What Comes After

July 28

The sky was blue and gray, and the day was cold. I met Charles in the garden.

"We're going to the ocean, aren't we?" I asked.

"Yep," he said.

"Why?"

"Just because..." he said. "I'll tell you later."

"Alright," I said, and we walked towards the ocean.

There was a thin mid-afternoon fog creeping in from the ocean, and the sky was dim and faded. We passed by abandoned homes with roofs caked with gray, and tall sycamores shedding their leaves for winter even though summer hasn't ended. The air was salty, and as we neared the beach, I could taste the briny air of the sea. It made me feel a little nauseous.

No one was outside. Except for the woods and the food gathering on Saturdays, everyone seems to have disappeared or retreated into their homes. Charles and I talked as we walked down cracked sidewalks to the beach, but it was in hushed whispers to keep the eerie silence around us.

"You want to go first?" Charles asked when we reached the tattered yellow tape marking the disaster zone.

"You can go ahead," I said. "I hope your ocean visit is worth it."

"It will be," he said and gestured around. "Trust me."

He stepped under the caution tape, but I stood back.

"C'mon," Charles said. "We should get moving before the tides start rolling in."

"It's too dangerous," I said. "I don't really want to go."

"It's safe," Charles said. "Do I really need to pull out a chart of the tides and wind patterns of our local beach along with a weather almanac to check the probability of there being a storm surge in the middle of summer?"

"That was rhetorical," Charles said. "The tides are going to be going down for another hour. We won't get caught in the waves."

"I don't understand why you'd want to come back here," I said.

"You'll see. Do you really want me to force you to come with me? I will if I have to."

"Screw you," I said and stepped under the tape and into the abandoned neighborhood.

The asphalt was still damp— the tides must've recently retreated— and there was kelp and seaweed scattered around the smooth sidewalks.

"You really wanted to come back," I said and poked at the rotting pieces of seaweed. "This is just disgusting."

"I've got some stuff to figure out," he said and paused for a breath.

"Well, I hope it'll be worth it," I said and kicked a muddy stone.

The closer we got to the beach, the sharper the small of the ocean was. It was this sharp mixture of salt, seaweed, and dead fish that clung to the concrete sidewalks and the sand-streaked walls of the houses. All the trees lining the streets were dead along with the bushes and lawn grass. Algae replaced them, little bits and pieces clinging to rotting stairs and windowsills. There was even a car that washed up onto someone's porch. "How did this end up here?" I asked.

"God knows," Charles said. "The waves and tides did their thing, and it ended up there."

"I'm going to sit here," he said and pointed at a wet metal bench that was anchored to a cracked concrete slab. "Just for a couple of minutes to catch my breath."

"We're close by," I said. "It'll be a couple minutes to the beach, and we'll be back soon."

"You can go on ahead," he said. "I'll be right behind you."

"I'll sit here," I said and sat next to him. "No point in going ahead if this is what your bucket list is."

We sat next to each other, breathing in the briny ocean air. I noticed then that Charles didn't look so good. He was a little pale, and gaunt with this hollowness in his eyes. He looked sick or something. I wasn't sure. The wind blew and Charles looked at the sky. "You looking for the Sun or God?" I asked.

"Neither," he said. "I'm looking at the sky because I want to."

There was another silence between us. The waves crashed and roared in the distance, and the clouds overhead darkened.

"Is—" I said and hesitated. Charles looked at me quizzically.

"Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Charles quickly asked back.

"I don't know," I said. "Never mind."

"Things are fine," he blurted out. "As fine as they would be in this world. C'mon let's go now."

Something wasn't fine. I know this because I do this too, saying I'm fine and changing the topic as quickly as I can. I put my suspicions aside because we could figure this out on the way back, and we continued walking towards the beach.

The image of the dead body flashed through my mind. I shuddered, bile rising up my throat. All those nightmares began flashing back with the dead, rotting bodies lying in the shallow water, bloated and gray. I hunched over, breathing hard. "Everything alright?" he asked.

I took a few deep breaths and calmed my racing heart. "Yeah," I said. "Just get a little seasick at the smell of the ocean."

