After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

go fading into the rain.

Billy rubs his arms, shivering. His head droops. He looks pale and thin and tired. I’m headed for home, coz where else can we go?

“Billy, that stuff that Morris gave you…nirv…” He gives me a weary glance, and I say, tight-voiced, “Don’t ever try it again, whatever he says, it’s bad for you.”

He jist looks puzzled and I don’t blame him. Coz if it’s so bad for you, what’s me and Morris doing with it? What’s me an’ Morris an’ the Krew doing with it, making Hairies? I feel worse than ever. I say, “Even if it makes you feel…Billy, how did it make you feel?”

I think he won’t answer, can’t answer. And then he says, “Big.”

I’m silent.

We’re done with the channels now, passing out of the Fleet and into the Thames. Sint Paul’s vanishes behind the high spoil heaps and into the dusk. Billy cranes his neck to see it go, and then he says, “Did you see Nelson?”

It’s a second before I know what he’s talking about. It feels like years since this morning, years since we beached the boat below the steps and went to explore. I think of the holes in the floor. I think of wading into the black water, finding Nelson’s black coffin on its white marble stand. I think how I asked him for help. How I got no answer but the Hairy splashing out at me like a bad joke.

But Billy’s looking at me, hopeful. So I get ready to make up some story how I really did meet Nelson himself down there in the cellars, in a golden room glittering with shandyleers and dimonds….Just as I open my mouth, a thought comes to me and I shut it again.

I got my answer.

I go hot and cold all over.

I asked if I could trust Morris, if it was safe to leave Billy with him—and the answer was no.

So Billy’s coming with me.

It’ll make things twice as hard—twice as dangerous. We’ll need so much more stuff, we’re so much more likely to be seen. Can I explain to Billy what it’s all about? Can we really do it—can we really make it all the way downriver to the sea? A bubble of excitement tells me we can.

I sit up straight, feeling better than I have for hours. I don’t hafta try and explain to Billy why I’m going away. I don’t hafta leave him behind. We’ll live and die together.

Screw Morris! We’ll both go!

And Billy’s still looking at me, waiting to hear about Nelson. I say, “Yeah, in a way I did meet Nelson, Billy. In a way, I think I did.”

Billy says, “I saw him too.”

I go hot and cold again. He sounds so matter-of-fact. I almost ask what he means, and then I daren’t. “You did?”

Billy nods. “He was upstairs. I told you he was. I made a wish.”

My voice comes out all faint. “You did? What was it?”

He says proudly, “To be with you, Charlie. Just to be with you.”

ALL I KNOW OF FREEDOM by Carol Emshwiller

I’M MAKING DO WITH LESS. AND THEN LESS AND LESS AND LESS. I’m even eating less. But I don’t know if it’s better to eat a lot so as to live off my fat later on, or eat less so as to be in practice for not having enough food. I’ve heard, though, that if you’re fat you stretch your stomach, so you need more food to feel satisfied, so I’ve decided it’s better to shrink mine.

I’m practicing for getting out of here.

I won’t be able to take anything but the clothes I’ll be wearing and what I can stuff in my pockets.

Also I’m hardening myself up for the cold. Sometimes I sleep with the window open no matter what the temperature. I live in the attic. Nobody notices what I do up here. I even have a book though I don’t know how to read it.

If I keep quiet and do my jobs I’m practically invisible. Just like Mother said: “It’s always good to behave yourself so as not to get noticed.” She also said, “Stand up straight, say thank you and please.” I don’t. I keep quiet and hunch over so as not to be seen.

I was sold for quite a respectable sum. Or so Mother told me, and proudly. I don’t blame her. I presume she had to do it.

And these are not the worst people to be sold to. I’ve heard some get beaten. These people don’t do that.

Trouble is, now that I’m getting breasts, I can tell that they’re beginning to see me no matter how quiet I keep.

I tried to leave before but I didn’t get far. I was too young. I didn’t realize how hard it would be and how I’d have to be tired and hungry—how I’d have to maybe be freezing or wet. That’s part of running away. This time I’ll be ready. That time I came back by myself. They didn’t even know I had gone.

When they took me, they promised they’d let me go to school so I was glad to go with them, but they never did let me. They kept saying, “Next year,” and when it was next year they still said it. Pretty soon even they stopped saying it because it was clear there wasn’t going to be a “next year” for me.

There are lots of books around. More than anybody would ever need. I thought maybe I could teach myself to read. I looked at captions under pictures, but there aren’t very many pictures and that hasn’t helped much. If I waited till the baby was a bit older, surely there would be some simpler books, but I’m not going to wait.

When they first took me, it was just great. I couldn’t believe my luck. Plane rides and hotels. Wonderful food—though some of it so odd I didn’t dare eat it, and I was homesick every now and then for lentils. They got me the first frilly blouse I ever had…and that was the last, too. It was tan and silky. I did all sorts of things I’d never have had a chance to do except for them—as they kept telling me. That’s when I thought I really would get to go to school.

They kept telling me I should be grateful—and I was. Actually I’m still grateful, but I think I’ve paid them back enough by now. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I wish I’d had the sense to mark off the years.

The one good thing is, they never whip me. That’s what they used to do back home and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to get out of there. They always talk sweetly. My so-called father calls me a hundred different things. They all sound good. “Madam, if you’d be so kind…Miss, by your leave.” Talking that way is his joke. Like, “My dear, clean the toilet and be quick about it. Sweetheart, change the bed and wash the sheets.” (He doesn’t even say “sweetheart” or “my dear” to his wife.) Now and then he says, “Miss Whatever-your-name-is…” He really does forget my name and that’s why he says “madam” and “my dear.” That’s odd, too, because they’re the ones named me what they wanted me to be. My real name was much too long and complicated for them to remember. They never even tried.

Now that I’m getting breasts my so-called father is looking at me in a different way. All that fancy language he talks, all those “madam”s and “sweetheart”s, “dear lady”s, and “by your leave”s might turn into something entirely different. He pinched my breasts as though to see how much they’d grown.

My so-called mother (“Call me Mother in front of people.” Though people hardly ever come here), she was the one decided what to name me when they took me. She wanted something simple and easy to say. She calls me B. I do know that letter. She spells it Bee. I know A and C, and E, and some others, too. I like O.

Here, I have to do what I don’t want to all the time. I mean all the time. Easier to list what I don’t do than what I do do. And I can’t think of a thing I don’t do.

They’ll miss me when I’m gone. I’m going to have to be careful, though I don’t think they can risk setting the