Undone: A Dystopian Fiction Novel

Undone

By Chad Evercroft

We told people we went to Bloomington to start a new chapter of our lives, but the reality was, we just couldn’t afford to keep living in the old chapter. The East Coast had become too expensive and our wallets thinned out faster than the poor polar bear population that my mother lamented daily. Despite the flooding we frequently experienced as a result of that same climate change that killed off the polar bears, the reason we left the East Coast was not related. The economy was on the verge of collapse. Unemployment rates were through the roof. The price of food, water, gas, and electricity had reached record heights. As students, we only had time to take part-time jobs, and for those of us who had to reduce our class load for financial reasons, our lack of experience negated the benefit of free time.

When I first started school out in Boston, I was lucky enough to find a server job. I saved all my tips and lived with my friends, so I managed to build a little nest egg. When prices started to go up, I could no longer afford to save. My food budget for each week had shrunk as I struggled to pay tuition and any other bills that came my way. I knew it was time for a change. My roommates- Beth, Rick, Lawrence, and Tyrsa -were all in the same boat. Beth was considering a job as a webcam sex worker, where men paid to talk to her topless, just so she could pay for five more meals a week. Rick had been searching for a job all semester and ate only mashed potatoes, Mac ‘n Cheese, and hot dogs. Lawrence had recently been fired from his bike messenger gig. Tyrsa, the smartest of us all, wasn’t in any immediate trouble, but she hated the fact that she was building up loan interest. She was the one who suggested we transfer schools to a state where essentials cost less.

“But what about the art community? The future? I’ll be leaving behind all my connections!”

Beth was an artist and had spent an equal amount of going to shows and talking to local painters or designers as she did going to classes. She looked at Tyrsa with wide, shocked eyes over her coffee mug, as if Tyrsa had just asked her to join a doomsday cult.

“This isn’t permanent,” Tyrsa insisted. “Your connections will still be here! This is about survival. Right now, you barely have money for food let alone art supplies. And do you really want to take that webcam job? That’s not really going to help you get any better jobs outside of the porn field.”

Beth tipped her head, seeing Tyrsa’s point. She frowned into her mug, deep in thought.

Tyrsa turned to the rest of us. “What do you guys think?”

“I’m kinda worried about the culture, too,” Lawrence offered. “Is the Midwest really into custom bikes? I’m thinking long-term, when I’m trying to establish a business.”

“People ride bikes everywhere, Lawrence.”

“Well, duh. You know what I mean.”

“Like I said, this is about saving money. Survival. Are you really that worried about fitting in? Is that really the biggest issue right now?”

Lawrence loved Boston. He was born and bred there. He looked fondly out the coffee shop window at the street and passing strangers. He knew Tyrsa was right, though. Everyone’s priorities were different during these hard times.

“Bloomington is a college town,” Tyrsa reassured him. “There’ll be kids from all over. You’ll find your groove.”

She looked at me and Rick, the last to offer our opinion. We had little complaints regarding the plan. Rick had started school late and being 25, he welcomed a change of scenery. All he needed to be happy was a place to have a cold beer, a bed to sleep in, and lots of space to run. He was an athlete and dreamed of opening his own gym. He knew that could be done just about anywhere.

I had few ambitions. Survival was my top priority. If I could manage that and put a little money away for the future - whatever that would look like - I was on board.

Our families needed to be told. Rick, being a “real” adult, got away with just a simple phone call and well-wishers. Lawrence’s family, like him, were free spirits and applauded Lawrence’s willingness to start over in a totally new place with no real plans. Tyrsa’s family, which consisted of just a father and brother, were also pleased because it meant she would be closer to their family farm in northern Texas. Beth’s parents were arguably the most opposed to our plan, but not for logical reasons. They had once been quite wealthy but lost all their savings, including Beth’s tuition. Their anger was not truly directed at her, but at themselves for not being able to provide for her as they had expected. Beth kept her chin up and dried her tears.

“They’ll come around,” she told us. “They’re just sad that life hasn’t turned out the way they wanted.”

