Ascension by Daniel Weisbeck (reading tree .txt) 📕

Henry Ford sat in his apartment and listened to the news feed with wide, terrified eyes. His heart stopped. Or sped up. He was so disoriented he couldn’t tell. An image of Liza, her large dark brown eyes, hair so black it was almost blue, and her beguiling smile came into his mind instantly as the broadcaster announced the sudden and unexpected change in age qualification for those required to test for immunity resistance to the virus. Something from his stomach rose up into his throat, and a sour sick taste filled his mouth.

“Call Liza,” he bleated into the air, jumping to his feet and starting a rapid pace back and forth in his living room.

“Liza is not answering the call,” his virtual assistant calmly responded.

“Leave a message: Liza, pick up. Please. Oh my, I didn’t see that coming…I’m coming over. End Message.”

Henry grabbed a long overcoat hanging by the door and slipped out of his building onto the Old Town's twisted cobblestone streets. Flipping his hood up over his permanently coiffed burnt-orange hair, the tick, tick, tick of rain falling onto his polyurethane rubber coat echoed around his ears.

Zoom! Beep, beep! Hover crafts descended and rose busily into the narrow passages between the shop fronts and bustling crowds of citizens in usual daily business. Old Town was at the heart of the Sanctuary. Its twisting mid-evil pathways were the arteries where history, culture and remembrance were carved into the cold, sterile world of glass and steel skyscrapers that made up the much larger walled city. Before the Scorch, before FossilFlu, Old Town was nearly abandoned. It was only a dot on a tourist map for those visiting the largest and most advanced metropolis on the Asian continent. When the pandemic hit and the disease could not be contained, the Sanctuary of Asia was forced to build a 140-foot barrier wall around its borders and close its citizen’s inside while billions outside were dying. The throngs of desperate humans who were lucky enough to have gotten through the gates before they closed were distributed around the city and assigned living quarters. Old Town, once again, became a living community. Henry and Liza had grown up as orphans in these crooked streets.

Theirs was not an immediate affection for each other. Well, not for Liza anyways. Henry was a quiet man. It wasn’t that he didn’t have his own thoughts, no Henry had plenty of ideas. Great ideas at that! It was just that Henry also had a stutter, which he developed in childhood after witnessing the agonizing death of both his parents and a sister to the FossilFlu. To avoid embarrassment, he preferred instead to keep his ideas to himself. And so, day after day, he would open the small door cut into the heart of a larger door at the front of his tea shop, stand behind the old wood counter quietly, and wait for Liza to come in. Like clockwork, at nine, she would walk through his door for a fresh cup of his unique home-brewed tea. Henry’s heart would speed up, his cheeks would turn red, but all he could ever muster was a thin nervous smile, and if lucky, without pause or repetition, a clear “Good morning” and “The usual?” at seeing her.

He had convinced himself she felt the same for him long before she had spoken the words. His conviction was because she returned each morning to his tea shop when she hadn’t needed to, as food and drink replicators offered a multitude of tea simulants. Of course, there was always the possibility she just couldn’t live without his home-grown Camellia Sinesis. His was the real thing, not picoparticle derived replications. But acknowledging this alternative truth would only break his heart and keep him up in the long hours of the night pining for unrequited love. No, it was much easier to believe she was shy, in love, and didn’t yet know how to express herself.

Then one day, no different than any other, in a moment Henry would never forget, Liza stayed longer than usual. She lingered with tea in hand and browsed with her eyes at the many glass jars in various sizes that stocked the shelves behind Henry and his counter. The containers were filled with dry leaves in different shades of blacks to reds to greens to whites.

“I always get the same tea,” she pondered out loud, her eyes pointing over his shoulders. “What’s in the other jars?”

Henry felt his muscles go rigid and a few beads of sweat form under his hairline. He wanted to tell her everything he knew about tea. Just let the words spill out and keep her standing in his shop for hours. But his tongue had grown thick and dry, and a slight spasm in both corners of his mouth were familiar tells that speaking would reveal the percussions of his disability.

