Missed part 1 of this short story? Read it here.
As they left, they checked out with the tall, pale desk guards just outside the tent. These were Sam and Samuel, a woman and man who both smiled and waved at Cola, but gave Yin nothing more than a cursory nod. To them, Yin was just another being in the masses. But Cola had been asking them to go outside since she was very young, and so knew Sam and Samuel very well. They’d even let her go out onto the paths before she was technically old enough, but this was their little secret. She hadn’t even told Yin much about that.
Besides, because of her lineage, Cola knew that she could get away with a little more than the rest. For one thing, she could last longer in the dust than anyone else. Some mutation of the lungs, Grandma had said. And this put her in the front running for something like The Outgoing, which would test her further on those sorts of things.
Yin didn’t share her lineage, but as it was he never complained or coughed, and had good control of his breathing. And he had always processed water better than her, besides. It’s because you’re so worried all the time, he would say to her. You waste more water that way.
Cola smiled at the thought and shielded her eyes from the over-bright grey of the sky as they walked down the marked paths to The Lake. They walked past the other tents, passed many others they knew and didn’t along the way, and yet they kept their heads mostly down and were silent, as they both concentrated on slowing their breathing down to almost a standstill.
For speaking was out of the question on the paths. The dust could rise at any moment and smother you, if you didn’t know how to watch for it. And in certain places – though the paths did their best to skirt these – the air was completely dead, and you couldn’t breathe at all for risk of dying.
But Cola and Yin and the rest noticed none of this, for it was their normal. So when they reached The Lake and descended into its depths, they continued on with their conversation as if nothing had happened since.
“You better not mess it up for me,” Cola said seriously as they stepped down into the cavern that would lead them to the main hall.
“I wouldn’t!” whispered Yin, mock-offended and clutching his chest. Then he calmed down and spoke normally.
“But seriously, I wouldn’t.” Cola looked up at Yin and thanked him with her eyes. She had made him promise her this many times. He was too clumsy, and his clumsiness often made her clumsy. As soon as The Outgoing started, they would have to be apart if she wanted to do well.
But for now, together still, they stepped out of the long tunnel and into a giant, underground atrium – the Main Hall of The Lake.
Here, many gathered at tables, lounge chairs, on the floor, all of them bathed in the wash of blue light that danced all over faces and walls in little ripples. It glanced along in mesmerizing patterns, catching Cola’s eye this way and that. She had often gotten lost or distracted by this light, which was said to mimic the feeling of being underwater. And she felt calmed by it, too. For in the Main Hall everyone’s voice took on a gentleness that didn’t exist in the tents. As if when they entered the sacred place, like a temple, most only thought high thoughts and spoke wisely, calmly, softly there.
Through the din, Yin and Cola found themselves a small table and chairs on the other side of the huge Hall, where more of the people their age liked to hang out. They waved to a few friends, who waved back but didn’t move to join them, which was normal. Yin sank into his chair, and readjusted himself until he was sitting almost upside down, slouched and looking at the roof. Cola shook her head, and though she did it more primly, she also relaxed into her chair and looked up to watch the blue light for a while.
“You think you’ll come back here, after?” asked Yin quietly. This was a conversation he and Cola had had many times before. She knew exactly what she would say, and exactly what he would say, but they went through the motions anyway.
“Yes, I’ll come back,” she thought aloud. “There’s so much to be done here. I want to help.”
“And you’ll be good at it, too,” Yin said before continuing after a quiet pause. “But I’m not going to come back.”
“Where do you think you’ll go?” Cola asked, following the lines of one blue ripple until it got completely lost amid another.
“Who knows? Wherever they put me, I don’t mind. As long as it’s new. And different. And exciting. Things are too normal around here for me. And if they put me on exploration…”
“…then you’ll get to see–” Cola interjected.
“Beyond the colonies!” Yin finished with a quiet excitement to him. Then he shifted in his chair to look at Cola directly. “Will you ever come to visit me?”
“Probably not,” she said, smirking and not looking at him. She had always known there would be a day when they wouldn’t be friends any longer. Or at least, couldn’t see each other anymore. They both knew it, and had accepted it.
Or so she thought.
Yin was quiet again. He breathed deeply. The soft sounds of young folks laughing talking singing nearby settled them lower into their chairs. Then he said,
“You’re my only family, you know.”
Cola sat up a bit and looked hard at Yin, wondering if this was another joke. But his face was serious. This was different than what they’d talked about in the past, and she heard a shaking in his voice she’d never heard before.
“Huh?” she asked softly.
“Well you are,” he said a little more stubbornly this time, and without looking at her.
“You’re just nervous,” replied Cola, though she wanted to say something nicer; something else. But she couldn’t think of anything else, and just sat in the silence with him a while longer.
“Yeah. Just nerves. Probably.” He smiled and looked at her again in his old way, as if nothing had changed. “Because it’s all so close now, isn’t it?”
“Just a few weeks now,” Cola said, back to the old script. But she said it without her usual enthusiasm. Something in her felt flat. As if someone had poked a hole in her and let all the air out. She looked at Yin, and then at the room all around her.
She could never leave this place; could never leave Grandma.
She had always known she would come back home.
But it was true, wasn’t it? That things would be very different without Yin.
This is a short story in progress from my working short story collection called “THIRST: Stories from a Post-Water World”.
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Jessica Barratt 