The Sound of Morning Glory

Zoe owned two hard cases, one for her tenor saxophone and the other for her prosthetic limb. At first, she’d made do with a single case: after all, she only stowed away the artificial leg to play music or to sleep. Zoe, like most saxophonists, had preferred playing her instrument standing up. It’d been the first thing she tried after her release from the rehab clinic. Zoe quickly found out that the new leg kicked and bucked with a life of its own as soon as she became immersed in the music. The involuntary nagging motion bothered her so much she eventually needed to stop in mid-song. She returned to the clinic, carrying the saxophone in its blue case, and proceeded to explain and demonstrate the problem. The physician removed the prosthetic appendage and probed the electrodes implanted on Zoe’s stump. He looked puzzled, and explained that the electronic controller had performed accurately in each of the tests. Two weeks and three specialists later, Zoe gave up on standing while playing. Once seated, she opted to put the leg away in order to avoid knocking down the music stand, the speaker and anything else in the vicinity. She also did it to remain inconspicuous, as she realized her random onstage kicking would be distracting not only to herself but also to the audience—more so than the sight of an amputee. People were used to missing body parts by now, but they still found the uncontrolled jerking of an artificial leg unsettling.

The sound of the piano tiptoed into the darkness, shy at first, followed by a dim light that expanded in steady increments. Soon, the pianist, the bass player, the saxophonist and the singer stood within the confines of spotlights, encased by tubes of brightness that abducted their voices up into the microphones that hung from the ceiling and carried the sound across the theater. Through half-closed eyes, Zoe could see that the theater was full. Heads stood still or leaned towards one another in a mesh of dull grey and the occasional flare given off by a pair of glasses. She wondered where all those people came from. She wondered briefly, though, because her mind was soon reverberating with the notes that emanated from her instrument. The air streamed over her tongue with precision and her diaphragm control was impeccable during the vibratos. Her throat hummed and growled into the mouthpiece held halfway in her mouth, producing complex harmonies in counterpoint to the lead singer’s vocals. She suspected that someone would have bothered to keep her alive even if she’d been a mediocre sax player.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said.

Zoe was almost done fitting the artificial leg back on. She looked up and recognized the face. Grey eyes looking out of dark skin. He still wore his hair cropped close to his scalp. “I thought you’d moved to Mexico.”

“I did. But I read on one of those airplane magazines that my long-lost friend was alive and playing the Orpheum tonight, so I transferred to another plane and here we are.”

“How long are you staying?”

“A month, maybe.”

“What about the soggy weather? You used to hate it.”

“Oh, I do, I do.”

“So, are you chasing Canadian skirts then?”

“Hardly. My last wife stole half my fortune.”

“You got married?”

“Twice.”

They went as back as high school. After graduation, they’d traveled across tens of Third World countries at the expense of Ivan’s dad, until the day he tried to smuggle cocaine into Malaysia and was caught by the local authorities. Ivan would have been sentenced to hang, but Zoe had interceded. She’d tried to explain how unleashing the wrath of Ivan’s drug-lord father by killing his only son wasn’t a good idea, but the officials dealing with them were low-ranked and not interested in anything she had to say. They dismissed her with boisterous laughter. She tried contacting Ivan's father, but she couldn't get a hold of him. That's when Zoe began to realize how unprepared they'd been to deal with such situations on their own. But she also became aware that she could barter and trade with the one currency still at her disposal. And so she decided to climb her way up the chain of command by dispensing sexual favors. Her body was always with her, her body wouldn't let her down. Eventually, she’d gone to bed with someone who had enough sense and power to run a check on Ivan’s family. To Zoe’s relief, they’d been promptly released with a warning to never return to that country. Ivan couldn’t look her in the eye after that, no matter how many times Zoe had told him it was okay on their flight back to Canada. She’d made her own choices. She would do it all over again to help him out. Wouldn’t he have done the same for her? They should be grateful they were alive. They should smarten up, yes, but leave regret and shame locked up in those damp cells and hotel rooms they’d paid so dearly to check out off. Back home, Zoe found a six-figure deposit had been made to her checking account. But she couldn’t find Ivan anymore than she could get a good night’s sleep.