Liza’s eyes drifted to his face. Her pinched brow gave way she saw his discomfort, and to Henry’s horror, she misread his intentions.

“I’m so sorry. I’m taking up too much of your time,” she quickly said.

“Na…na…na…nooo,” Henry forced out.

Liza’s cheeks burned red, having forced Henry into an embarrassing situation. But instead of excusing herself and leaving, she stayed. Tilting her head, she offered a friendly smile and waited, quietly and patiently.

Henry took a deep breath and started slowly. “The di…di…difference is in the fermentation. They are all the sa…sa…same tea plant.”

Liza’s eyes, kind eyes, understanding eyes, remained locked onto his, and she nodded politely as he continued to explain how the darker, redder leaves were fermented longer. The tea she, in particular, enjoyed was a lighter, green tea, requiring less fermentation. As his mouth moved more fluidly and his voice grew more confident, the singing in Henry’s heart drowned out his fear. A heavy stone had been lifted off his shoulders, and his words became feather-light, floating out of his mouth without resistance for the first time in his remembered life. For Henry, it was a miracle. For Liza, it was the beginning of their friendship.

Within weeks their conversations had grown longer. They shared tea, then lunch, then dinner and eventually their beds. Henry’s stammer had all but disappeared when around Liza. This he took as proof they were meant to be together forever. He was planning on asking her to move in until the damn Amendment 10. Oh, dear, dear, Liza, he thought.

Henry’s face washed pale as that horrible sick feeling in his stomach returned, thinking about Liza Ascending. His pace quickened through the crumbling neighbourhood. Liza’s apartment was in a skyrise several city-blocks outside of Old Town. He could get to her building in forty minutes and thirty-two seconds at an average pace on foot. Today, he was hoping to make the journey in less time. There was no point hailing a hover cab. City restrictions on vehicles to conserve energy meant cabs were far too expensive for such short trips, and it would be rerouted to service longer requests even if he tried to find one. No, this morning, he would have to be quick on his feet. And the heavy rain and busy walkways would not make it any easier.

Henry dodged, swiped sideways, and skipped on and off the black mirrored streets as he sped down the city blocks and weaved through the pedestrians dressed in their long polyurethan capes and transparent face masks. There is a pending pandemic, people! He wanted to scream at them. What are you doing out here? Go home and get out of my way!

His growing frustration and rage incited a sudden hatred for everyone around him. They were the problem: citizens who had grown tired of being locked inside their homes and refused to sacrifice their ‘freedom’ to save the most vulnerable. They were the reason Liza was called to the clinic, called to death. How selfish you all are! How grotesquely inhumane the last of humanity has become! He screamed in his mind.

He glanced down at the time displayed on the communicator band he wore around his left wrist. Twenty minutes had passed. So much for hurrying, he scolded himself. He would need to be more aggressive. Jumping in front of a tall and broad-shouldered man, his booted foot sent water splashing up on the stranger’s trousers.

“Hey! Be careful, you idiot! And where the hell is your mask!” the tall man bellowed.

Usually, Henry would have turned back and profusely apologized. But not today.

Oh, just shut up! You have no idea what is at stake. You think getting a little water on your trousers is the worst thing that can happen. Try losing your partner. How would that feel?

These thoughts only ran through Henry’s mind and never became words spoken. Instead, the worst retort that Henry could muster was a “Sorry” over his shoulder without turning to give the man the courtesy of a face-to-face apology.

As Henry rounded the final corner and had Liza’s building in his sites, he lifted his wrist and spoke into his bracelet, “Call Liza.”

“There is no answer. Would you like to leave a message?” Henry's assistant said.

Henry did want to leave a message. Many messages, in fact. He loved her. He couldn’t live without her. He would find a way to protect her from the Ascension. But he knew there was a good chance Liza had left for the clinic. Liza was not one to procrastinate. Things seemed to eat at her if unfinished. Her apartment was always tidy and in order. Her appearances set the standard for primmed and punctual. And she never, not once in the time he had known her, missed an appointment. He could only