My mother was less clear about her response. Since I left home for school, she had become obsessed with tracking climate change and alternated between frantic, disorganized prepping and a stoic acceptance of the world’s impending destruction. It was concerning.

“Mom, I’m worried about you,” I would say on a nearly weekly basis. “Mrs. Bradley emailed me and said you stopped going to book club and aren’t answering her calls. Is everything ok?”

“Did you know it’s very likely that your children will live in a world without polar bears? Or certain kinds of penguins? We’re literally killing nature by driving our stupid gas-guzzlers and spewing filth up into the air."

It seemed like that was all she ever talked about. Pollution, droughts, storms...she started subscribing to iffy-looking newsletters and sending me email forwards with titles like “How to make any stick into a powerful weapon.” My weekly phone calls turned into every two weeks and I had to keep them short or else Mom would just keep talking. When I told her I was moving to Indiana, the first thing she said was, “That’s a safer area than the coast! You know, the coasts will be the first land masses to go when the sea level hits a certain point. There will be lots of floods and hurricanes in places not prepared for them.”

She reminded me of a sidewalk prophet holding a “The End Is Near” sign. She wasn’t actually wrong, though, which made trying to curb her obsession difficult. The sea
was
rising. Storms were becoming more violent and more frequent. I think what made me frustrated was that she didn’t seem to see what the real problem in the country was. The economy was floundering. We would all be facing bankruptcy and homelessness before the ocean gnawed away the coasts into oblivion. Sometimes I wanted to stop Mom - get her to be quiet - and shout, “I don’t have any money! Why are you spending your checks on prepping magazines and hail-proof glass when I’m dealing with five dollars for a gallon of milk?”

I didn’t necessarily want her to hand over her extra cash to me. I just wanted her to know that that was what was on my mind. Not polar bears or polar vortices. She was on one island and I was on another. We were on separate continents.

***

We moved in on a humid Monday after being crammed into two cars with all we owned. We used the money we had been saving for tuition on gas and other moving expenses, though with our few possessions, it really wasn’t as expensive as one would think. Sweat slicked my clothes to my body as I carried boxes up to the third floor. There were only two bedrooms, so us three men shared the largest one while Beth and Tyrsa took the second. We found a cheap bunk bed and a futon, which we drew straws for. If it seems odd that any of us would want the futon, it is because it was the only bed that was long enough for our frames. Lawrence drew the short straw and celebrated by snoring loudly that first night. To save money, the girls shared the one mattress we had tied to the roof of the car. They didn’t bother with a frame.

“What’s the point?” Beth said. “So we can sleep a few feet higher in the air?”

She played it like she was totally fine with just the mattress, but there’s nothing like a mattress in a bare room to remind you of your financial limitations. Beth had been born into relative wealth, before her father had been busted for fraud, and still had memories of the most expensive toys given out every birthday and Christmas. Seeing the contrast with her life now threatened her optimistic spirit, so she dressed up the room with her art projects for school - beautiful painted clay vases, charcoal drawings, and paintings. It gave the room a very artsy, Bohemian vibe.

For the living room, we were given a couch when we signed the rental papers for the apartment, so that took center stage. It was an old couch, but made comfortably soft through its years of use, and it was clean, which was more than any of us had expected. We had no TV, but instead used our laptops for entertainment, which we cared for like they were sick infants. If we wanted a movie night, we set a computer on a chair and all huddled around it in the dark with
fullscreen
on. Pretty soon we forgot what Nicolas Cage looked like in a size larger than nine-by-twelve.

The kitchen was quite small, with no dishwasher, but it did have an oven, stovetop, fridge, and microwave. We pretty much did all our eating from that kitchen, because eating out cost too much. We experimented with casseroles, ramen, canned veggies, and cornmeal to try and stretch out every meal as far as it would go. Dessert became a thing of the past, at least in the traditional sense. Because we knew we needed vitamin C if we wanted to avoid illness, fruit in syrup from cans became our main source of sugar. Sometimes I dreamed about sweets. Gushing chocolate lava cake, mountains of candy, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies...I would wake with drool spots on my pillow.