“When was that? Fifty years ago?” Zoe teased, trying to push away the nausea stirring in her gut.

"Last time I checked, I was still looking forward to my thirty-ninth birthday." Ivan said. “We aren't old enough for fifty. Try more like fifteen.”

“Wow, really that long, huh? Boy, we were young. You cleaned up well.”

“You too. Zoe. Remember when I used to say you’d end up driving one of my dad’s trailers, cheering up drunks on every trucker’s stop along the Trans-Canada Highway with your jazzy sassy tunes?”

“Well, it’s still a tempting offer. I’m as good a driver as ever, they did a good job with this one,” she patted the prosthetic limb. “Did you pay for it, too?”

Ivan looked away, scratching the back of his head. “Um…”

“Don’t worry. I won’t let the world know you’re a fairy godfather. Someone might try to steal you. But then again, I wouldn't really notice until it was too late," Zoe said, trying not to sound too reproachful.

“Weren’t you going somewhere?”

Yes, Zoe had to meet up with her girlfriend. She asked Ivan to come along. The Netherlander Cafe was only four blocks away. She let Ivan carry the sax case. His bodyguards followed them, staying a few steps behind. He had changed. Zoe remembered a time when Ivan had enjoyed trotting around unnoticed. Not that their group drew much attention now. Abandoned cars doomed to rust away had been parked on sidewalks that led into empty office buildings and uninhabited condo towers. The air inside The Netherlander reeked of pot, hash and various incenses. Zoe approached a young woman slumped over one of the booths.

“Hey, honey, sorry I’m late,” Zoe said.

“No worries, I’m in good company,” she gestured at the smoke rising from her joint. “I see you are as well.”

“Yes, this is Ivan. Ivan, Alberta.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, extending his hand. So far so good, Zoe thought, but then Ivan added the dreaded question, “Alberta, as in the province?”

“Yeah, as in the province.” Alberta was quick to reply,“Pleased to meet you, Ivan the Terrible.”

“As in the terrible czar of Russia?” He laughed.

“Exactly.”

“Sorry, you must get the province thing a lot.”

“Only since elementary school,” Alberta said and smiled.

Alberta seldom smiled. On that note, Zoe concluded they’d all get along fine and so invited Ivan to their place for dinner. On the way home, Zoe felt nostalgic thinking how there were no more elementary schools left. No child under twelve had survived the initial outbreak. The rare babies being born these days were malformed and none made it past the first month. All the elementary and middle-grade teachers left alive had lost their jobs without hope of getting them back soon, if ever. That meant no more Geography classes would be taught. People had concentrated in British Columbia and Vancouver was increasingly being referred to as Canada-Central. Soon, Alberta, the province, would be forgotten. Zoe hoped Alberta, the woman she loved, would live on.

Ivan drove them home in his white Mercedes, which was faithfully followed by the bodyguards’ identical car. Automobiles weren’t being manufactured anymore, nor did they mean much, as people could rightfully drive whichever car they managed to find the keys for and enough gas to run it on. Driving a Mercedes wasn’t a status symbol, either; it only suggested you’d been pickier than your neighbors.

Zoe and Alberta lived in Vancouver’s East Side. With so many vacant properties up for grabs, they’d chosen a small, energy-efficient house surrounded by a vegetable patch. Solar panels on the roof stored electricity on clear days and a traditional diesel-powered generator could be run when the sky was overcast.

They parked and the trio entered the house. The bodyguards didn’t even step out of their car. Ivan took a case of red wine out of the trunk. Alberta excused herself for a moment to pick the vegetables they’d need for dinner, while Zoe invited Ivan into the kitchen. Zoe noticed the Made in Mexico stamp on the box. The wine was of the Nebbiolo variety, her favorite.

