maggie - patrick sean lee

8/12/2019 Maggie - Patrick Sean Lee

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Patrick Sean Lee

Maggie

To the children.


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AGGIE

omewhere outside New York City, July 7, 2014.

he sky is white-hot blue again this morning. Not the cooling blue

ave always known. Blue with a searing reddish perimeter, like a hrenched upside down and ripped inside out. The heart that was

orld is dying, and soon enough the rest of the body will follow in

ake.

aggie and I have made it to the outskirts of New York, or what is

it, yet I don!t think we!ll be able to go any farther east. No do

veryone this side of the Rockies has tried to get here. It was stupi

e. I should have headed out of Omaha and made for San Francis

ut I!m certain the same thing has happened there. Los Angeles, Sego, Seattleanywhere there is, or at least was, a harbor wit

oat. Yet, had I done that I would not have happened upon this chi

he once-magnificent Big Apple bears little resemblance to the gr

d center of culture it was just three short months ago when all ell started. Nothing does. But the trees I!ve seen along the way

hat seem to strike me the most; dead already in the heat. Our lov

ms, stately oaks and cottonwoodsmere ghosts, now. The gr

verywhere has withered. The highways have become like heaoils on a stove, jammed with abandoned cars and trucks that expl

hen the gasoline in the tanks ignites. Cities like Chicago, Clevela

nd Buffalo stand without movement except for the few who

mained on their streets to parade around in sack cloth carry

oomsday signs, or roam like rabid dogs cornering anything weakewindling number of animals that aren!t yet lying dead beneath b

ut bushes stagger aimlessly, their ribs showing and their tong


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anging out. The once mighty Great Lakes have shrunk like ro

uit, the shorelines almost lost in the shimmering distance. We

ead east, but it is a fruitless journey.

ur lovely planet has stopped rotating.

o one knows precisely why, but we all know that it happened. ose lucky enough to still be connected 4-G, we know that phy

as turned upside down. We know that the spinning slowed, and topped entirely. We haven!t been told why. The leading physic

on!t know why. It couldn!t happen, they said, but it did. The wes

emisphere is facing the sun; the eastern is in continual darkness.

urn, they freeze, and all of us watch as the Atlantic rises. We won

ow long it will take until the Pacific is a gigantic graveyard of deand. Will the Atlantic and Indian Oceans attempt to fill in the void?

ne is certain. Wild storms arise over the Atlantic as the earth tries

gain its balance. Did we cause this catastrophe? No one is cert

o one is certain of anything except that we will all perish, li

ooner rather than later.

e continue on in the direction of darkness and the only hope

alvation, like animals driven by instinct. I!d rather freeze to death t

el my blood begin to boil inside my veins. Who wouldn!t? And soock toward the sea, all of us, there only to be caught in a net. If

eat doesn!t kill us, the crazed search for food and water will. We

l each other in the war to get these two things alone. We will

ach other to find a boat or a log so that we can leave this contintime, those left will need no particular reason at all to kill.

aybe north.

aggie cries. She wants her Moomy, but her moomy is dead. I h

o idea about her father or her brothers. Dead too, I imagine, ea


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y dogs or those who are starving and have no humanness lef

em. Had I left her there outside Chicago two weeks ago,

aggie would be no more. I couldn!t do it, and though it is diffinough for me to find a scrap of bread or a thimble-full of wate

annot abandon her to certain death. One of these animals will r

er and then eat her. Such is the insanity and depravity that

fected us. I!ve seen it.

aggie tells me she is six years old. She!s black, and very pretty

ght ringlets of velvet hair, eyes the color of jet, and soft, inte

atures. She attended school and liked reading, spelling and rece

ut cared little for arithmetic, she said. She and her family lived

ghrise tenementI took it to be one, though she didn!t use the w

nement, just home. Two long months after the anomaly, her fatnd two brothers told Maggie and her mother to stay put; keep

oor locked, that they!d return with food and water. Two more we

assed and they failed to come back. Her mother took her handesperation, then, and left. They made it one hundred-fifty miles a

aving wandered through South Chicago for days looking for

ther and brothers. I found her the morning after her mother diead to pull her kicking and screaming away from the body, but I kn

hat would happen if I left her behind.

