Free The Sky Is Falling by Caroline Adderson Page B

Civilization, the doctor said, would be laid waste. Almost more sickening to me was her explanation of what this meant: no architecture, no painting, no music, no literature.
    Dr. Caldicott: “And the survivors would die of a synergetic combination of starvation, radiation sickness, epidemics of infection, sunburn, blindness, and grief.”
    At these words Sonia, who had been quaking next to me, lurched from her seat and bolted for the door. It opened with a yawn into the silence on the other side before thudding closed again. I was still sitting in the theatre, stunned, but I knew I would follow her through that door and that on the other side everything would be different now.
    We huddled together on the rocks. More than cold, we were frightened. I was nearly numb. This is what people feel like when the doctor tells them they have cancer, I thought. I thought: I’m going to die. I have until 1985 . I have thirteen months to live. We’d gotten off the bus at our usual stop, but instead of going home, Sonia had taken my hand and led me the two blocks to the beach. We staggered together, helping each other along an unlit path between two houses, down a set of slippery concrete steps. I’d hardly been to the beach, never at night or by this secret route, so when I looked around I really was seeing it for the first time. Across the strait, the mountains wore tiaras—lights from the ski hills. West Vancouver twinkled at their feet. I saw the void of Stanley Park and the Emerald City brilliance of the West End. In thirteen months it would all be gone.
    Sonia put her head on my shoulder and began to cry. After a few minutes she stopped. It was physically impossible to keep shedding tears at the rate she had. “I’ll never get married,” she said, using her sleeve to dry her face. “I’ll never have children. I’ll never have grandchildren.”
    I started crying too when, the moment before, I’d been in shock. I never expected to get married and have children either, but the fact that Sonia wouldn’t seemed unspeakably sad. But what Dr. Caldicott had said about the end of civilization, the end of literature, that was what broke my heart.
    No Turgenev. No Tolstoy. No Chekhov.
    Sonia: “For me it’s the children. The children who’ll never be born and who’ll die so horribly.”
    I asked her what we could do.
    â€œWe’ve got to talk to people, Jane. Tell them the truth. All over the world it’s happening. People are saying no. They’re saying these weapons aren’t making us safer. The opposite!”
    The house was dark when we got back. Hector was asleep in the living room and Pete and Dieter were out. Sonia brought me to the kitchen. I felt for the light switch but when I turned it on, she immediately snapped it off and, letting go of my hand, shuffled away in the dark. I heard a click. Gradually my eyes readjusted and I saw the shape of her waiting at the stove, hands clasped like she was praying to it. The coil blushed and, as the colour deepened, I could make out her face in the glow. She was grimacing.
    â€œThis is what I do,” she told me, letting her hand hover above the burner. “This is how I’m getting ready for the burns.”
    Many times that weekend I started a letter to my parents, both to warn them and assure them that, contrary to the impression I might have given over the last few years, I loved them very much. Unable to find the words that truly expressed our predicament, I tore the letters up. I thought of my father at the bus depot in Edmonton telling me that if anything bad ever happened to me he’d buy a horse, a dog, and a gun and ride away and no one would ever hear from him again.
    â€œWhat will you call the horse?” I’d asked, like I used to when I was little.
    â€œCasimir.”
    â€œAnd the dog?”
    â€œPatches.”
    â€œThe gun?”
    â€œBlack Beauty.”
    There