“How is it down there?” she asked.

“In Mexico? Hot,” Ivan said.

“I mean, are there many people—?”

“Dead? Dying? Yeah, both. It’s no worse than here, though. Lovely weather. You two could come and visit, see how you like it.”

Zoe shook her head. "Ivan, you didn’t even return my emails. The only thing that told me you were still alive was the money that kept showing up on my bank statement, the extra buffets delivered to my doorstep, the fancy leg. Now you appear out of nowhere and want me and my partner to move in with you? Are you serious?”

“It’s just a thought. I had things to work out.”

“Really? You, you had things to work out. And I was in the way, is that it?”

“I’m sorry. I am. Please, Zoe, just let me—”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Ivan said.

“Make it up to me?”

“Maybe.”

Zoe's eyes locked in with his and she saw tears. He still had those helpless-puppy eyes. She sighed. “Well, you can start by pouring me some of that wine you brought.”

Alberta took her time harvesting the lettuce and tomatoes for salad and pasta. It was already getting dark outside by the time she served dinner. They ate and got drunk on anecdotes and wine, Alberta more so than Zoe, as usual. Ivan more than both of them. Zoe couldn’t remember whether it was usual for him or not; it’d been so long since they’d last shared a drink. They each had their addictions, for sure. How ironic that the drugs meant to kill them off slowly had saved their lives, Zoe often thought; she had to laugh out loud if only because it didn't make much sense. Junkies in charge of cities and countries, junkies running the entire planet. Junkies taking care of one another, wanting to survive because they were what was left of humankind. Cocaine and pot had been Alberta’s saviors. Zoe’s, her preferred blend of mild opiates and red wine, the occasional joint. Ivan’s, crack and speed and all of the above. Research at the lab—yes, physicians and chemical engineers were just as prone as every other functional member of every other profession to become addicted to illegal substances and thus outlive the initial outbreak—had found a correlation between a high tolerance to certain drugs and an immune advantage over the virus.

Zoe had reached her wine and conversation limit by ten o’clock that night. She stood up, holding on to the table for balance. She opened one of the cupboards and produced the antiviral buffet packs. She arranged pills on the counter, two red, one blue, one white, two green, one yellow, one white. She repeated the sequence two more times, ending up with three separate piles. She swallowed her share one by one, drinking from the jug of water she’d filtered and boiled earlier. She poured two glasses and set them on the table before Alberta and Ivan, along with their respective piles of pills.

“Don’t forget to take those.” Zoe kissed Alberta on the lips and Ivan on the forehead. “Good night, kids,” she said and left them.

She knew what was coming, the waves of serene pleasure the buffet brought to her body and mind. She didn’t need her opiates anymore. She had the pills instead. Two red, one blue, one white, two green, one yellow, one white, Zoe sang to herself. She closed the bedroom door. The walls muffled Ivan and Alberta’s drunken laughter down to a pleasant drone that hushed Zoe to sleep like a lullaby. In her dreams, she was walking across a field covered with shiny pebbles—some felt hard under her bare feet, some felt squishy. She bent down to pick one up and, in the way of dreams, Zoe didn’t even notice that both of her legs were bone, flesh and skin. She focused on the pebbles instead, held them up for close examination. They turned out to be chocolate Easter Eggs wrapped in rainbow tinfoil. Zoe peeled off wrappers and ate one egg after another, feeling her body lift off the ground with each ovoid that melted in her mouth. Eventually, she was floating too high to reach down for more chocolate. Zoe didn’t know how to maneuver in the air, so she relaxed into the slight bobbing stillness and stared at the colorful field for the rest of the dream.

Zoe woke up to darkness. She felt the space around her with extended arms. Empty. Only her own body weighing down on the mattress. She sat on the edge of the bed and fell off when she tried to stand up, the memory of the dream so fresh in her mind she’d forgotten about her missing leg. The pain of ghost limbs struck her beyond the stump, where a knee had once been, a knee and a calf and ankle with a foot and wriggling toes attached—now detached. Zoe turned on the flashlight she kept in a bedside drawer and illuminated the stump. She sat on the floor, retrieved the prosthetic appendage from its case and fastened it on, stood up and then walked into the living room.

