230414 like starlings - novel fragment

 April 14

"Jack's grocery - he's going out. I came back for the car." he said. "Where is he going?" "I didn't talk to him." Shopkeepers closed and sold their stock on the sidewalk for a day or two, then went away. The sellouts added to their larder, cans and jars of foods that would soon be obsolete. No-one would take over from Jack.  There wasn't any stable commerce; factories and transportation had become unreliable, intermittent. 

"He has people in the east. Maybe take the wagon, we should save the gas."

There was still the corner store. They were neighbours and had not left yet.

The starlings, gathering for the autumn flight. They circle and circle and stay another day, crying "when should we go, when should we go?", around again, and "when shall we?"

Two or three of the houses on the street had been empty a month, two months. But no one new stopped.  They did not live on the main street so they didn't see the migration, two or three groups a week, with wagons and back packs, before that with bicycles and trailers, and before that in cars. She wondered if there was a mark on the highway, a message to say, go this way.

Where can we go? We must make a list of places. The family meeting place they had planned when the children first left home is no longer "the place". We didn't set a new one. I told them, and tell them still, be sure and get off the island if something happens. Walk, don't drive if there are numbers going, because the cars will pile up, but go quickly. I wish there were more of us. Someone might come here, looking for shelter, looking for us. she thought. Most friends were far away, having moved in their youth. 

In Day of the Triffids, he went looking for the woman's place, where she said it was. He had followed the abandoned road in the night, looking for lights along the hills - the scene so clear in her mind tonight. I wonder if they will all think of the farm? We could go there. It's so far, a day by car, a month on foot. We could set out. We are packed. Two backpacks, with emergency supplies, extras, waiting only for water bottles and whatever was in the fridge that would travel. The car had more, useful but less vital, that was a scary thought, but they might be able to drive some of the way and the car was shelter and safety for the nights, until there was no more gas to be had. It is laughable, she thought, to walk across a country. Yet, millions are walking every day, carrying the little ones, and some food. They must sleep by the roadside, when the sun has gone and they are too tired to go farther. What do they say to the children, lying there waiting for sleep. Rise in the morning, what about water? What about food? Then they start walking, another day. The torture that is the hope that keeps their feet going. That fierce fire of life that pushes people on - what is that? Does it have some meaning? Please; one wishes there were a god that one could run to. Maybe that is it, the fierce fire. But it can hurt one to tears, and we have to go on walking.

She went to the larder for some cans. Beans, tomatoes, mushrooms. There were greens - the green grocer was local and his family still stocked produce, much of it local now, and with fewer customers there was a good selection. Many of the neighbours have gardens with vegetables, and jobs: real, old-fashioned jobs, and a few new-age jobs. An age, is that what this is? A certain percentage of life is still the same as it was, before the pandemic, before this, whatever this is. Some sort of end, some sort of going forward.

And then to bed, waiting for the next morning. "What about the train?  The train still runs, though less often. We can camp by the station until." He is awake, she knows, by the sound of him moving. "Let's go in the morning."

She says.

*****

Mumma Yaga

John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids.