Motivation
Clements ripped open another book, desperate to find her answers. She’d been at the Nunatta all afternoon – pouring through whatever text she could find on math in search of an equation she’d been taught years ago. Her mother told her that getting off the planet’s surface was the only way the human species was going to survive, something Clements believed wholeheartedly. At the height of the parasite, an infected person could stand at one end of a shopping mall and the disease could spread far and fast enough to kill someone on the other end in under an hour.
“Carve this information into your mind, Imani” her mother would say, standing at a chalkboard and rapidly scrawling equations out faster than Clements could copy them down. When she was younger she was certain her hand might fall off after a day of particularly taxing lessons.
Now she wished her mother was still around – those raving tangents on mathematic principles might contain an answer she was looking for. Who was she kidding? Clements didn’t just miss her mother’s lectures. She missed her stiff compliments and awkward hugs. Apprehensive and uncertain, her mother still filled the emotional niche that every child needed. Her husband Jordan filled that void in some ways, but there were days that Clements craved the complex intimacy involved in the deep dive of scientific pursuit. Hell, she couldn’t be intimate with Jordan when in public, and they had to be oh so careful even in private.
Clements realized that she had been rereading the same paragraph four times over while having this internal sidebar. She attempted to refocus, but soon concluded that the current book – a deep dive on the geometry of complex numbers – didn’t even come close to the type of information she needed.
“Shit” she muttered to herself, slamming the book shut.
“Shit!” Repeated a voice from behind a nearby shelf. Clements jolted upright and saw child’s face staring back at her through a space between the books. The child, very young and clearly out of place, smiled at her through the shelves and started laughing.
Double shit. Clements thought to herself. Teaching a child foul language could land her in some serious hot water with her superiors. She quickly stood up from the table stacked high with books and almost collapsed; she underestimated the effect that sitting still for several hours had on her legs. Clements yelped, but caught herself before letting more colorful expletives fly in the proximity of an impressionable child. She staggered over to the book shelf and looked through the spaces.
Sure enough, a small girl stood on the other side, grasping on to the book shelf for support with a chubby hand and looking up at Clements with bright, curious eyes. Clements was sure the girl couldn’t have been more than five years old, but then again, she was horrible at guessing ages – and when was the last time she interacted with a child at any age.
“Hi there, sweetheart.” Clements cooed, quickly walking around the shelf and kneeling before the girl before she could escape. What was a toddler doing in the library by herself? It was a relatively nice day out, something rare for the town, and anyone with nowhere better to be was out sunning themselves and enjoying the brief break from the cold. The girl reached out her arms and made a grasping motion with her hands – the eternal signal for pick me up.
Clements complied with the girl’s request and heaved her up. The extra strain didn’t help her legs which were just starting to wake up after their afternoon nap. They creaked and groaned as Clements slowly made her way from the decrepit back corner of the library towards the main area with more people.
“What’s your name?” Clements asked.
“Sarah.” The girl responded, with half as much enthusiasm as she had used to repeat curse words just a minute prior. Clements racked her brain and attempted to recall if she knew the child’s family. She had certainly seen the girl at nights of story telling during past winters, but the names and faces of any relatives didn’t come to mind. To be fair, she always tried to keep as far away from everyone else as possible, as did her husband Jordan. They weren’t explicitly barred from community events, especially with how accepted their lifestyle had become in recent years, but they both shared the opinion of not pushing their luck when it came to ‘acceptance’.
“How old are you, Sarah?” She asked. Sarah held up four fingers and Clements quietly rejoiced that she hadn’t grown so disconnected that she was no longer able to even ballpark age. She reached the main area of the library. The help desk was unoccupied, but then again it usually was. Unsurprisingly, the entire building appeared to be completely vacant. Clements headed for the front door, deciding to bring the child to the medical center and ask for help there. As she opened the creaky front door to the building, she was struck with the realization that the old books reeked of mildew. She quickly shut the door behind her, as if she was trying to contain the horrid rotting smell to just the one building.
As she made her way down the metallic stairs outside, noting every hearty ting that each step made due to the extra weight, she heard a man shouting in the distant. A knowing feeling grew in her heart, and she set off in the direction of the noise. As she drew near, the loud, hearty voice became intelligible, calling the child’s name over and over. Clements rounded the far corner of the Nunatta and came face to face with a grizzled old man dressed in military gear.
“Sarah darling, don’t run off like that!” The man chided, reaching towards her. Clements happily transferred her into his waiting embrace. The girl was still smiling, completely unaware of the trouble she had caused.
“I found a scientist, grandad.” the girl proclaimed, “Now we can get the medicines for mommy.” The man’s face twisted into an uncomfortable grimace, he smiled awkwardly at Clements and took a few steps back. Clements cleared her throat before speaking to ensure that her voice sounded right.
“You need medicine?” She inquired. He shrugged sheepishly, an action that contradicted his hardened exterior.
“Not medicine, food pills.” He explained, “Sarah’s mother was sick and needed a bit more nourishment to get by… so we had to dip into our rations. Regardless, thank you for finding her, we’ll be on our way.” He chuckled nervously and began to walk back towards the barracks. Sarah looked at Clements and waved emphatically. Clements ran towards the pair and slipped the extra pills she kept handy into Sarah’s tiny hand.
“Thank you, mister scientist!” Sarah called as Clements slowly headed back towards the library, but the appreciation fell on deaf ears. Revivified and with new motivation, Clements returned to her little corner of the library, now even more certain that the only way anyone was going to survive this was by leaving.
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This vignette does a number of things very well, the first being the writing style used. It was very fluid, really keeping my attention throughout the entire scene. The author also did a very good job at establishing the apocalypse right off the bat. Paragraph one outlines the tragedy with the sentence “At the height of the parasite, an infected person could stand at one end of a shopping mall and the disease could spread far and fast enough to kill someone on the other end in under an hour.” The author also did a good job establishing Clement’s relationship with her mother. You can very easily tell how much she misses her and how large of an impact she had on Clement’s current scenario, especially in paragraph three. The biggest part that I felt needed more work was the actual worldbuilding. You get a taste of what the apocalypse was like, but you have no idea when it happened, or where the character is beyond the “Nunatta.” Another important thing that I felt got lost was the fact that Clements is masquerading as a man. It took until the last paragraph, when the child called her “mister scientist” that the notion even crossed my mind. It also cleared up the confusion I had about her husband Jordan and why they had to be careful. Introducing this information earlier might help solidify the reader’s views on the character earlier. There were also a few word choices that I felt could have been chosen better, such as when the little girl raised her arms to be picked up. I think the word you may have been looking for was “universal signal” and not “eternal signal.” Another tiny grammar thing I picked up on was after dialogue, if you are planning on continuing the sentence with descriptions or “he said, she said, etc.” the dialogue should end in a comma, not a period, and the rest of the sentence following shouldn’t start with a capital letter. Small thing, just something I noticed.