Alberta’s naked body was stretched out on the couch, face up. Her chest expanded and contracted with each breath. Zoe wondered where Ivan had slept. She checked the spare bedroom, the washroom, the kitchen and finally went out into the lawn. There he was, sitting on a rock, his back hunched in, face tucked under folded arms.

“What are you doing out here?” Zoe asked.

“Waiting for you.”

“Why not inside?”

“I just wanted to say goodbye.”

“Aren’t you staying for breakfast?”

“Can’t. I’m sorry,” Ivan said.

“Got early appointments or what?”

“Alberta and I—”

“Had sex last night.”

“Did she—”

“No, she’s not up yet, but it figures.”

“I can’t be around you without messing up, can I? I’m always doing careless things and you end up hurt.”

"There are so very few things, so few good people left in this world that if I have anything that’s worth sharing with you and Alberta, I’m happy to do so.”

“I just thought… In the old days you would have kicked the hell out of me if I even attempted to flirt with your girlfriends.”

“Ivan?”

“Yeah?”

“These aren’t the old days anymore.” She rested her hand on Ivan’s shoulder. He stood up and hugged her. Zoe held on to him, as if by that very action they could push through the years they’d spent away from each other and arrive at a present together and whole. A present where the world wasn’t falling apart around them limb by limb. They walked back inside the house, holding each other the way they used to. “And I can almost bet my other leg that Alberta was the one who started it. Oh, don’t look so surprised. These may not be the old days, but you’re still you and Alberta will always be Alberta.”

It didn’t look like her girlfriend was going to wake up any time soon. Zoe rolled Alberta over so her body rested on its side, rather than belly up. Just in case, Zoe thought. She knew just how much alcohol that woman could stomach. She went into the kitchen and fixed breakfast. Nothing fancy, poached eggs and blueberry jam on toast.

“I didn’t see any hens out there,” Ivan said.

“We trade with a neighbor down the block. Do those guys out there ever eat?”

“We should be heading back to the hotel. I need to shower and stuff. What are you doing later on?”

“I’ve got practice. Hey, how about you come around after you do your thing and keep an eye on Alberta until I return?”
Zoe gave him a spare key and showed him how to work the alarms before walking Ivan to his car. He smiled, ducked into the vehicle and shut the door.

“See you around,” she said. She turned back into the house to retrieve her instrument.

Zoe carried the familiar weight of the blue case along down Main Street. She stopped by Science World and rested on a bench, watching the sky turn into the electric blue of northern mornings. She took out the saxophone and set it by her side. She detached the artificial limb from her body and placed it in the empty case without bothering to close it. She scratched the naked stump. It itched from the long walk.

Zoe shaped her lips to the mouthpiece and played Kern and Mercer’s "I’m Old Fashioned", followed by John Coltrane’s "My Favorite Things" and Morphine’s short "Dawna." She was about to continue with Charlie Parker’s "Bird Gets The Worm" when she noticed a man standing dangerously close. Her right hand instinctively withdrew from the instrument and groped in her coat pocket for the gun. Shit, Zoe thought. She’d left it at home. She would have to play cool and hope for the best.

“Donn le iee ineruu iou,” the stranger said.

“Sorry?” Zoe asked.

“Keee laiee.” The man mimicked the motion of playing the sax by wiggling his fingers in the air.

Don’t let me interrupt you, keep playing, was the message Zoe managed to reconstruct in her brain. The man came closer. She could see him clearly now. His face unsettled her even more than the proximity. It’d been a while since she’d seen someone who’d experienced a breakout around the head who lived to walk the streets. Those cases usually died within a couple days, tops. His nose had collapsed part-way into his left cheekbone. His lips had been consumed, leaving teeth exposed in a grimace of the death that would follow.

