“the Day The Children Left”

The children woke coughing. Smoke hung supra their beds, truthful they dropped beneath it, dressed lying down. In neighbouring rooms their parents stirred, but nary could shingle their anchored dreams successful clip to extremity nan children leaving. The older ones collected babies from cribs aliases drew them from their sleeping mothers’ breasts. They’d already waited excessively long. The world was burning and each their mothers could negociate to do was expanse drifts of ash from nan beforehand steps; their fathers shushed them, spun nan power fixed for answers. The children had answers. They coughed into their sleeves arsenic they walked distant from their homes, down moonscaped boulevards, arsenic their parents should person done months ago.

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When nan parents woke, they didn’t retrieve their children. They felt an absence, but of what they couldn’t say. Even nan quiet beds, nan mothers’ leaking breasts, nan toys underfoot didn’t jog their memories. Still, a mysterious urgency fluttered successful their chests, sent them hurrying room to room. A image book near open, a smashed piggybank successful nan corner. The longer they stared astatine these things, nan little they understood them. So they began to look away. They had much clip to sweep. They feared nan fires little because they were only acrophobic for themselves. One mother yet drank nan bully tequila; her resulting headache obliterated immoderate dream of remembering. Her hubby agreed it was serene successful a measurement it hadn’t been successful years.

The children walked and walked until they reached nan river. No longer nan mighty salmon spawning grounds of history books, its waters ran debased and iridescent. The children abandoned nan strollers connected nan trash-choked banks. The oldest, a freckled bolt of a girl, did a caput count, past instructed nan others to make a quality concatenation done nan sludge and ferry nan youngest crossed successful their arms. She was vigilant, counted again connected nan different side. Filthy and shaking, they collapsed beneath a maple’s bare limbs and ate old crackers and jellybeans. The babies cried for milk, but they would soon forget. No 1 argued. There were gulps of sadness. The woman stripped to her underclothes, draped her mucky jeans complete a stone to dry. Then she returned to nan river’s edge, looked backmost successful nan guidance they’d come. No 1 moved. She coughed erstwhile and spat successful nan slimy shallows. Then she picked up a rock, chucked it in. Gradually, nan others joined her and did nan same. The stream boiled pinch stones and its slope was noisy pinch nan grunts of nan children hurling them. Soon, though, nan babies began to wail. They wailed to consciousness thing akin to caller aerial connected their faces—an absence of smoke, anyway. The children’s hands fell backmost to their sides, and nary 1 coughed arsenic they had before.

Where is it? What americium I looking for? nan parents wondered arsenic they climbed upstairs, downstairs, forgetting to eat, bathe, sleep. They bumped into 1 another, bounced disconnected 1 another, paid much attraction to nan animals. Eventually, nan dogs walked distant from their stroking hands. The fume grew truthful heavy it shuttered nan sun. No 1 knew it yet (yes, nan dogs did), but nan satellite was dead. They felt it, though, a quickening for illustration nan past sluice of bathwater down nan drain. It was someone’s fault, but whose? Those group successful nan neighbouring town, and nan towns to nan north, south, east, and west. The parents were furious, and their rage quashed nan uneasiness they’d felt since nan children left. One begetter almost remembered. He sat connected nan sofa nuzzling nan soft underside of his forearm, compelled, even, to caress his ain flesh.

“What are you doing?” his woman asked.

“Here,” he said, offering his arm. “What does this punctual you of?”

The days were diabolically hot, but not toxic arsenic astatine home. With nary 1 to show them otherwise, nan children stayed up excessively late. The babies rolled and crawled astir nan tinder wood level while their siblings scavenged withered berries and parched clover aliases hung for illustration cheetahs successful nan crumbling arbutus trees. Each activity was a feast for their mini lungs. Within hours, it seemed, they grew thinner, taller, adapting to their caller environment. One night, a vulture hauled a babe 3 feet disconnected nan crushed earlier nan others could hit it away. After that, they grew serious, divided into groups and fashioned amazingly sound shelters. They rationed what nutrient they’d brought and hunted for more. The wood was sick, yes, but location were still a fewer rodents near to beryllium skewered. The freckled woman offered to drawback bottom-feeders, but nan others worried she mightiness sneak off, scurry backmost nan measurement they’d come. “Why would I go back?” she said. No 1 knew why—the blisters that had erupted connected their tegument aft crossing nan stream were only conscionable opening to heal. They knew only that she couldn’t. She was nan first who’d thought to stone nan babies, nan first to drawstring their names into a lullaby that carried them to sleep.

The parents grew ill. Their ribs began to ace from nan coughing. Their animals, nan all-knowing dogs, died. They wheelbarrowed nan creatures’ bodies to a canyon nan occurrence had yet to jump, dumped them in, and stumbled blindly backmost to their homes. Inside, they sealed nan doors and windows pinch their children’s bedding and laic coiled for illustration abandoned seashells connected nan floor. Sometimes they felt speedy footsteps vibrating done nan boards beneath them and opened their eyes, expecting to spot what? They only saw each other. Maybe they were already dead. If not already, past soon.

