I awake chilled; my face is frozen. I blink away the nightmares and the frost and look around. I’m in a tent, under a thick covering of army blankets. I kick them off and go outside.
It’s still snowing. The field of white tents blends into the white snow covering the Commons.
“Morning, sir,” says the young soldier from the night before. He offers me another cigarette. We stand smoking, shivering.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Everything’s under control. We got help in from the Valley, from Cape Breton, from the South Shore. I heard that even Boston is sending supplies. This city’ll be up and running by Christmas.”
He must be 19 years old.
“The trains from the Valley are bringing coffins full of food,” he says. “To save space,” he explains, his face troubled.
We smoke for a moment.
“I’m sure Evelyn is just fine,” he tells me.
“How do you know her name?”
He looks embarrassed, eyes to his polished boots.
“You were shouting to her all night, sir.”
I toss the cigarette on the ground.
“Thanks for everything.”
“Sir? You might want to go to Camp Hill. Me and the boys, well, we’re
worried you might have a concussion.”
I thank him and start back to the northend.
“Your wife might be there,” he calls over my shoulder.
I turn and start running. My head, it isn’t right. I can’t think. Why
didn’t I go straight to the hospital?
Running through the smashed streets I see a man holding a newspaper: HALIFAX WRECKED.
Everywhere it’s knocked to pieces, and now 18 inches of clean snow has buried it. Most of the fires are out, at least. There’s corpses everywhere, stacked like cordwood. Most of them are frozen, their busted faces covered in white frost.
St. Joseph’s church, where Evie and I were married, looks like it’s been a ruin for centuries. The roof's gone, and the walls gape at the sky like a smashed jaw.
People are already dressed for mourning. Women head-to-toe in black wander sobbing through the destruction. A few demented men pull beams out of holes where houses used to be, praying for miracles.
There aren’t many today.
It’s warmer in the hospital, but there’s no heat, no electricity. The windows are gone, replaced by blankets.
I wander into a waiting room and stand there a while, not sure where to go. Everyone is quiet.
“Can you help me?”
I turn to find the voice. An old woman sitting against the wall.
I kneel next to her.
“I need a doctor,” she says.
“So does everyone,” I say, pointing to the others.
She’s silent. Then she whispers, “They’re all dead.”
It’s true. Sitting in chairs, lying on gurneys, stretched on the floor: this is a waiting room for the dead. I help the old woman to her feet and we walk deeper into the hospital.
It’s calm, nurses and doctors checking on everyone. The least injured are packed in the entry area. I leave the old woman there.
The further in I go, the worse it gets. No one stops me, no one talks to me. There’s bodies in the hallway, on beds, in the bathrooms. The dead have taken over the Earth.
Then I see her. She’s standing by a burned man’s bed, holding a clipboard while an exhausted doctor calms the dying man. She’s wearing the same grey dress as yesterday, now all torn and burnt, but I don’t know the sweater. I walk over to her. She sees me.
I start to breath, my heart pushes fresh blood into my veins. I’m born again. She’s alive; I can live.
“Evie,” I say, pulling her close to me, feeling her arms, her waist, her life.
I say her name again and again. Hot tears stream down my face. I know men don’t cry but I can’t stop, I don’t want to stop. She holds me, lifts the disaster off my shoulders.
The doctor smiles shyly and adjusts the patient’s bandages. I hear a nurse crying.
“You can take a break, Miss,” the doctor says, and my beautiful wife smiles. I love her more than my soul, and now feel I can rebuild the city myself.
I hug her tight to me. She leads me to a quiet corner and tells me her story.
“I was sitting home, sewing that button on your shirt when I heard a crash. I almost had the button done when the door came bursting in. It’s so strange,” she says, closing her eyes. “It was slowed down, so I could see the door fly into the sewing machine. It knocked it over on to me. I lay there while the city was blown away.”
She shakes her head, cries.
“One of the neighbours came digging through after a while, heard me and dug me out. The door was full of glass daggers and dents. But I hardly had a scratch. He brought me here, and when they saw I wasn’t hurt, they put me to work. I told them I had to find you, but they said you’d find me. And you did.”
She wipes a tear from my cheek.
“What’ll we do now? Everything is gone,” she says.
I shake my head, run my hands through her hair.
“Everything’s right here.”
(Illustration by Michelle Mersereau)