Free For Tamara by Sarah Lang Page B

manageable unit of people: family vs insane commune. Every other group either wants what you have or you have to have a treaty. Going into all that is again a novel. I’m going to hope my audience gets this bit.
    I know you’re busy, but I want you to plant flowers, ok? Try tulips. / They’re easy.
    I saw whole cities being destroyed. / T., I never want you to see that, ever. / Rebuild, always. / At least my thumb is healing.
    Tamara, I never wanted kids and then all this happened and you were here. / Thank-you. / Remember what I look like.
    Mum doesn’t want to have to teach you to fight, but she will. / And you will teach others.
    I realize I haven’t taught you much history. / Part is that I don’t want to remember what it was like even a few years ago. / Part is where to start. / And no idea if that will change a thing.
    Stockpile paper. / I’ll teach you to make more, but it is going to take some time. / And ink, of any kind.
    To triage you have to rule in/out the worst fırst: head wounds,
fever. . . . / I would love to teach you how to fly a kite instead. / To open a jar that has a seal: rubber gloves and/or turn it upside down and hit it against something hard. / It will pop right off.
    The best thing you can do about the weather is understand it.

    Use that table, I don’t care. / Keep the globe. / It never rains this much.
    Celebrate Earth Day and your birthday. / I’m making time to write you fairy-tales. / Don’t overcook your vegetables.
    I watched the windows blow out. / I used to watch romantic movies on Valentine’s Day. I hope you get to eat watermelon.
    Weaving. / There are paper, and if yr lucky, electronic copies. / How to protect yrself.
    Find yr grandfather’s radio that says “Fisher-Price” on it; those things will outlive most other tech. / Good luck with finding batteries.
    Tamara, ppl are going to have all sorts of mental problems. Just figure out if they are dangerous. / Most of the time they are just hurt ppl.

This isn’t how I pictured things. / Not for you or me. / This is the last sheet of paper until I teach you to make more.
    Maybe when we write the screenplay. That said, making paper is relatively easy.
    In this house / right now / all I can to not cry: you & your Dad. / This house had a tv . / I wish I could check to see if your Father even tried to contact us.
    In some ways this is the best love letter / I could have ever given you, My Beautiful Idiot / I know it is supposed to be for T. / But you are her / and don’t ever forget it.
    I don’t have the ability to write you a surgical textbook. / I’m sorry, b/c you’re going to need it. / Sterilize, everything.
    Types of plants. / Some plants that grow here are medicinal. / I’ll make a list.
    How to nurse a baby. / Don’t worry if you can’t, or it is hard. / This is common. / You find someone to do it for you.
    Husband of Mine, when I want to scream about your absence, / I remember that 1) I love you 2) You’re in a bunker somewhere & too busy saving us all to call. 3) btw your legacy is safe here. 4) Carrier pigeons.
    Don’t think yr Mum didn’t cry when she saw all this. / You have the strength she had to help and salvage and make the best of it.
    I need you to loot a hospital. / For any and all supplies: gauze to analgesics to anesthetics to needles to basic surgical equipment. No, I don’t know where Dad is, but I know him. / He is safe and helping. / Maybe not the way we are. / But he is helping. The only person who got my hatred of the sound of a vacuum.
    Earth was green and famously blue; white clouds. / But we have brown and red too. / And neon yellow, don’t go near that.
    Do what you may — no, you have to just destroy the dead. / Too many diseases. / I’m sorry. / Fire.
    Burn them / downwind. / And burn them as hot as you possibly can.
    We’re not sure what happened. / The lack of airborne diseases