The Plague and the Castle

In the synthetic last days of the turn of the century I noticed a measurable increase in the number of daily obituaries reported in the local newspaper of our mid-sized city. The increasing frequency of these deaths was not editorialized in any fashion and was treated with the same degree of impartiality that we were accustomed to expect from our media. Aside from an obvious increase in the frequency of death, the only observation that the discerning obituary reader could make was that there appeared to be a sudden and rapid acceleration in the morbidity rate among that segment of the population whose death was officially attributable to “natural causes”.

At first I noticed only sporadic salvos launched during the night affecting a very small portion of the populace. No mention was made on television or in the press of these occurrences, which, after several weeks, increased their frequency until bombings were taking place nightly. In the morning the only evidence that something out of the ordinary had occurred was visible only briefly and if one awoke before dawn and quickly traversed the outer reaches of the center city. I determined that, on average, several old multi-level housing complexes were being hit each night. On more than one occasion I witnessed what appeared to be groups of soldiers hurriedly loading up large trucks and transporting debris across the bridges that separated the older areas of town from the newer subdivisions. Immediately after clearing the wreckage they quickly erected scaffolding to give the demolished site area appearance of a vibrant construction site where they had been working diligently all night.

In absence of an official pronouncement from the government concerning these events, there was only a general awareness that some older colleagues were no longer at the workplace due to illness or deaths in the family. Additionally, the city streets seemed to be quieter and more traffic-free than normal at night despite the presence of unusually pleasant spring weather. The preponderance of good weather and the increase in the percentage of elderly individuals living alone whose deaths were attributed to natural causes caused great argument in medical circles among those researchers who studied both seasonal affective disorders and communicable diseases. Some ruminated on the possibility of a sagacious microorganism that sought to strike down primarily individuals who were elderly, in ill health already, or living alone. Others blamed a general decrease in nutrition and pointed out that fruit and vegetable shipments had been declining in concert with the increased morbidity rate.

After several months of such nightly occurrences and a resultant jump in open positions in senior management at prominent corporations, a growing minority began to speak in hushed tones of a different reality. Despite a thriving construction industry, a veritable labor shortage, and an extremely mobile workforce, some elected to concentrate on the scant supplies of food, long lines at the gas stations, new government travel advisories, and the recently imposed city-wide curfews. This group of detractors maintained that things were not as good as they appeared. As the leaves began to fall from the trees in the fall, the phrases “state of siege” and “state of war” began to appear in casual conversation, if not in the official media.

As for the cause of this war there was no obvious reason. It certainly was the case that nightly bombings commenced during a time when domestic demand had begun to lag after an unprecedented economic expansion. Additionally, as I had recently begun work as an agent for the clandestine press, I was aware of reports circulating among foreign journalists that hinted at a preemptive cleansing action to be launched against our citizenry by our external enemies prior to a general invasion. As further evidence of this many pointed out that the region’s heavy industry sites remained virtually untouched despite the bombings.

Paradoxically, despite the increasing dangers from bombs and guided missiles, a rumor began to circulate that one had a better chance of surviving the night if surrounded by friends and relatives. Some observed that it wasn’t primarily those who were elderly and infirm who were succumbing to the nightly raids. In fact, the most vulnerable seemed to be those who were living alone. This became apparent when a great number of recent university graduates all over the city began to appear in the obituary pages. These students were generally neither living with their parents, nor were they yet married. As if to dispel the notion of a general epidemic impacting those in their late teens and early twenties it was significant that the college dormitories sustained almost no damage even though the city contained several large student communities. In my own private journal I noted that through the entire crisis, which eventually stretched to ten months until the long winter finally ended, not a single person moved out of the city limits. However, several families did come from the outside and purchased some of the newly built homes that were completed during this time. This was consistent with the gradually increasing population trend of our area although we were generally considered a somewhat provincial university city. However, the population of the metropolitan area was approaching 1.5 million, and due to the family oriented nature of our city and the rural surroundings outside the city, the city had always managed to attract a slow but steady stream of newcomers.

The belief in safety in numbers coincided with the annual Independence Day celebration, which took place that year during the evening hours like it did each year. The next day the press proudly trumpeted the fact that a record number of people turned out for this year’s events and lauded what they described as “an unprecedented manifestation of nationalism in our time of need”. Indeed, of those still alive at the time, fewer than one percent of the population failed to join the crowds that night, which was a great morale booster and coincide with a respite from the bombings that evening.

In light of the successive wave of communal celebrations that swept the city in the days following Independence Day, some proclaimed the crisis at an end. However, exactly one week after Independence Day, air raid sirens began to sound during daylight hours. Previously we had simply heard explosions, and still we had never witnessed flames or smoke - at most there was the dust from a recently felled structure. The commencement of daylight bombings introduced a situation in which we were in peril at nearly all hours of the day. So curious was this phenomenon of destruction without fire that it was clear that our unseen enemy must certainly be far more powerful than our armed forces if they could invent such a weapon. I was among those who raced out into the streets whatever time of day or night the bombing started in an attempt at seeing even one flicker of fire from an explosion or a burning house. I had next to no fear of being out in the open during these times because it was still generally accepted that there was safety in numbers.

