Day 49 - Babel - Chapter 11 (1720 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 11

The light coming from the doorway was diffuse, and hard to see clearly but it was still there. A dark room with more space than was necessary considering he was here, on his own with no furniture or any distinction other than a doorway in the wall. The light, soft as it was, already spread enough illumination about the room to see it was featureless and maybe fifty feet wide, and maybe the length as well. Philip had woken from an odd dream to find himself in this room, he had been in his new home with a family he had joined up with a year ago, taken in when the Babel came and caused havoc in his home town.

Christchurch had suffered heavy losses to the population after the Babel, people fled the city, disappeared as far away as they could into the plains, the hills and to other areas. Disaster struck very early on with a plane crash in Christchurch airport destroying the runway, and a number of aircraft hangared there. Without language the fire-fighters suffered a similar issue to the ones in Wellington unable to fight effectively and essentially cutting off the city from air travel, in or out. Christchurch hospital became the centre of attacks by a violent underclass who wanted access to drugs, gas and whatever they could lay their hands on. The hospital was stripped and emptied within days and the people fled, either away to the suburbs where they could get away from the nameless, speechless violence that exploded in those first few weeks.

The hardcore of gangs and thugs, a small minority in the city normally, had thrived in the absence of a general populace and the downtown area turned into an arena of aggression and excess. Philip had been caught by a group of skinheads, angry and shouting like animals surrendering to the rage within themselves already. He was beaten badly and left bleeding on the banks of the Avon, barely conscious when someone found him and took him to a field hospital of sorts set up on the Cashmere hills, where they had a view of the city and a clear defensible position. A few days there and he was starting to heal, the kinder souls who themselves could not communicate with each other still looked out for the people struggling with the new way that humanity was operating.

He had in a few short weeks gone from confused to hopeless to uplifted by humankind and despite not being able to understand a word that people were saying to him, whether Babel or one of the Few he could not tell, he saw that everyone was different in the way they reacted. That understanding kept him from losing his mind, and the survivors that made Camp Cashmere (that's what he called it in his head) work were the ones that showed him that there was something worth saving in people.

Pictures and diagrams were key to making things work, paper an pens were premium items and often worth as much as fuel and electricity to survival. He had quickly volunteered to help, signing and using body language to convey how much he could and wanted to do to pay everyone back their kindness. He could drive well enough and had quick reflexes, so he often drove the ambulance that Camp Cashmere had obtained from a ditch, the driver dead and slumped across the steering wheel. They made regular trips to the city, looking for people, stragglers or the infirm to get out and help as much as they could, scavenging for food, supplies and any items that may come in handy. A map of the city served as instructions, Philip had a good working knowledge of the city streets, having driven around them so often day and night as a courier. He knew most of the city well enough to not need names or directions, just lines on the paper with marks where to go. After a while they found a lamination machine and a white board pen, which meant they could mark, erase and reuse maps to plot their patrol of the city.

The hardcore that ruled with inner city with an iron fist, ran out of steam and food within a few short months and either died with their hands at each other's throats or gave up and threw themselves on the mercy of Camp Cashmere, who took them in and helped them under a very watchful eye. Any misbehaviour was slapped down, punished quickly and dealt with severely for the good of the remainder. It made for a calm community to know that things were being handled and dealt with so well, in spite of the difficulty in communication. Philip thought, like many others did without being able to share their belief, that they had learned the hard way from the pulling together after the earthquake that had decimated the city centre years before, had put the city on the back foot and made life so difficult for so long, that battling and working as a disconnected group of citizens without any overarching governance that was in any way helping, was actually a good breeding ground for the skills to cope with the Babel.

While well over half of the city's population fled the city, fearing the worst or heading north to find more support and help, finding less than there was in their home ironically, the half that stayed, avoided the centre and the violence that blew itself out, thrived.

Christchurch turned out to be one of the better places to cope with the demands of misconception and misunderstanding caused by the Babel. They didn't need any of the Few to help them, though they were there and had an advantage in reading and understanding things better than the Babel, the Few were more like public servants who would try and help relay instructions and get things going again.

Philip drove the groups of engineers and volunteers to Lake Manapouri and within a week the power station was operational again, the power back on and some semblance of normality returned to the city and the clean up began. They worked tirelessly and saw that one or two towns were drawing power from the grid, Queenstown and Gore seemed to be taking a drain compared to the other towns but they would have to get to those when they could, they focussed on Christchurch first and then formulated a loose plan, again on maps, to the nearest towns and farms to see what they could do for them.

The national phone lines were not operating and they did not have the expertise, that they could find among the Few they had, to repair or restart whatever was broken. An expedition north had found the view across the channel a burning and bloody mess and no visible way to get across, since Picton township had all but been abandoned. They found a boat and got across the straight in rough weather and what they saw had them turning around and going home again. Wellington had burned, fallen into itself and looked generally dreadful. Ultimately they had enough problems of their own and needed to look after themselves first.

They took what they could and went back south, concentrating on righting their own lives and assuming for at least the short term that the North could look after itself.

Philip was billeted with a family who looked out for him with food and shelter, the daughter who lived there was one of the Few, and she would routinely be called upon to read and translate in some meaningful fashion for the Babel to understand something they needed. Philip drove her places and she made no secret of her crush on him, but she was fifteen and still so very young, with no one to help her understand her journey from teen to adult, Philip was steering clear of any confusion or entanglement. That family had gone out of their way to help him, and the best thing he could think of was to protect and look out for Emily and make sure she stayed the daughter they knew and cared for.

He had been driving Emily back from a job, they had been to the port and she was determinedly trying to help understand the various manuals and safety protocols for docking and unloading the containers with the cranes and other heavy lifting devices. The Babel had a number of port workers who could operate the equipment, but communicating with them deciphering the order and contents of the shipping containers was a mammoth job to get through. They had started just randomly opening containers, but had found hazardous materials in one of them, a worker being burnt badly not knowing how to look out for the danger signs plastered in once helpful, but no longer useful words along the outside. Emily and Philip had been coming here daily for just under two weeks and she had been managed to get a good systematic approach to the sorting and prioritising of containers going.

They were driving home when suddenly, he woke up here in this room.

Something had obviously happened and now he was somewhere else, in an instant. He did not feel like he had blacked out or passed out, he was driving and there was music playing on the car stereo, he didn't know any of the words, but he recognised the music, the name of the song and the artist just beyond his minds reach. He sang along, nonsensical syllables timed to the song he once knew off by heart, but now he sung like a children’s nursery rhyme with no real words. It was amusing to Emily, who laughed at him every time he did this, it was like a game or a joke between them, bonding over music they both enjoyed but only one of the truly understood.

He was singing, then his eyes were closed, the intertia of the moving car was gone and now he was in this dark room, a light on one wall was growing into the shape of a doorway, a rectangle of soft fuzzy light that slowly lit the room until he could see exactly where he was.

Nowhere.