Earth Abides

At the funeral of Homo sapiens here will be few mourners. Canis familiaris as an individual will perhaps send up a few howls, but as a species, remembering all the kicks and curses, he will soon be comforted and run off to join his wild fellows. Homo sapiens, however, may take comfort from the thought that at his funeral there will be three wholly sincere mourners.

He came to the long bridge across the great brown rolling river, and a truck was stalled, blocking the narrow single lane which led across to Memphis.

Feeling like a bad boy, who is doing something forbidden and will be punished for it, he went against all the traffic signs, took the narrow single lane on the left-hand side of the railroad tracks, and headed across toward Tennessee on the road which should lead to Arkansas.

But he met no one, and before long he came to the Tennessee side, and drove out (still in the wrong direction) through the bridge approach. Memphis was as, empty as other cities had been, but a south wind was blowing, and it brought a fetid reek from what had been the teeming districts around Beale Street. If this was any indication of what Southern cities would be like, Ish wanted no more of them. He headed fast toward the country again.

Before he had gone far, however, the south wind brought steady rain. Since driving became dull and wearisome, and since he was certainly in no hurry to get anywhere, he holed up in a tourist-court at the edge of a small town, the name of which he did not even bother to ascertain. The gas pressure was still working at the stove in the kitchenette, and he made the fresh eggs his chief dish for dinner. They were a real treat, and yet he ended by being in, some way still unsatisfied. “I wonder” he thought, “if I’m getting all the things I should to eat.” Perhaps he should raid a drug store for some vitamin tablets. Later, he let Princess out for a run, and she suddenly vanished into the rain with a long yapping which ended in a bay as she struck on the trail of some animal. He was disgusted, since he knew that he might have to wait up an hour for her pleasure to return. She was back sooner, however, smelling woefully of a skunk. He shut her in the garage, and she complained bitterly with her yapping, at the disgraceful way she was being treated.

Ish went to bed, still with the unsatisfied feeling. “Must be suffering from shock more than I realize consciously,” he thought. “Or else the loneliness is getting me, or maybe good old sex is raising its ugly head.”

Shock could do strange things, he knew. He remembered hearing the story of a man who had seen his wife killed before his eyes in an accident and who had felt no desire for months.

He thought of the Negroes whom he had seen that day. The woman—middle-aged, far gone in pregnancy, no beauty at any time—could scarcely have thus disturbed him. When he thought of the incident, his memories turned chiefly to the way in which they had found a kind of security by keeping close to the soil. Then Princess bayed from the garage, and he cursed her, and went to sleep.

In the morning he still felt unsatisfied and restless. The storm was not yet over, but at the moment no rain was falling. He decided not to leave, but to take a walk down the road. Before going he looked into the station-wagon, and saw the rifle lying on the middle seat. He had hardly touched it since leaving California; now, without any definite thought, he took it, tucked it under his arm, and walked down the road.

Princess followed him a few yards, then discovered a new trail, and in spite of the last night’s experience was off upon it, vanishing over the hill in a series of delighted yelps and bays. “Better luck this time!” he called after her.

Ish himself walked along with no more definite idea than to stretch his legs a little or perhaps find a tree with ripe fruit. He was scarcely thinking of anything when he saw a cow and a calf in a field. There was nothing remarkable in that; he could see a cow and a calf in nearly any field in Tennessee. The remarkable fact was that now the loaded rifle was under his arm, and suddenly he knew what must somewhere have been in his mind.

Carefully resting the rifle on a fence-post he saw the sights come clearly into line with the redness of the calf’s shoulder. The range was butcher’s distance. He squeezed the trigger, and the rifle spoke and kicked back against him. As the sound died, he heard the calf give a long choking wheeze; it stood with legs braced but shaky, a thin stream of blood bursting from the nostrils. Then it collapsed and fell.