"We're almost there," he said.

The mansions a couple of blocks away from the beach were ruined. Piles of sand covered the roofs and mud smeared the walls. Everything smelled musty and the air was damp. Some of the wooden fences had barnacles clinging onto them, and in a couple of bird feeders and loose tires, there were small pools of sand and water with snails lying around them. Kelp was scattered all over the sidewalks along with mussel shells and sea stars.

"Look at that," Charles said and pointed to the left.

It was a sailing boat smashed through the giant windows of the mansion. Tattered pieces of cloth hung from the pole, billowing with the wind. The body of the boat was scratched and scarred, and there was some lettering on the side, though I'm not sure what it read. "What's the name of the boat?"

"C-A-S- something - O-P- and ending with something that has a diagonal," Charles said.

"Cassiopeia," I said.

"How do you know?"

"I read it in a book," I replied. "Cassiopeia was some rich, Greek queen that got punished by being put in the night sky. Or that's how I believe it went."

"This situation is totally not ironic," Charles said and gazed at the boat. "Let's go to the beach before the tides start to rise."

We trudged down the muddy avenue, sand crunching under the soles of our shoes. When we reached the coast side road, I could see the whole beach, a wide expanse of tan and brown, dotted with driftwood, clumps of kelp, and a sailboat sinking in the mud. There were large, dark stones protruding from the sand, and there were shallow pools of water in the dips and ditches formed by the receding waves.

Our beach was a thin sliver of sand before, barely expanding and receding as the tides went up and down. But when I looked at it today, it was vast, extending hundreds of feet into where the ocean used to be, and the waves crashed far in the distance, frothing white.

"We're heading down," Charles said.

"It'll be dangerous," I said. "There might be pits of quicksand or something. I don't know."

"The sand is too dry," he replied. "You can throw some rocks onto the beach if you want to."

I grabbed a couple of softball-sized rocks. They were damp and slimy, and I nearly dropped them as soon as I felt them. I took a couple of steps back and hurled one. It landed in a shallow pond of sand with a soft thud and then swiftly sank under the sand.

"See?" I said. "Quicksand."

"Rocks will sink in wet sand, especially because you chucked it that hard," Charles said. "Anyway, even if you're right, we'll only be staying close to the stairs. The sand should be drier, and there won't be any quicksand."

So we walked down the concrete stairs to the beach. The cement was slick with seaweed and slimy with a smattering of shells all over the gray surface. Charles stood on the beach, and I stood behind him, breathing in the ocean air. I thought I'd see my nightmares of the dead bodies, but there was nothing.

Charles stooped down and started taking off his shoes and socks. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"I want to feel the sand under my feet," he said.

"What are we really doing down here?" I asked. "I just don't get the point."

Charles dug his feet deeper into the damp ground, tan sand squishing through the gaps between his toes. He took a deep breath. "You remember the body we found."

"How could I forget?" I replied.

He chuckled. "I wish I could forget."

"Don't we all wish we could forget," I said.

We stood there for a while, just staring at the sea. The tide was still receding, and the crashing of the waves became softer. Charles turned towards me. "This is going to be embarrassing, but I've been having dreams— no, nightmares— about the body. Like, I can't get the image out of my mind," he said. "Have you been seeing it in your sleep too?"

"Maybe," I lied. "I don't really remember my dreams that well."

"Lucky," he said. "You're real tough."

I felt guilty for lying. Charles sighed and looked out at the ocean. "You do remember some of your dreams, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "A couple."

"I know it sounds crazy, but have you ever had a dream that felt so real that when you woke up, for the first few moments, you can't tell the difference between what was real and what was part of your dream?" he asked.

"Yeah. Lots of time for school related dreams," I said, and Charles looked at me strangely. "What? I'm not judging you."

"Well that's been happening with the body and the ocean. Most nights I go to sleep, and my mind just can't help wandering to the body."

"So then why the beach?" I asked. "Why come back if this place is haunting you with nightmares?"