The woman worked each time to haul a sluggish sturgeon from nan stream muck pinch her bare hands. Near dusk, exhausted and sore, she yet encircled its ancient assemblage of watery memories pinch her arms. She felt its old-world currents successful her blood, and her thirst for nan stream of a 100 years agone was bottomless and bygone. Rank pinch slow death, nan sturgeon didn’t protestation its capture; it only looked truthful mournful that she was forced to fto it go.

She suggested to nan others it was clip to move on; they could erstwhile again sensation smoke. Particulate grated nan undersides of their eyelids. The children gathered cross-legged connected nan bank, skimming their hands complete raspy clumps of dormant moss. The woman was gangly and beardown nan measurement girls often are earlier boys outgrow them, but moreover nan tallest boy lowered his gaze. The children watched arsenic their dinner, nan sturgeon, burrowed into nan earth’s sour clasp and forgave her. They understood she was their leader. They made a circle astir her and wiped nan mud and stench from her limbs pinch nan cuffs of their sleeves. She shivered, hugged a babe close, and craved nan power of her mother’s thighs erstwhile she utilized to descent her acold feet betwixt them.

One night, while nan parents slept, it rained capable to extinguish nan fires, which is to say, biblically, unnaturally. The ash turned to mud and roseate to their beforehand doors, spilled done nan cracks. They woke trying to expanse it distant from their sides, creating sludgy angels connected nan level astir them. They crawled upstairs to flight it. They were almost happy for nan change, a roar that wasn’t flames. They looked successful nan guidance of nan fires, wherever they’d burned for truthful long. With nan fume now cleared they saw houses for illustration their own, windows imploding arsenic nan waters rose. People were climbing retired onto their roofs to await rescuers who would ne'er arrive. One female waved.

The stream surged; its banks disappeared. The children had not near successful time. They climbed trees until they looked retired complete nan wood canopy, which, nan woman realized, was really conscionable a postulation of skyward-reaching sticks. Crawling among them, they were past gasps of green. Or were they locusts? They were both, she decided, and almost fainted astatine this truth. There was thing she could do, thing immoderate of them could do. She wove her measurement done nan branches, kissing nan different children’s heads arsenic her begetter had done nan past clip it snowed, nan aforesaid twelvemonth she learned to walk. Even pinch nan fires extinguished, a basking upwind continued to blow. The trees swayed. Soon their brittle roots would disengage from nan earth, and, astatine last, they would each autumn down. For now, though, nan bigger children held nan babies tightly, fearful of dropping them. When nan babies opened their mouths to cry, they filled pinch bitter rain. There was a large ace upstream, followed by groans and claps. A location rounded a crook successful nan river, its walls unfolding arsenic it tore past connected nan muddy current. They recognized nan house. The bloated remains of a canine sailed past next. They thought they recognized nan dog, too.

The parents clung to what they could. They looked astir for personification to blame. Those who’d managed to climb into boats rammed their oars into passing ones, trying to capsize them. They couldn’t outcry (smoke had destroyed their voices), but they stretched their mouths astir screams. The flood fed each of them—the group from nan towns to nan north, south, east, and west—into nan stream and swept them downstream. They were gladsome to beryllium leaving and frightened to die. In nan boats their laps felt ray erstwhile they should person been heavy. One mother almost remembered. She pinched her hands betwixt her thighs.

The rainfall eased and nan entity became little dull. “Look,” 1 of nan mini ones called out, “over there.” In nan canopy, successful nan distance, much children. Where had they travel from? To whom did they belong? Below, connected nan swollen river, 2 boats rounded nan bend. “Mom!” nan woman shouted. The boats were astatine odds, trying to upend each other. “Mom!” nan children called successful crow-like chorus. It was each of their mothers. It was nary of them. The warring adults were excessively preoccupied to look up. Or they didn’t perceive complete nan rushing water. The adults had forgotten who would inherit nan earth. Or they nary longer cared.

The woman slipped connected a branch and caught herself. Even astatine a distance, she felt nan group of chartless kids watching. Then thing pelted her shoulder: a sun-parched pinecone. Next, a ablution of them, a siege. There was laughter from 1 side, cries from nan other. The woman thought she recognized 1 of them, a boy adjacent successful property she’d often seen riding a reddish motorcycle past her home.

Beneath them, nan waters had begun to recede and soggy islands appeared for illustration prized soil dollars. On some sides, nan babies were bawling and nan smaller children were scared. The woman knew she had to climb down and look immoderate awaited. What would they eat? Where would they sleep? She longed to stock these worries pinch personification else. After all, she was only thirteen.

She lowered herself down a branch, past another, another, until yet she dropped to nan ground. Immediately, she sunk to her knees successful mud. She withdrew 1 foot, but nan different sank deeper. Panic made her lightheaded; nan world was astir to swallow her whole. At slightest I’ll beryllium done worrying, she thought, at slightest I’ll sleep. The mud roseate almost to her hips.

Something difficult knocked her connected nan caput then, and she thought nan rival children had travel to decorativeness her off, but it was only nan boy, crouched connected a adjacent rock, holding an oar retired toward her. For a heartbeat nan woman considered giving successful to her exhaustion, but past cheers started up successful branches overhead. A riotous chorus of whoops and bellows and shouts. Her bad boy family urging her on.

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Excerpted from Welcome to nan Neighbourhood: Stories by Clea Young. © 2025 Clea Young. Published by House of Anansi Press www.houseofanansi.com