Virginia+Vignette

“Name and Section” “Virginia Byars. Section C.”

As the guard looked down to scan his list for my name, I heard the crack of a gunshot off to my right coming from the other side of the wall, and I knew another Unlucky had just been killed. The saddest part, though, was that I didn’t even flinch.

“Identification,” the cop was staring at me as he snapped me out of my trance. I pulled back the sleeve of the navy jumper we Luckies were all required to wear to reveal the identification number tattooed upon my arm. “Alright, you’re good.”

I continued on my way up the sidewalk under the eerily blue light of the mid-afternoon sky refusing to glance at the other people who tacitly marched beside me until I reached my Section.

Section C has become my new home ever since my parents my parents were killed in the earlier months of the floods. I happened to be on the second floor as one of the first major waves hit my neighborhood, so I survived and moved in with my aunt in Germantown where I became a Lucky.

Being a Lucky would seem like the desired choice in this mess of a city that Memphis has become. We have the dry land. We live in the few buildings that are left rather than floating rafts. We have a limited yet steady supply of food. We are cut off from all diseases and Unluckies who have been driven mad by this disease. We are even granted electricity for two hours every day. Yet somehow, I find myself wishing I had been one of the many who died rather than sit here and watch Memphis become the complete and utter chaos that it truly is.

“I’m here,” I said as I slightly raised my voice, so others could hear me. I sat my loaf of bread for the week on my bed, and I quickly reached under my bed, pulled up the loose floorboard, and swiftly hid my gallon of water. Most have resorted to hiding their small supply of clean water from anyone and everyone in case of it being stolen. The resources really began to wear away after the rioting started.

I remember the first time I heard of the rioting was in the very early days of the flood, and so far, only the earliest Unluckies had been flooded. We still had television in our old home on Lochlevin, and I turned it on only to see several hundred rioters surrounding City Hall and a few other buildings down town. I knew then that this was the start of something big.

Now, I just sit and wait.