“Keee laiee,” he insisted.

This time, Zoe saw how the horrible mouth struggled to articulate each of those horrible sounds. She didn’t want to look at or listen to him anymore. She turned back to her instrument and played the first thing that came to her mind, which turned out to be Mitch Leigh’s "The Impossible Dream" and a careless act. Perhaps she’d chosen the sappy song because it reminded Zoe of her childhood, the way her mother used to sing the entire Man of La Mancha musical at full volume and off key during road tips. The stranger sobbed, then the sobs escalated to guttural cries. Zoe thought that maybe his mother had also sang that song around the house when he was a kid. She began to feel really, really sorry for the man when he snatched the prosthetic leg from the open case and ran away with it.
He had moved unexpectedly, with unsuspected speed. Zoe was slow to react. After all, the song was digging up pleasant memories of a much more pleasant time and Zoe had hoped to get to the end of it without interruption. Keee laiee. What could she do, anyway? She should have remembered not to leave home without the nine-millimeter handgun. If she’d had it with her now, she could stop playing and shoot the man above the kneecap to prevent him from getting too far. Then, she’d drag herself all the way to his sick and agonizing body, retrieve her other leg and leave the stranger to bleed and crawl in pain. As it was, Zoe could only weep in impotence, so she exhaled the final note and did just that. After a while, she managed to calm down.

The giant silver ball that had once welcomed long-gone children and served to display the wonders of the Science World reminded Zoe of the tinfoil-wrapped chocolate eggs in her dream. Seagulls flew around, occasionally landing on rocks to pluck at oysters. She’d been right, these weren’t the old days anymore, although sometimes they could fool her into thinking otherwise. And who was she kidding? Of course she didn’t have a gun on her. Alberta was the one who always carried their protection. Alberta wanted to survive. Alberta was the one who still entertained hopes of having children one day. Zoe was the one who kept looking for exit doors and dark alleys. Even now, she could see the four-letter sign flashing red in her mind. Exit. Zoe had no hope —another four-letter word. But she had music. And music these days is as good as hope, she thought in spite of herself.

A new melody began to whisper and hum in Zoe’s memory, a melody of mornings, of glory and stories. Tell me stories, it whispered, stories of cold, stories of old. She couldn’t remember the words for any tales, so she told them in the language her blood knew so well. She adjusted the neck-strap and kissed the mouthpiece before she wrapped her lips around her teeth and pressed down on it. The song that vibrated and resonated through the brass horn of the saxophone and into the air rolled like the sea and smelled of salt. It embodied a moment of peace to feel the wind and the heat of summer resting on her skin. There is a rhythm that flows between all of us, she thought, all those who are survivors and those of us who aren’t just there yet. She could feel it, a rhythm connecting everything that is lost and gained in the process of living and dying and somehow managing to remain.

Zoe began to calculate entry paths and exit wounds, matching the trajectories of the notes to each of the faces fading in and out of her mind now that she'd closed her eyes against the bright sunlight. The sobbing stranger was a survivor, he would probably sell the prosthetic limb and buy himself one more week of antiviral buffet. Alberta was a survivor, she’d be up by now, making breakfast-for-one while she listened to those dreadful punk tunes she so loved to dance to. Ivan was a survivor, he would show up at their doorstep and startle Alberta by letting himself in. Ivan would take care of Alberta if Zoe decided she didn’t feel like crawling all the way back home. He’d make sure Alberta took her pills and showered at least twice a week. They would find a way to stay alive without her until someone came up with a cure. Junkies taking care of one another and Zoe stranded alone among the ruins, getting ready to give up. She missed her mother and her father, she missed her sister and her brother, she missed each and every one of her dead. She couldn’t see the point of holding on to a world that was going to hell. Zoe, you are such a drama queen, she thought. Still, the melody she played that morning sounded as sweet as slumber, yet as light and as loud as the seagulls above.