cloud. That will identify me – to anyone who cares to look, if there is anyone left in the wasteland.

Even if there isn’t anyone alive beyond Haven, some believe in beings from other worlds who watch us from the stars. Some of our ancestors thought they’d come and save us after the poison cloud, but by now, we’re all pretty sure they’re just watching, if they’re there at all. Still, if they come to Earth eventually, they might find what’s left of me – a hunk of granite, with golden chain and heart embedded inside.

In the heart on the locket, there’s a piece of paper with the names of the women in my family, from the first survivor all the way to my own name. Everyone who’s ever owned the locket, at least, since the world went to hell.

If I were someone else, I’d want to ask myself how it feels, to be the last of a line, to know that after you, it all ends. But it doesn’t really matter now – not when the few children left will have to deal with this same odd, hollow feeling soon enough. Some of them – the ones who don’t go Away – may even write about it, though who they’ll write for is the real question. Maybe the beings from the stars, if they ever show up.

“Well.” Janine’s doing her best, but she’s made a basic mistake – she’s left me alone in silence too long. My thoughts – like that of any other person going Away – are not a kind place to be. She should have chattered, even if it was aimlessly, just to distract me, to keep me away from what’s going to happen, even for just a few moments.

“They’ve found a slot for your departure. Three days from now.”

Some people request not to be told when they’ll depart Haven. I thought it was better to know, better to get my mind in order. I didn’t expect the pang I feel in my chest now – however dull it is.

The appropriate thoughts are there, of course. Why me? Why me, when I’ve done nothing wrong? But there’s no rhyme or reason, at least, none that I can find. None that I found in all the years of counseling those going Away, none that I can apply to my own going Away. Nothing at all.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” Janine makes her way to the door. I want to cry out for her not to go, to stay, please stay with me – but the hardened side of myself knows that nothing she can do will help this. She may as well go. I’m alone, and I’ll have to grow used to that.

She turns and smiles – a sad, exhausted grin – before she shuts the door behind her. Hinges shudder as the door closes, and, under these flickering lights, I know I have heard the sound of my end.