In her dream she was a child and had wet her pants. It was summertime, it was hot and there was a party going on in the garden because she heard many voices. Her mother would surely get mad at her when she found out that she was wet, and that the sheets were wet too, but this time it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t remember the feeling of needing to pee, and couldn’t recall the pleasurable sensation of letting go either, that warm trickling feeling. In her sleep she touched herself between her thighs and felt droplets in her pubic hair, she had been a bad girl. But she didn’t have hair down there, this must have been a mistake, because that’s something that only big girls have and so it must have been a big girl who wet her pants. But what was a big girl who wasn’t her mother doing in her bed? Her mother was in the garden, at the party. And she, Maria, needed to see who it was, she needed to open her eyes, even though she was frightened. It was dark. The open window framed the moon, so pockmarked that it looked perforated. Where was she?
Serafino. She had the sensation that her stomach was enormous. Yes, of course, she was pregnant, she was the big girl, only she didn’t understand why she was all wet. It took a huge effort to sit up in bed, her palms on the damp sheets, and a second later her legs and bed were soaked. The warm liquid came out from inside her and dripped down all over. Her body was like a badly corked bottle. She smelled water in the air, a light and gentle scent that she had never smelled before, the scent of a bed that a tiny princess has slept in for a hundred years. She felt no pain. She was full of wonder. Suddenly she understood that her water had broken. She never imagined that an expression could be so apt. The moment had come and she wasn’t ready. How does one give birth?
After the initial gush, the liquid was now trickling. How long could a baby survive without water? Once, as a child, she knocked over a gold fish bowl while playing. She found the fish gasping for air on the floor but hadn’t managed to save it.
She didn’t want to be alone. She called out, at first softly, and then louder.
“Serafino … Serafino.”
No one answered. She tried to focus on what they told her to do. She needed to stay calm and take deep breaths. Even her mother had managed to give birth, but in a hospital, for fuck’s sake, in a hospital and not alone, not in the dark and not in a world full of dead people. All she could do was wait.
Adriano stopped by a bench, opened the bundle he had in his hands and put his dirty clothes back on. His underwear, socks and pants were three days old. He couldn’t show up at the hospital naked. He still couldn’t understand what part of the city he was in. He stopped to ask someone. The man said that they were in the outskirts of the city. It was impossible to get to the center by foot and it was impossible to find a means of transportation now. There were twenty-four hours left before the wave would hit, and the roads were already flooded with heaps of trash. A slimy carpet of garbage caked the asphalt. He saw people running up to a stand that was selling water. Cups of tap water were being sold like crazy, for ridiculous prices. He got in line and, after several minutes, finally drank. The flavor was disgusting, but he was dying of thirst. Someone touched his back. It was a tall man whom he had never seen.
“Are you stupid?”
“Why?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know where that water comes from.”
“No, I don’t know, what water is it?”
“It comes from the river, idiot. You paid money to drink water from the river that runs right there behind those trees.”
“There where?”
“Can’t you see it? Behind those trees you can have all the rat’s piss you want.”
By the time the man finished his sentence, Adriano was already walking off in the direction of the river. If there was really a river behind those trees, then it was the same river that also ran by the hospital. He had to find a boat, something. His heels sunk into the ground and the stampeded grass, he went past the bushes and down the sandy bank towards the dull, black water that flowed lazily in the direction of the sea. Adriano raced against the current, his feet hitting the ground, until he reached a metal fence that blocked his path. He looked through it. It was a private sporting center. He was going to have to climb over the fence, but it was so high. The guards might still be around, or maybe a watchdog.
He managed to get to the other side and landed in the sagging grass. An English style lawn. Someone had left the hose on to water it. He couldn’t see very well. Suddenly he tripped on something, a beach chair. He noticed several lying on the ground. When the tide rose, everyone fled and abandoned things as they were. He was on his knees, looking for it. He found the hose, a plastic valve that came out of the ground. He put his mouth on it and sucked, greedily. The water revived him. He felt strong again. He stood and walked towards the pier. There was a canoe on the shore and the paddle wasn’t far off. He pushed the boat down the sand and hopped inside.
The current was gentle. His strokes drew dark swirls in the water while shadows of trees and housing projects swooshed by on shore, accompanying him on his journey like bored spectators. The canoe slipped into the darkness, but the paddles kept hitting something soft that floated on the surface. He looked closely at the black water, illuminated by the moonlight. It was scattered with moving things. Rats. Thousands of rats driven away by the return of the dead had abandoned the mainland and sought refuge in the river.
He turned to look at the shore. The city slinked by. The bridges were getting closer and he could see the smaller buildings and the city-like constructions approaching. As he neared the center, human density on the shoreline increased. Not too far off, he spotted blocks of cement. He was almost there. He recognized the shore. He saw the willow tree with the very long branches. He pulled in close to a barge. If he had calculated correctly, he was less than two kilometers from the hospital. The pier was filled with mice, who squeaked by as he made his way though. He walked up a stone staircase.
Serafino tried to evaluate the disaster around him. There were no more flowers on the beds, no more grass. The stampede had destroyed them the night before. There were still a lot of people out and not only the reborn. He could tell who they were by looking into their eyes. He could see the dark half moons of their deep eye sockets. Some were alive but so broken down by fear and lack of sleep that they sought refuge in the first pit they found. He looked for indications to the obstetrics ward. He needed to find a gynecologist. He would focus on Adriano later. An uprooted tree lay on the ground in front of the entrance. Someone had used it to break through the glass door. He walked through it and made his way to the entrance hall. He stepped on a bed of glass shards, reaching the staircase in the dark. The soles of his shoes stuck to the floor. He pushed open the door of the ward. No one was there.
