The Earth is Red with Clay
I have always loved the Georgia red clay. Its bright red color is warming and familiar, the texture almost soft. I love where you find it. In places that have been dug up, scarred. It is only evident after the ground has been torn up and thrown into itself. I like how it stains everything it touches. It paints my clothes, my skin. It cannot help making its mark on the world. With the Reconstruction in full swing, it seems to be showing up more often, as I ride my bicycle down the cracked asphalt, in the lot across the street from my house.
It’s nice seeing the world red for a different reason.
…
“Dandy!” I cry, “Get up! Anne and Light will be here soon to take us to the Reconstruction site, and unless you want to muddy your last pair of pajamas, I suggest you move it!” I tiptoe down the stairs, careful for splinters and the crack on the seventh step. I hear a muffled “Okay” from Dandy up the stairs behind me, before I take a left through the dining room into the kitchen. Reaching into the cabinet hanging by a thread on the wall, I try to find two of the least chipped bowls for breakfast. Neither of them look pretty, both etched with lots of cracks and ragged edges, but they will suit the task of holding a small portion of oatmeal this morning. Sun filters in through the broken glass above the rusted sink, the sunrise almost blinding me as I whip up some oatmeal from the packets that the runner left for us last night. Dandy trudges into the room just as I set her breakfast on the table. As she sits down to her meager meal, I notice how her blonde hair sticks out in every direction from her head and how her smock is scrunched up around her waist.
“Now Ms. Dandy Lion, how on earth do expect to work in the Reconstruction site looking like that?” I inquire. She just frowns at me as I reach over and slowly comb her hair out so that it rests nicely right below her ears, and pull down her dress.
“I made you breakfast.” I nudge, “I know it’s still just cold oatmeal, but it’s still better than what we were eating during the Apocalypse, right?” Dandy doesn’t say anything, just picks at the peeling paint on the table. There is quite a large gap missing from where she sits. I grab my oatmeal and sit at the table across from her. There is no sound except the clinking of dirty spoons on cracked bowls. The light shining through the window, gives everything a delicate glow. It’s so different sitting at this table now than it was just a few weeks ago. Eating oatmeal, rather than moldy bread and grass. Basking in the sunrise rather than the stormy shadows. It's all different now. Now that the looters and thieves are locked away. That the tremors and storms have stopped. The monsters are gone. After seven long years, the Apocalypse has ended in no more than a couple of weeks. Safety had come so suddenly.
There is a knocking at the door. I jump up from my seat and dart to the front of the house, quickly tying back my dirty red hair. The cracked wood almost falls off its hinges as I swing it open. There standing as expected is Anne Archy, the tall and lanky brunette girl, and Light Ning, the scrawny Asian boy to her left. “Georgia!” Anne shouts, rushing at me with a hug. I hug her back, and give Light one as well. “Are you ready to go?” she asks.
I nod my head yes, and grab Dandy and my lunch sacks from the front steps. “Dandy! We’re leaving!” I holler back. Dandy plods up behind me, a frown still creasing her face. I grab my bicycle tied to a post I think was once part of a front porch, and hop on, perching Dandy on the little seat behind me. The four of us ride off towards our destinations, leaving the little dilapidated house in our wake.
“So Georgia, where are you and Dandy stationed today?” Anne asks once we finally make it out of the neighborhoods.
“The Tinkerwood neighborhood housing reconstruction, just like every other day this week.” Housing reconstruction is starting to get really old. Everyday it’s just bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar. “What about you?”
“Nursery and Daycare duty. Somebody’s got to look after all those orphans.” She replies, with a half-smile on her face. Humor is much darker these days. “Light said that he’s headed to the factory to work on kitchenware.” Light, who is riding a few feet ahead of us, turns around and smiles. For a mute, Anne and I are never at a lack of what he is thinking.
