A-Void Babak Govan (reading strategies book TXT) 📖

from the hospital does the disappearance extend? I must reach Jasmine and Isabella in the hills and ensure they are safe.

I reach into my pocket and feel the vials for Jasmine and Isabella.

SANTA MONICA CONFINEMENT GATE

5:44 AM

Inside my Honda-Toyota-Chrysler, I detach my Organelle v463.2 from my forearm, cradle it into the instrument panel, and command its Radio to turn on. Static. I attempt to call Jasmine, but there is still no signal.

I struggle past the cars along the prison for two miles. At first, I stop habitually at red lights, but then I start to wonder if I’m the only person on the road. As I distance myself from South Valley Hospital and still no one is in sight, sweat gushes out all over my body. I restart my Organelle v463.2 and attempt to call Jasmine again. “I cannot reach Jasmine, Billy,” it says.

I stop in front of the elementary school next to the freeway and scan the building. It must be thirteen stories high now, keeping pace with population growth. It looks empty.

FM 203.0 broadcasts a heavy buzz as I carefully enter the 405 South freeway. All the cars are empty, as are the seemingly permanent dirty yellow construction machines that were widening the freeway for the tenth time in five years, further aging the Boredom Society’s faded posters along the retaining walls.

“I’m not against the automobile, but I just feel that the automobile has moved into communities too much. I feel that you can design so that the automobile is there, but still put people back as pedestrians again, you see.”

-Walt Disney

- Brought to you by the Boredom Society -

Crowned with barbed wire, the Santa Monica Confinement Gate, repurposed from keeping out the poor during the Los Angeles Civil War to keeping out the infected, rises soon in the horizon of Sunset Boulevard. The sniper watchtowers are empty, so I accelerate. I am lucky for enough space to pass the buses with clothing sacks hanging over the windows. I tell myself everything will be different in the hills.

The sun shining in my eyes, I drive up through the passes of the Santa Monica Mountains to the smugglers’ base camp. Dust blows across my windshield as I abandon my car at the end of the creek bridge. I take off my lab coat and fling it inside.

“Left, right, left, left, right, right, left, left, left, right, right, right.” I repeat the secret directions and they guide me through gullies to the smugglers’ base camp. At the last turn, I discover deflated backpacks strewn along the trail that leads to the camouflaged tent flapping in the breeze.

“Hey! Hey!” I feel a sharp stomach pain. I cup my hands around my mouth and yell, “Hey! Hello? Jasmine!” I zigzag through the camp, rummaging debris of gas masks, ghillie suits, canteens, holsters, blankets, and shemaghs for clues about why this is happening. “Jasmine? Isabella? Hey! Anyone here?”

I make for the cave where the smugglers store extra supplies. Empty. Have they left The Colony without me? How am I going to get to them? “Oh, my God!” They don’t have their vaccines!

My knees wobble and my arms become paralyzed. Did the smugglers cheat me? Tears blur my eyes. What have they done with Jasmine and Isabella? Did they sell them? How will I find them?

“Wait.” No one is around. If the virus ran rampant when I was sleeping, I’d be seeing bodies everywhere.

Infection? Delirium? Amnesia? Before I know it, I’m back on the freeway. I don’t remember driving back down from the hills, only that I convinced myself Jasmine must have returned home. I inspect my eyes and gums in the rearview mirror, then my palms, but find no signs of infection. I reach into my pocket and pull out my ID—it’s me. I throw my wallet on the seat, and make the last turn toward our house.

My eyes burn from the sweat dripping into them. I am both comforted by the sight of the house and terrified to pull up. Cleveland, our dusty Siberian husky, dashes to the side gate—and from his bark, I know he is warning me. How is he still here?

As I step out of the car, I hear the trees rattle and watch sunbeams move among their shadows. A faint cloud stretches across the sky. My Organelle opens my garage and reveals Jasmine’s old blue Audi TT convertible where she left it two days ago. I take a deep breath.

As I walk inside, recognizing my iris, the lights, AC, espresso machine, and shower turn on.

“Jasmine, Jasmine?”

I imagine her running to my aid, saying “What, baby? What is it?”

“Jasmine, are you here? Isabella? Where are you?”

In our bedroom, on the exposed Bauhaus dresser, Jasmine’s keys rest beside her yellow purse and sleeping pills. Beside it, the Perfect Outfit Coordinator is on and as I command it to disable, the slideshow of artwork on our Virtual Museum entraps me. All are there: Pablo Picasso, Norman Rockwell, Marc Davis, Diane Arbus, Claude Monet, Ralph Steadman, Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt, Syd Mead.

A light green satin bra dangles from the dresser like an untied shoelace. I dangle it through my fingers, frightened by how much I miss Jasmine. I sit on her bedside and from inside the sheets pull out her baby-doll dress. Where is she?

I hold her shirt to my chest and go to Isabella’s room. Coloring books of fairies and dinosaurs surround her cloud-shaped rug. Her bed, with its sheets of lion cubs flying with balloons, is also unmade.

My heart shrinks and I kneel down on the rug. The unicorns on her wall become blurry. I follow the outline of her bed and stare at the large tiger doll smothering it, surprised that I had never noticed it before. I sprawl over the floor and press my fingertips into the crevices of the distressed wood floor. Sweat rolls back to my hairline and cools there.

“Where is my little girl?” A small housefly climbs the outside of the window screen. “There