Infinite Echoes

On what could very well be one of Earth’s last Saturdays, Etta Elizabeth McCranie packed a picnic basket for two. It wasn’t much to be sure, just what she’d been savin’ up by way of canned goods. Whole tomatoes and stale saltine crackers. A block of Velveeta cheese, its ubiquitous orange color never seeming to go off no matter how many years passed them by. Her second-to-last pouch of shelf-stable milk. And her personal pride, a sleeve of lemon Biscotti cookies she’d sealed up in her mother’s vintage FoodSaver before it all went to shit back in ‘35.

She pulled her old bathrobe tighter around her as she padded down the hall to wake her teenager. Pausing in the doorway, Etta took a moment to gaze at her sleeping son. Marshall was seventeen, but she could just about swear that in sleep’s embrace, with his face all soft and angelic, auburn bangs all mussed over his left eye, he looked just like the baby she remembered.

She shook him gently by the shoulder.

“Marshall…wake up. It’s time we get on.”

He opened one eye and pushed his hair out of his face, blinking in the light his mother had flicked on.

“Alright, alright Mama, I’m awake.”

“Now don’t drift back to sleep, son. We’re going to have us a good day today.”

Etta left him to his stretching and yawning and went back to the kitchen to boil water for two packets of instant coffee, the one thing there seemed to be plenty of in the apocalypse. She wasn’t sure if it was because instant coffee was truly so foul tasting that just about everybody had switched over to the government-manufactured caffeine pills, or if it was because so few people were drinking that crap back before all the coffee bean plants dried up that there was just a massive surplus. But Etta didn’t care about the taste. There was something comforting, something regular about her morning cup of joe that kept her emptying those instant packets into her old thermos every morning.

Marshall had picked up the habit from her young, even before he went into the Environmental Restoration Corps. at fourteen. But ever since he’d been pulling those long shifts on waterway cleanup, the caffeine boost had become more of an essential need to get through the workday versus a comforting morning ritual he shared with his mother.

“Coffee ready?”

Marshall still looked sleepy as he plopped down in one of the mismatched kitchen chairs and reached for his thermos. Etta tried not to let her eyes go all misty as she passed him one of the bland meal bars and watched him scarf it down. There was hardly room for sentimentality in this world, and if she started boo-hooing now, she might never stop and Marshall might never get on the off-planet ship, and then it would all be for nothing. She put on her bravest face.

“Weather’s looking ok this morning. Let’s get a move on before we lose the day,” she said as she grabbed the picnic basket and headed for the front door.

In better times, back when she was younger than Marshall is now, there had been keys to grab and a truck to drive, and then once gasoline became too highly regulated to drive, there was the horse her daddy and her brothers had ridden to help manage the cattle on the farm, but then there was no more hay for farm animals, little grass for grazing, and even the drinkable water had to be carefully managed. So now there aren’t any cows and there isn’t a horse and long story short, Etta had been hoofing it on foot since long before Marshall was born and cars and horses and cows were things he had only ever seen pictures of.

9 a.m. and it was already hotter than the devil’s pepper patch outside. Etta was just thankful it was dry enough to go out. In recent months, the superstorms had really been ramping up and a day huddled in their old root cellar, long out of use for much more than a few old canned goods and ancient preserves, would have certainly thrown a wrench into her picnic plans.

As they walked down the dusty path on the family land, Etta pointed out landmarks and spots her own mama and daddy had told her about as a girl. This fork in the path right here is where your grandfather proposed marriage to your grandmother. And that old fenceline over yonder is where I saw my first calf birthed, one of the last calves we had before ‘55 hit. This spot, this used to be a pond, your Uncle Durham and I would spend every summer down here just splashin’ and carrying on.

Marshall listened attentively, though he had heard many of these same stories before. He knew that his mother had secured a spot for him on an off-planet transport with the last of her good jewelry, though he didn’t quite know how and didn’t want to ask. Rationally speaking, he knew this might be the last day he ever spent with his mom, had heard the talking heads on their antique Walkman radio speculating on how many months, weeks, days the people on Earth had left before its final ecological collapse.

But at just seventeen, he preferred not to dwell on the morbid and immutable. He couldn’t dwell on the fact that this time tomorrow, he’d be hugging the most important person in his life goodbye before setting off for the VoltTrans conveyor stop in front of the boarded-up First Farmers Bank downtown, where a government vehicle would pick him up for the first leg of his journey to a brand new life as a Martian agricultural specialist. Something he hoped his experience in the Corps had prepared him adequately for, but he suspected his mother had vastly oversold his qualifications in order to get him off-planet.