“Oh! Hey, Light! While you’re at the factory today, can you see if you can snatch me a couple new bowls? The ones I have left over from the Apocalypse are barely holding together.” I request as I pedal faster to catch up with him. Light just nods his head in reply, before suddenly veering off to the right, down the street that leads to the big factory at the edge of town. Anne turns down the street to the left, waving goodbye as she heads to the nursery. I can start to see the Tinkerwood Reconstruction site looming in the distance. As Dandy and I come up on it, I notice many people have already arrived and gotten to work. I quickly lift Dandy off of the bicycle, and let it flop onto the pile of other parked bicycles. Grabbing our hard hats and safety vests from shack right outside the work site, I try to make an assessment of the workers here today. Most of them are teen-aged children like me. At seven years old, Dandy is probably the youngest one here. If there are any adults working, they are wearing the white vests of the Commanders, supervising while the rest of us work. Never picking up a nail or hammer; just watching and waiting for one of us to get hurt. Being an adult is special; we don’t have very many of those around anymore and most aren’t expected to live that long. But those that stopped the Apocalypse and started the Reconstruction said they would change that. That we could all live long and happy lives with mothers and fathers and toddlers running through green grass and sunshine and happy memories. While I don’t doubt for a minute that they will keep their promises, I am starting to wonder when we will get all of those nice things. Because while Dandy and I have made a good team through the whole Apocalypse, I’m sick of trying to be an adult when I’m not one.
Dandy and I take the little trolley- which is no more than pedal powered wooden boxes- down to our stop, lot 12. Most of the other lots already have constructed houses on them, all straight and new, without any peeling paint or concave sides. But there are thirty lots at the Tinkerwood site, and the neighborhood won’t be open to the new home owners until they are all finished. Dandy waves at the trolley boy as he pedals away. She gets to be the water girl again for the day, and she runs over to her little pail and cup, resting by the rusty hand pump. Now that the house on this lot is almost done, I have grass duty, getting to plant the seeds so that grass can one day grow in the lawn like it once did. I grab a bag of grass seed and start to drag the hand plow over to the back corner where I will start planting, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“Ms. Georgia Clay?” The voice is a grown man’s, an adult. I turn around to see who it is. I have never seen this man at any of the other Reconstruction sites this week, but he is wearing one of the Commanders white vests. Even so, he’s different from all the adults I’ve seen recently; he’s much cleaner and put together. “I am here from Headquarters, taking a census in order to assist in the Reconstruction.” It makes sense now. Headquarters is as close to a capital as we can get these days. It really is a miracle, its creation and all. The locals came together and basically built the entire city in days. Now they live in the lap of luxury, waiting for the rest of us to catch up. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions before you start work?”
I have no objections. “Sure,” I reply, tossing my bag of grass seed down at my feet.
He takes out a clipboard and a pen. “What is your full name?”
“It’s just Georgia Clay, but that’s not my original name. I had a different name before the Apocalypse, but I can’t remember what it was.”
He jots down my answer and continues his questionnaire. “Age?”
“Sixteen, I think.”
“Any illness or birth defects that you know of?”
“Me? None, fit as a fiddle, sir.” I see a smile pinch the corner of his lip.
“What neighborhood do you live in?”
“Claytown; it’s scheduled for Demolition and Reconstruction in a couple weeks.”
“Is there anyone else living in your house with you?”
“One seven year old girl. Her name is Dandy Lion.”
His eyes dart up for just half a second to catch a glimpse of the scrawny little water girl tottering around the lot, spilling half of her water in her wake. “Is she related to you at all? Sister, cousin, niece…” I can’t tell if this is part of his census or if it is just his own curiosity.
“No. She’s just someone I met, a year or two into the Apocalypse.”
“Interesting…” His pen scratches wildly on his paper. I wonder what paper feels like. I have barely seen any in quite a long time. “Most people do not exhibit that much kindness.”
“She was an infant. I found her in a ditch in front of my house. Couldn’t just leave her.” The story was much more complicated than that, but I wasn’t about to bog him down with details.
The man clicks his pen, and tucks his clipboard under his arm. “That will be all for today, miss. Thank you for your time.” And without another word, he leaves. Doesn’t stop to question anyone else, just grabs the closest trolley and leaves. Strange.
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