I was forced to conclude that I had no idea who was responsible for all of this or why. I had no information despite my ever-greater involvement with the clandestine press. Communications had been severed to the outside, and there was little we could ascertain other than from our own observations and conversations. We stuck together as a show of solidarity against our unseen yet omnipresent enemy, yet I confess that at the end I attended the meetings solely to be among a group. My official position with an accounting firm would ordinarily have been compromised under such circumstances, but due to the persistent labor shortage, my employers could not afford to let me go.

One day an event occurred that deeply shook all of us who had begun to accept the attacks as a part of daily life. At precisely 12 noon six months after the bombing began, City Hall was struck by several missiles that killed about one third of the employees in the building at the time. Throngs surrounded the building in silence as an enormous wall of fire devoured the entire structure as if fueled by continual reserves of incendiary devices. The fire was all the more significant because our gas supplies had long ended, and for some inexplicable reason it had no longer been physically possible to ignite wood or any other material for cooking. During the inferno, some attempted to thrust wooden objects into the fire in an attempt to harness the fire for their own purposes. However, each time they approached the fire, which burned oddly without great heat, it grew rapidly hotter and scorched anything or anyone who drew near. In one case someone threw a long branch into the base of the fire, and it went in about half-way. Neither did the branch burn, nor was it possible to dislodge any part of the branch from the burned-out structure even after the fire ended.

The final month of the ordeal was a period of unmitigated terror. For the first time people began to be knocked to the ground due to the concussion of the explosions. Previously, the bombs had been directed only against residential structures, but in light of the destruction of City Hall, bombs and missiles began to conform more to what one generally thinks bombs and missiles are supposed to do. Bombs and missiles now exploded in walls of heat and flame, causing destructive shock waves and transforming buildings into smoking ruins. The newspapers published suggestions for how to seek shelter during the attacks and how to find food, but they never gave any details on which areas or structures were destroyed. Aside from the recommended precautions and the numerous obituaries, together which encompassed fully 2/3 of the newspaper, the media continued to report as much news as possible, and the only other acknowledgment of any problem was that in the obituaries they now differentiated between causes of death such as “killed by explosion”, “burned”, or “lost, presumed dead”.

During this last month, I never left the side of my wife and family, and if we went anywhere in public, we always walked hand-in-hand, often in a large chain with other families. Most of the time we huddled with other families inside out apartment complex as we waited for the next food rations to arrive. Almost everyone began to do this after television reports indicated that all segments of the population had plummeted more than 50% except married couples with families, where the loss of life had been only about 25%. During the final week of the siege, the amount of debris littering the streets made it almost impossible to go anywhere. Additionally, it was only during that last week that all the bridges over the canals in the old city, where we lived, were destroyed. This was our only link to the newer districts, and it was a miracle that the bridges and much of the infrastructure had remained intact for so long.

The final day of the siege was, without doubt, the longest day of my life. That morning we heard a series of exceptionally large explosions. Soon afterwards the television media showed pictures of the destruction for the very first time. I remember one reporter in particular, who was standing just a few blocks from where we were. At the edge of a canal where the symphony hall juts inward abruptly to create a courtyard as it mirrors the outline of a small lake on the canal, the cameraman focused on the reporter’s feet at first, which were bounded by an odd shade of white. Raising the camera upwards and away from his feet, this whiteness did not go away. Zooming out showed the cameraman at the edge of the canal and in front of what appeared to be a large white screen. Almost unintelligible at that point, he managed to get across the fact that a series of explosions had taken place across the area that had obliterated entire neighborhoods, leaving neither debris nor anything standing. Literally nothing was left. The white screen-like object formed an effective boundary with the now outside world.

One could go up to this limit, and, quite simply, one can then go no further, as if coming up against a wall. In some places the width of our territory remains large enough that one can still imagine that things remain as they once were, but eventually as soon as you start thinking this way, you could be driving across the countryside or simply walking in a field or on the ocean on a sun-filled day, and you will run into this barrier and simply stop. It is not a painful experience, and in fact I believe that the moment one interacts with this barrier it creates a rather soothing sensation, but I can never get past it. Some feel that the border to the outside world is somewhat variable, and it is true that you do not see it until you actually come in contact with it. It is, therefore, difficult to ascertain where our area ends and the other area begins. Of course, our economy did recover from the heavy material and personnel losses we suffered during those times, or else I wouldn’t have the leisure or resources to write this down. It goes without saying that we are now a sovereign nation of our own accord, and we did formally secede from the previous union to which we belonged. The history books still tell our children about their history, too, and we still have all the old maps, but increasingly we have had to come to terms with the fact that we may never again have any contact with the outside world.

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