You!ll see her again someday, Maggie, but right now we have to k

ou safe, I said to her once her screaming subsided a few miles do

e highway. She didn!t answer. Of course she couldn!t underst

ny of this horror. What six year-old could? How could anyone?

ill, by the time we reached the outskirts of Toledo she began to tr

e a little and open up. I told her that I!d been a schoolteacher, th

o liked spelling and reading, but not so much recess as I was afthe monkey bars on the playground, and the terrifying prospec

turning to the schoolhouse to face arithmetic when the bell rang

st she smiled up at me with those sparkling coal eyes.


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*

e!ve taken to hiding at night under a vicious blue sky that abbed hold of the ravaged planet so that even the stars have

rever. There is no beauty left in the heavens, only an

reboding. The roads are unsafe, littered with the dead and neead; the roving bands, and so when this never-ending hike

xhausted us we detour into the fields that were planted with core spring. None of it has been harvested, nor will it ever be. Like

e other fields, this one we are in stretches over the cracked ea

th tall brown stalks that catch the hot winds and whisper furthe

eath. Still, it is safe here, safer at least than beside the road or in the farmhouses.

have devised a shelter to protect us from the searing rays of the

ut of a blanket we found outside Newark three days ago. Mag

athered up four light, thin branches with Ys on one end from onee dead trees near the road, and we sharpened the other to push

e soil at four pointsfar enough apart to carry the blanket. Withis crude shelter we would be forced to find an abandoned build

nd the dangers lurking within. I don!t know how the Bedouins s

ool, dressing as they do, sleeping in tents. Ours is stifling, but at lee!ve created a semblance of darkness. She will sleep soon, I ho

ut I will not.

aggie is lying close to me, cradled in my arm. She!s frightenede occasional shriek or scream far in the distance. I try to com

er.

Have you ever heard the story of Rapunzel?

Oh yes! I saw it on TV. I liked Maximus best, she says.


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Maximus? Who is that? I search my memories of the fairytale fo

haracter named Maximus, but draw a blank. Another shriek pier

e gloom, and then a muffled explosion from somewhere far aw

aggie seems not to notice either, now.

lynn!s horse!

Who is Flynn? Whatever fairytale she is referring to seems to h

nly a girl named Rapunzel in common with the Grimm classic I inking of. Maggie cuddles closer and tells me the story. The mo

ersion is something like the land we traverse, desperately wanting

ater, devoid of the life it once had. I!m happy she is calm here in

otted field, unafraid for the moment, but I am listening with my o

ar for any sound, watching with both eyes.

ound a pistol tucked into the waistband of a dead man last week.

ad no use for it any longer. There are two bullets in the clip. One

aggie, one for me if it comes to it. God help us.

omorrow we will continue north.

*

roll over and awaken to the harsh glint of sunlight through

ttered stalks visible at the open end of our tent. Maggie is not bes

e. I panic and rip the pistol from the waistband at my back and

utside, which makes the dead corn shucks crackle like an aleneath my body. I listen, focusing every bit of my dwindling eneto my ears. Nothing. It!s deathly silent. The rows of yellowed pla

retch straight to my right and my left for as far as I can see. Wh

rection should I go, I wonder? Did she simply wake up while I s

nd wander off in search of something to drink or eat? Ororw

ecame of her? Should I call out her name? But no. If I do


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omeone has her

ush to the right down the crust of earth between the stalks as qus I can, my pistol pointed straight ahead. The sound of my fee

eafening, thougha stampede of cattle would be quieter. I

othing, hear nothing. Perhaps I should call?

move more rapidly, slamming through the dead stalks, now,ough I were a beast in the jungle trying to evade a predator. Bu

ave a weapon. If someone has her I won!t hesitate to kill him.

Maggie! Maggie! I finally yell. The words fall from my mouth

ough I!ve screamed them into a pillow. I stop. Listen intently, fro

r a moment. Listening.

othing.

*

n hour has passed. I!ve made a wide circle through the field, andack to our ragged home. I curse myself for having fallen aslee

urse whoever has her. The state of this land. The sun. The silenyself.

here is a farmhouse a few miles back in the direction we came f

esterday. I!ll go there. Perhaps she was simply hungry and thi

nough to have wandered off alone in search of something to eaink. The farmhouse is where I would go if I were a child. Ma

he!s safe, sitting cross-legged on the floor in its kitchen, strugglin

pen an overlooked can of beans, or beets, or fruit cocktail. God, g

e this one wish; that she!s there and safe.