Marshall didn’t express any of these thoughts or concerns. Instead he pointed to a thick, mangled tree at the top of a ridge, one he had noticed before on their trips to the family property, but never bothered asking about because it always seemed just a hair’s breadth from death whenever they visited.

“What about that tree up there? The real ugly one that always looks like it’s fixin’ to dry up and fall over? Is there anything special about that?”

Etta linked her arm through Marshall’s, and they walked towards the tree together, breathing heavily in the dry heat as they reached the top of the ridge. Etta plopped down in the dust at the tree’s bulbous base and Marshall followed, eagerly reaching into the picnic provisions after their long walk.

“Your four times great-grandfather planted this tree when he bought the farm, just about a hundred years ago. He’s buried down in this ground you know. A lot of our folks are,” Etta began as Marshall settled in for a story.

“But why’s it all weird with lumps and branches pointing every which way?” Marshall interrupted as he opened the vacuum seal on the lemon cookies.

“Your Papa McCranie was a hard man, Marshall. He was a boy in the Great Depression. You remember that one from our home schooling? It was an economic crisis - people used money back then, and there wasn’t enough of it to go around. Families had to make do with less than what they were used to for several years.”

Marshall scoffed.

“Doesn’t sound that bad to me. Making do with less, we’re basically experts on that.”

Etta tried, and failed, not to chuckle.

“You’re right, of course. But at the time, it was one of the worst things to ever happen to folks. Papa McCranie’s daddy just up and left them one night. A wife and seven kids, and they never heard from him again. Our grandfather was the second-oldest son, and when he was old enough, he joined the Navy. It was sort of like our militias, but with boats. Huge boats. And then a world war broke out. And Papa McCranie was right in the middle of it.”

“Like my dad in The Great Singularity War?”

“Sort of like that. Anyway, Papa McCranie was a survivor. He survived an entire war, and then he had to make his living. He was a hard worker in the cotton factories upriver, but he wanted something different. Something more. So he went into the moonshinin’ business.”

Marshall dropped the third cookie he was about to shove into his mouth. Etta peered at him, momentarily forgetting her story.

“Now what do you know about ‘shine, son?”

“Nothing,” Marshall stammered, trying his best to look completely trustworthy. Etta shook her head, surprised.

“If we have time today, you’ll have to tell me how you snuck strong drink behind your old mama’s back,” Etta said, her tone reproachful, but her eyes amused.

Marshall's cheeks flushed with embarrassment as he tried to hide a sheepish grin. He knew his mother could always see through him.

"You're just like your Papa McCranie," Etta continued, nostalgic. "Always curious, always trying to find a way to carve your path in this world. But remember, while our ancestor had his moonshinin' days, we're in a different time now. You've got to be careful with the choices you make. You’ve got a whole new set of challenges ahead of you. Enough distractions though,” Etta said, steering their talk back to the family lore. “Once your four times great-grandfather saved up enough from his illicit liquor operation, he could buy the family a place to call our own. And the first thing he did was plant a McCranie tree. This very tree that still survives today. It’s big and it’s ugly and it’s been struck by lightning at least two dozen times. Even split down the middle from one of those strikes when I was a little girl. Pretty sure it’s caught fire a time or two. It’s been sick with all manner of lesions and pests. But it just keeps growing. Keeps reaching towards the sky.”

Marshall nodded, taking in the significance of the tree and the story behind it. He grabbed his mother’s hand, something he had not done voluntarily since he was very small.

“I love you, Ma,” he muttered thickly, cookies, and cheese and crackers forgotten. “Thank you for sharing that story.”

Etta squeezed his hand and patted his knee as they looked out over the property. The weight of the impending separation from her son was heavy on her heart. But she had to be strong.

"I love you too, Marshall," she replied, her voice choked with emotion. "Never forget where you come from. Your roots are here, in this land, in this family. You come from a long line of survivors. And no matter how far you travel, you will always have a home in my heart."

They finished their meager picnic in quiet contemplation. In its own way, the sun casting its too-hot glow across the now-barren land they had called their own for generations was beautiful. Sad and beautiful and fleeting. Etta knew that tomorrow would be the most painful day of her life, saying goodbye to her only child. But as she sat with him underneath the gnarled family tree, she was hopeful that Marshall would find his place among the stars, just like their ancestors had found their place on Earth.

***

Submitted for the Mythmaker Challenge

Author's Note: Etta's tale of the McCranie family tree is an amalgamation of several close-to-true family stories that I imagine descendants might pass on in a speculative future. The tree pictured does actually stand on a family farm outside of Augusta, Georgia. This short story is meant as a contemplative exploration of the past and a hopeful projection of the possibilities that lie ahead...a future in which I believe the human spirit will persevere even in an uncertain world.