Survivor Song(12)
Natalie says, “Maybe I should drive.”
“Dammit. Sorry, sorry.” Ramola shifts into drive and the SUV lunges forward. The vehicle is bulky and unwieldy in comparison to her nimble little compact, but she manages to guide it through the lot and onto Neponset Street. There are no other vehicles on the usually busy road. The Honey Dew Donuts, rows of small businesses, and the residences lining or facing the street are darkened and appear to be empty.
“How are you feeling?”
“Just peachy.” Natalie holds her swathed left arm atop her belly.
Ramola pulls the seat belt across herself and buckles it. “Right. Yes. What I mean to ask—”
Natalie says, “I’m sorry. I’m just so scared. Thank you for being here, taking me to the hospital, thank you . . .” She trails off, stares out her window, shaking her head and wiping away tears with her right hand.
Ramola has the urge to reach out and pat Natalie’s shoulder or thigh, but she keeps both hands on the steering wheel. “Of course I’m here for you, and I will be here for you all day.” The sentiment is as odd and awkward as it sounds.
Ahead, the traffic light at Chapman Street turns red. Ramola eases off the accelerator and Natalie says, “Tell me you’re not stopping.”
“I’m not. Only making sure it’s safe to pass through.” Once she’s confident there are no cars approaching from their right, she speeds through the three-way intersection. Ramola chances a look away from the road at Natalie, hoping for a comment if not a joke. Natalie continues to stare out the passenger window.
Ramola asks, “Do you have a headache, or any body aches aside from your arm, of course? Any flu-like symptoms?”
“I have a headache and my throat hurts, but I’ve been yelling and crying nonstop.”
“Are you feeling nauseous? Do you feel feverish?”
“No. No. I feel like shit, but—I don’t know—it doesn’t feel like the ‘flu’ shit. I’m beat-up, and I’m probably just dehydrated.” She adjusts her sitting position, turning her legs toward Ramola, and rubs her belly with her right hand.
“When we get to the hospital, what’re they going to do?”
“You’ll be examined and given the rabies vaccination.”
“They have a new vaccine for this already?”
“They have rabies vaccine but it’s not a new one.”
“Is it safe for the baby?”
“I think it is safe, but I have to admit I don’t know for sure if there are any associated fetal side effects.”
“I want to fucking live, so it doesn’t matter. That’s not true, of course it matters. But I don’t want to die for the—Jesus, that’s so awful of me to say, isn’t it?” Natalie rubs her right hand over her belly.
“No, of course not, and I’ll make sure they do everything they can for you both.”
The SUV crosses over the I-95 overpass. Below, the six north and southbound lanes are void of traffic. Ramola cranes her neck in both directions hoping to see cars but there aren’t any. It’s as though everyone has disappeared. A fleeting thought presents as a whispered question, a question not necessarily in search of an answer but instead posed to underscore disbelief at a suddenly unassailable truth: Is this the end?
Post-college, Natalie and Ramola roomed together in Providence for two years, during which time Natalie tended bar and seemingly read (consumed would be a more accurate verb, here) every YA novel featuring one apocalypse or another. On nights that Ramola visited Natalie at work, the two of them would playfully engage in animated and, judging by the attention of the surrounding bar patrons, entertaining debate about the end of everything. Natalie insisted that civilization was as fragile as a house of cards; remove one and it all will come tumbling down. All systems fail, and she claimed with the air of authority reserved for professors emeritus and bartenders, there was a theorem, one named after a famous mathematician (often, much to the mouthful-of-beverage-spitting delight of Ramola, Natalie casually named the theorem after Ian Malcolm, the fictitious mathematician from the book and film Jurassic Park), which proved as more “safeguards” are built into a system, it is not only more likely the system will fail, but, in fact, the system will inevitably fail. Her go-to example was a confusing amalgam of America’s nuclear weapons systems, including the codes within the president’s nuclear football, and the 1983 USSR nuclear false-alarm incident. Ramola opened her rebuttal by admitting humans were fragile little things as individuals, but civilization itself was hardy and resilient. Short of an asteroid or all-out nuclear war, she argued, societies have survived and would continue to survive all manner of calamity. Ramola pointed to countless countries/societies (both modern and ancient) that had suffered horrific natural disasters, catastrophic wars, collapsed economies, and/or dissolved governments whose citizens adapted and persevered. Ramola punctuated her rejoinder with a raised glass and a purposefully cheeky “Life finds a way.”
The sprawling, empty highway below them is not the marker or portent of the end of everything. Ramola chastises herself for briefly indulging in the paralyzing enormity and hopelessness of apocalypse. It’s natural to be scared, of course, but she cannot allow herself to be ruled by fear, which is the source and fountain of irrationality and poor decisions.
Ramola asks, “Do you know at what time, approximately, you were bitten?”