There was a ribbon on one of the doorknobs, but he couldn’t tell if it was pink or blue. It was even darker inside, and he heard the sound of running water. Where was it coming from? He walked on, blindly. He stepped into a puddle and stretched his arm out so that he wouldn’t fall, grabbing onto the wall with his open hand. He walked to the window and felt the shutters. He was about to open them when he felt something soft and heavy with his foot. He looked down. It was a body. He crouched and got closer. The little bit of light that penetrated from the outside illuminated the body of a woman in a nightgown, sprawled out between the bed and the wall, her long hair strewn across the flooded floor. Her eyes were open and her light colored gown had a large black stain across the abdomen. Serafino pulled his hand away, horrified, and stood up again. He wanted to run, but water from the bathroom was flooding the floor. He stepped back. The tiny body of a newborn was floating belly down in the sink.
He found himself in the hallway. He ran towards the exit when he perceived something moving on his right, but it was only his reflection in the nursery window. He got closer. It looked like a normal night in the nursery. He walked in. Maybe they left one of them alive. Dozens of little babies looked like they had been waiting for him, asleep in their beds, bracelets still on their wrists, nametags on the bassinets, their weight and time of birth recorded on the clipboard. They were frozen and white, without voice or breath. He felt like throwing up. He shouted. He was running down the stairs now, his shoes sticking to the blood, still wet from the massacre of the night before. Nothing was alive there. He crossed the entrance hall one more time, jumped over the dead tree, and quickly came to terms with the fact that Maria’s little girl would be born in the dark. After all, people have been coming into this world since the beginning of time, babies can be born in the dark, even without a gynecologist—being born and dying are easy things to do. Even without a father. And who knew, maybe they had already killed Adriano.
They crossed paths without noticing each other and missed each other by a few seconds. Serafino went through the fence and headed home. Adriano walked past the now destroyed reception desk. The elevator doors were wide open, scattered with broken parts. He climbed the stairs three steps at a time, in the direction of his room. He saw people in the halls but they were new, he had never seen these faces before, these ghosts. As soon as he saw his office door his heart started to beat so fast that he felt it bounce in his rib cage. Maybe Maria was in there, maybe she was hiding, maybe she had saved herself.
Sitting on the bed with her legs spread wide over the wet sheets, Maria started to cry and at the same time felt a furious rage grow inside of her. What the hell was Adriano thinking, leaving her alone like that? If he really cared about her he should have refused to take part in the conference. Where was that asshole now? Why hadn’t he arrived? He must have gotten himself killed, like those other idiots. He had abandoned her, that’s what mattered, and now she didn’t know how to have a baby, nothing was moving inside of her, her stomach was still, she wasn’t having contractions and if water had stopped trickling it meant that the baby had no more water, and how many hours could the baby last without water? Was she alive or had she already died? Fuck you, Adriano. Fuck you.
Adriano shouted her name and started punching the door.
“Maria, open up. Open up, please, I beg you. Tell me you’re in there. Tell me you’re in there, it’s me!”
He heard the sound of the door being unlocked. He took a deep breath, almost certain that he had found her. He stretched his long fingers and pushed open the door to save time, but when it opened he came face to face with Carlo Medioli.
“Adriano, you’re back.”
He spoke to him like he was from another planet. Adriano pushed him away and walked into the room.
“I came to get Maria. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Where the fuck is she? Tell me!”
“I saw her get in line with all those other people last night, she was running away from this place.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
“Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. They came in swarms. All the people who died in the hospital, as well as people from outside.”
Medioli was shaking. He looked awkward. Pathetic. When he started talking again, his cries distorted his face and voice.
“They were killing pregnant women, Adriano. They used the delivery room. When I last saw Maria, she was alive. Believe me, I couldn’t do anything. If I had said anything to her, they would have gutted her.”
Trying to wrap his mind around what he heard, Adriano walked to the sink and started to wash himself. His chest, his back, his armpits, washing off all the scum that had accumulated on him from the last few hours: sweat, fatigue, the stench of humanity in which he had been immersed. He dried himself with a roll of paper towels, opened the dresser and found his clothes still inside.
Serafino ran down the street. Families wandered around, both terrorized and aggressive, herds of men and women who didn’t know if there was anything left in this world to look for or hope for. A light cloud glided across the moon and then slipped away. Serafino looked up but kept running and repeating to himself the same question: were the reborn evil?
Adriano buttoned up his shirt. Medioli stared at him absently. He put on his shoes and walked to the door.
“I’m going to look for her.”
“Even Rufina left, Adriano.”
“What are you despairing about, Medioli? She was hungry. That’s why she acted the way she did with you. Did you really think she loved you?”
“You’re an asshole.”
Before walking out Adriano grabbed his money and cell phone, but felt something at the bottom of his pocket, a small piece of folded paper. What was it? He pulled it out and walked over to the window for more light. On the piece of paper were the words “Prof. Serafino Currò,” along with his address and telephone number. It was the old piece of paper that Serafino had given to Adriano for Maria when he left the hospital. Of course, Maria knew where he lived, she knew him and trusted him. What a fucking idiot. How had he not thought of it earlier?
He ran down the street, dodging those beings who were reclaiming possession of earth, without feeling fatigue or sweat, without feeling the blisters on his hands or feet, or the shortage of oxygen that polluted his blood and lungs, without feeling his racing heart because he had both a destination and hope. The sky was charged with electricity, the wind started to blow excessively, lifting trash up high and forcing trees and people to bend over. On the horizon the sky grew bright and then dark again, like a large eye blinking open and then shut. There was the roll of thunder. A storm was coming to wash away the earth.