"Every time that I dream, it keeps twisting this place into something that is worse and worse until I don't remember what the beach and all this flooded area was like before," he said. "Because my dreams and reality just became one another. I came down here just to see— to prove— that it's not as bad as I dream about."

I didn't say much. It was so deep, maybe too deep. I don't think I had ever had someone just confess that much to me. Charles turned towards me. "You probably think I'm crazy?"

I shrugged. "We should get going," he said and started walking up the concrete stairs.

I took a deep breath. "Wait," I said. "I lied about not having nightmares of the body."

The ocean breeze picked up, and the beach echoed with the crashing of the waves.

"I had them," I said. "Still do, though not as much. I do think of the body. Whenever the ocean breeze wafts into my house the body passes through my mind. Whenever I hear the waves crash or think about the beach, it's there. And the nightmares. I've dreamed of a lot of people as bodies. My parents. My sisters. You."

I expected Charles to crack some witty joke then about me having dreams of him, but there was nothing.

"Why'd you lie then?" he asked.

"Because it's embarrassing," I said. "It's so just so embarrassing. I don't know why."

"Is it because you don't trust me?"

"No," I said. "I do trust you. It's just that I feel uncomfortable. I just have a hard time with these things."

"Look," I said. "Since we're telling each other the truth, what's going on with you?"

"There's nothing wrong," he said. "I'm fine."

"No you're not," I said. "You look sick right now. I know that times have been hard, but you look really sick. And all this pausing while you're walking and panting. You used to be the fastest guy in the class. We always competed for the best mile time."

"We need to head back. The tides are coming up, and I've got to tend the garden."

"And your obsession with gardening. That came out of nowhere," I said, and then I paused. All the dots began to connect in my brain. The constant gardening. His gaunt face. Him always bending down to take deep breaths. "Are you out of food?"

"Please," he said. "Let's head back. Waves are coming in and it's going to be dangerous."

"Please, just tell me the truth. Are you starving?"

Charles turned and faced towards me. When I saw the look on his face, I just knew that I was right. Charles sighed. "At the beginning, my parents thought everyone was overreacting. Sure the tides came in and ravaged our town, but the government was going to step in and fix everything. While everyone else was hoarding up food and raiding the supermarkets, we stayed at home and pretended like everything was normal."

He looked at the horizon. "But the recovery took longer than what they expected and even though we were getting food from the food drives, it wasn't quite enough to live on, but it was enough to survive on. But when the volcanoes hit and the food packages started getting smaller, we knew that we were in trouble. Mom and Dad pawned away their rings and silverware and old necklaces for cans of food. We ration it, but we're running out and we've sold everything that we could sell."

"How many do you have left?"

"About twenty," he said. "We share two cans a week along with the eighteen we get in total from the food drive."

"Well why'd you not tell me?"

"Same reasoning as you," he said. "Too embarrassed. Too scared. I don't know."

"I can give you food," I said. "My family has got plenty—"

"Keep them for your family," he said.

"You're basically family," I said. "I'll sneak out a few cans every week from the pantry. May does that all the time and no one notices."

"Look, I really don't—"

"Just trust me," I said.

We stood there awkwardly for a couple seconds. "We should head back now," he said. "The tides are coming up."

"Yeah," I said. "Let's go."

We walked through the sand-streaked neighborhood. The sky hovered high above us, dark and gray, and the bare trees looked like salt-bleached skeletons. "Do you ever want to come back to the beach again?" I asked.

"Maybe," he said.

We didn't talk much afterwards. When we parted ways, I told him that I'd bring food every Friday.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem," I said.

When I got home, Mom looked at me strangely. "Did you go down to the beach," she said. "You smell like the ocean."

"No," I lied. "We went to the border of the flooded neighborhoods. Charles wanted to use some of the seaweed as fertilizer, and last night, the tides rose pretty high and carried the kelp past the caution tape, so we never crossed it."

"You sure?" Mira asked and Mom gave her a strange look, but I knew what she meant.

"Yes," I said.

Was I really breaking the deal we made before? I don't think so. I haven't been honest, but I don't think that this situation would be important to her because it's something between me and Charles.