*


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he county road runs straight as an arrow; north and south twe

ards or so in front of the white clapboard house. The heat has ba

e paint and turned it whiter still, purifying it, perhaps, for the Sec

oming. It hits me that maybe that is what this terrible upheaval isbout. Maybe God isn!t dead after all. The ridgeline of the dark gr

of sags, and ribbons of thermal air rise from it like ghosts, and

ndowsthose that aren!t brokenare dark. There is an old ump behind the house with a long gray spout and gently curv

andle. My impulse is to run to it, but I check my stepthe weobably dry anyway. The back door is ajar, standing forlornly bene

e lean-to porch atop the four-staired stoop. I have the pistol dra

nd walk through the dust toward it, watching for any movement in

hadows of the interior. The weathered wooden steps creak with eep, and even with the gun I am frightened. I!m just a dam

choolteacher for God!s sake.

he kitchen is a disaster. It looks like the storms of Africa h

heeled through with a new fury, driven by demons. Every sinensil is on the floor, the cupboards are open, the doors ripped

eir hinges. Paper crumpled and spotted black litters the floor. mell of urine and excrement is heavy. Broken chairs that once sea

family lay haphazardly. I pass over all of it and walk cautiously do

e hallway, stopping to peer into an equally devastated bathroomarlor with more destruction, the living room. All devoid of life.

econd floor rooms are the same, only hotter. Maggie is not here,

o I return to the main floor.

he barn and an outbuilding stand fifty yards away at the rear, in f

a picket fence that has toppled into the dust and tumbleweeds

e like leggy buttresses. The small outbuilding is empty, save a

es of non-essential tools and odds and ends no one wanted w

ey scoured the shelves. I leave it.

s I cross the short distance to the barn, one door moves slightl


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e searing breeze. I can hear the sun; the crackling of it. Its de

nell. I enter quietly and adjust my eyes to the near darkness, listen

r a moment, but the only sound I hear is my heart hammering. Sh

ere, she must be, gagged and terrified. A thick post to my r

fords protection, and I move quickly behind it. If he or they she worst that will happen will be a non-lethal wound. And then t

ll dieat least two of them.

Maggie!

o response. No gunfire. I call again. No response.

am from the city and have never seen the inside of a real barn. T

ne erases my image of a bucolic home for horses. It once houome kind of animal, though; there are several stalls on the left of

acked concrete main walkway. Piles of hay, useless as food

arving humans. On the right are stacks of weathered wood o

caffold-like platform, a few rusted tools hanging from large n

iven into the posts. A dented barrel with what looks like a s

himney piercing the top. No need for a stove any longer. In time itumble into more dust.

Maggie, I whisper. Are you a foolish question I cut short as I wown the walkway. Ten minutes later I have turned every strand

ay over looking for my sweet, innocent child. She is not here. Th

e no hidden trap doors, no concealed spaces in the walls or raft

am near to tears. At the rear of the building, however, there ieavy door, padlocked shut from the outside. Frustration and desove me to somehow open it, even though hope of finding her a

as faded.

en minutes and a frantic search for a hammer or crowbar fin

wards me. The end of the crowbar nearly yanked hold of my e


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noring the pangs in my stomach. There is nothing here, and s

acktrack and search again, wishing for a full magazine of bullets w

hich to kill anything and everything I pray I !ll stumble onto. I

ecoming them. Where have they taken her?

*

week has passed, and I have abandoned hope of finding the o

ing left of my miserable life. I cannot bring myself to dwell on ecious Maggie!s fate. Perhaps she is alive somewhere, but

ospect is fraught with doubt. God damn this world.

am in Canada, now, a land singed and beaten by the merciless o less than any I have seen behind me, and I !ve coursed thro

ova Scotia to Cape Breton where the angry sea batters the co

hose clever or lucky or unfortunate enough to survive mill thro

e ravaged streets, or lay hopeless in doorways. Faces reflect

ngst that is written in despair in vacant eyes. I ride through tidst, hoping one last time to see my child, but I expect no miracle

ark stands ahead, overlooking the sea, and in it is a lighthouse. ere and drop the bike near the cobbled walkway leading to

ntrance, and then amble around it to the seaward side. What d

xpect to see far out in the gray-azure swells that follow one anotward this end of land? An ark? A spirit rushing like a tidal wave w

scuing arms extended to me?

see my death in the waves that smash into the rocks below me.

sit defeated with my back against the red-painted brick of the si

eacon. My pistol has two bullets. I!ll only need one, and so I withd

e weapon from my waistband, and ask Maggie for forgiveness.


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ext: (c) Patrick Sean Lee, 2011

l rights reserved.

ublication Date: December 2nd 2011

tp://www.bookrix.com/-felixthecat

maggie - patrick sean lee

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