Another story from our print issue, a science fiction short story, adapted from a longer piece, by Tom Borthwick, called "Be Well."
Borthwick is a life-long Scranton resident, traveller, English teacher, adjunct professor, blogger, some-time political candidate, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff that leaves little time to breathe. He is a graduate of Marywood University with a BA in English and received both an MA and MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University.
Be Well
By Tom Borthwick
The line for food barely moved as I tried to ignore that familiar ache in my stomach. I’d given up on attempting three meals a day. Standing in a column of ruffians and rabble for unceasing hours without a chance to rest had grown old. Some of the Refugees did this and I could understand why – the portions allotted by the Camp One Administrators were a pittance, but I had never been a breakfast eater anyway. And I preferred the solace of mornings – the only time Camp One held relative silence.
The Food Distribution Center Bulletin, posted on a dull wall to my left, read:
DINNER: 5 PM – 9 PM
BE ORDERLY. BE TIMELY. BE WELL.
Most people couldn’t be herded through in any less time and Refugees regularly found themselves without a morsel if the queue didn’t reach the cookpots by the cutoff. This made it prime for riots, which accounted for the twenty military policemen standing along the line, face shields and assault rifles deterring the hungry and desperate.
The armed and armored stood before the unwashed throng, all wearing the same frowns, the same looks of disgust. The shuffling line returned the sentiment with resentful glances inspired by two years of repression. Me? I didn’t care one way or the other. But for the Refugees, Department of Domestic Intelligence Military Police, or IMPs as they were known, embodied everything wrong with their world. The Camp Administrators, illusory handers-down of judgment and overseers of this forsaken place, called the residents “Refugees”, but unwilling containment and, at least in the early days, interrogation made those living in the Camps more like detainees.
Under the dinner notice another, older bulletin read:
CAMP ONE ADMINISTRATORS ARE CONCERNED, ABOVE ALL, FOR THE SAFETY AND WELFARE OF ALL REFUGEES. PLEASE ADDRESS ALL ISSUES WITH DDI MPs AT THE ADMIN DOOR, LOCATED PAST THE FOOD DISTRIBUTION CENTER.
BE WELL.
Nobody I knew of had ever addressed any “issues” with the Administrators, though reasons to were plenty. Aside from the gangs, lack of food and clothing, and empty, repetitive days filled with pointless, unproductive milling about, the most pressing concern most Refugees had was the same: when can we get out?
Those in the Camps – there were five as far as I knew – were all made homeless by the Bioattack that hit Scranton and spread quickly throughout an isolated area in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
The past two years here had been rife with degradation and depravity and uncertainty – all reinforced by the Administrators, government agents, communications blackouts, and the roving gangs of brutes and thieves vying for control of this or that part of the Camp, or scraps of food, or tribute from the Refugees who wouldn’t be a part of their thuggery.
At first, the Camps had been for survivors and those displaced by the attack, but then officials got word that the group had operatives in Scranton – a small city written-off by most after a one hundred year decline. After that came questions. Who do you know? Why were you returning from New York? When the Administrators asked for information, they asked hard.
The last two years had been hell.
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Noland is a Marietta, Ohio native and graduate of Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, where he is currently attending the master's program. He is the editor-in-chief of Speakeasy Magazine.