We all shared one bathroom, which was what we dreaded most about moving and living together. We had to literally make up a schedule so everyone could shower on a regular basis. I took an evening shift. Water was included in our rent, so having long, hot showers was one of our few luxuries. Most days I stood under the shower head with its one stream spout out, right by my left shoulder, and closed my eyes. The drain seemed to be eternally clogged with
something,
so I always stood up to ankle-deep in warm, soap-spiraled water. The world slowed to a manageable pace and there was just me, water, and the smell of cheap soap.

Our suite barely fit us five, even with our few possessions, but anywhere we had free space, we packed in emergency supplies. We had soup and cans of meat laid on their sides and pushed down under the couch, cases of water underneath beds, first aid kits in kitchen cupboards, and planks of wood piled up in closets, ready to be nailed against windows should the time come. Tyrsa was the one who got us started on prepping. Her father was one of those off-the-grid types who get shows on National Geographic and who is either mocked or viewed suspiciously as a possible psychopath with too many guns and even more paranoia. From what Tyrsa described though, her dad was neither psycho nor overly paranoid. He was a farmer who had seen enough storms and societal instability to know that the only person he could depend on in an emergency was himself.

“Think about the possibilities,” Tyrsa had said when she was convincing us to pool our limited funds for prepping. “The power goes out. We can either have some candles and flashlights, or have to sit around in the dark all evening. We get snowed in, or there’s a really bad thunderstorm. What are we going to eat? Whatever is in our cupboard, that’s what! What do we have now? Some cereal and potato chips? We’re not prepping for the apocalypse. It’s just for those not-so-uncommon situations where all the things we take for granted go away.”

Initially, hearing Tyrsa talk about prepping made me think of my mother. I was wary to go down that road, but as with all things, Tyrsa made it sound so reasonable. She had none of the panic or scatteredness Mom frequently exhibited, but instead laid out her plan in a simple, logical fashion. Tyrsa knew how to shop, so we only had to pitch in about five dollars apiece on that first trip. With twenty-five dollars, we bought rice, beans, water, and flashlight batteries. If we rationed everything according to Tyrsa’s instructions, we would each be taken care of for about 48 hours.

“Ideally, we keep building up the stockpile gradually to last longer,” Tyrsa explained. “Sometimes emergency situations last longer than two days, like when all those people in Detroit got their water cut off for weeks, even months, at a time.”

“We should have a change jar out,” Rick suggested. “And every two weeks or so, spend the collections on emergency shopping.”

We all agreed that was an excellent idea. We couldn’t buy much at a time, but again, Tyrsa implemented her skills and would find coupons and sales that helped reduce the bill. This was not my mother’s prepping. It made me feel in control instead of out of control. We were organized and prioritized supplies like water and food over unnecessary or fad items like powdered drinks, candy, or cheap weapons. I began to realize Mom’s ability to spend money somewhat freely hampered her judgment about what was essential or not. It helped me understand her a little better.

If you wonder how one person could convince a group to leave home for the middle of nowhere in the Midwest
and
spend their money on canned beans and rice, you need to understand Tyrsa. She was the kind of girl that commanded everyone’s attention. She was tall, with toffee-colored skin and black hair worn either straight or in waves. Her wide-set eyes were dark brown and shaped like a cat’s, with thick, romantic lashes. Her smile could light up the darkest, loneliest cave.

I was drawn to her from the moment I saw her across the room in my Intro to Computer Coding class freshman year in Boston. She laughed, catching my attention, and nearly took my breath away. I had never seen a girl so beautiful. And she was smart. She raised her hand so often the professor jokingly asked if anyone else had read the assigned materials. After class, I tried to think of a way to introduce myself, but she was quickly surrounded by friends and practically carried from the room. I didn’t officially meet her until the second week of class when we were assigned in a work group together. To my joy, we had a lot of things in common. When our time as a group drew to a close, I was afraid our friendship would be relegated to the “class friend” category, where you never move past nodding at each other when you pass on the sidewalk, but never actually see each other outside of the classroom. Luckily, Tyrsa was more persistent than that, and asked me to dinner with her friends.