Sunburst

Too late for dreams

Aug 11, 2023

The short story below is my submission to the STSC Symposium, a monthly set-theme collaboration between STSC writers. The topic today is “Dreams”. When is it too late to dream?

Sunburst

The couple lay locked in a charred dance. His arms reached up to protect her face and her head buried into his shoulder.

"Jane and John Doe. No IDs on either of them. Perhaps once the computers are back up and we can run tests, but they were attacked yesterday or the day before," said the forensic technician.

Henry Dahl kneeled down to study the burned remains. Every once in a while they still encountered these horrible scenes. Thieves and desperates attacked unsuspecting people and the current weapon of choice was fire. There had been more of these situations earlier on but not that many in the past few months. He touched the female's left hand gently, and it suddenly and fully struck him that he was looking at two actual human beings. The female's hand was hard and stiff, and so tiny.

"Jane and John," Henry murmured. He looked back up at the forensic technician and said:

"Take samples and let's hope the computers will come back up fast so we can run the tests."

If the coastline near Dover was a human it was as if time had stopped in its youth. Nothing, not even a solar flare, had left a mark on it. The cliffs were perfumed by the sea and the afternoon autumn sunlight gave a show. The air was crisp and allowed for much better views than during the misty summer months.

Henry watched in silence while the forensic technician worked.

"Funny," said the technician, "this looks like leather."

A burned rectangular piece of leather was pressed into the woman's side. Henry looked at it. Brown leather, probably a purse.

"Looks like a bag, right?" Henry stated the obvious.

"Yup, indeed it is. Here, let's see if we can do this..." The forensic technician took out some tools and gently began to peel the leather off the woman's side.

They fell silent again. Henry sat down on a rock and watched. The absurd view was getting to him. The most beautiful backdrop and the most awful death evoked a feeling of a dreamlike state. That none of this was real, that he would wake up soon. Perhaps this was one of those dreams, lucid dreams, that his wife used to talk about. She would talk about having lucid dreams and of being able to will herself to dive deep into clear blue oceans, and breathe underwater. Was this his version of it? Sitting on a cliff and looking at two dead bodies?

Henry looked around and breathed in as much air as he possibly could. Would he be able to do this in a dream? Would he be able to think this clearly, and perceive this clearly? He could sense some old emotion, something that had been deserted and buried in experience and reality, well up. But he was interrupted.

"Look! Contents." Hanging in the pincer grip was something melted and distorted. The forensic technician held it out toward Henry.

Henry moved closer so he could kneel down again. It looked like orange melted plastic.

"Let's see here," muttered the forensics expert, "this could be an old credit card. No, not quite. A larger object. See, it seems to have some paper material on it. Could it be a container of some kind? A pill jar? A medicine bottle? Look, this might be the printed dosage."

Henry asked: "What else do you see in the bag?"

They worked for a while to remove charred material and finally held up a black hard blob. "This is what happens to some chemicals, such as pills, when burned."

"Medicine, huh. Can you tell what kind? Is there a name on the bottle?" Henry asked.

"You're the doctor. Here, take a look."

Henry smelled the orange plastic. It had the odor of leather and death. There was some paper mixed with the plastic. He detected a red "W." Could it be Walgreens? Could this be an American couple? He took out his pocket knife and cut into a fold in the plastic. "...din" Possibly Vicodin. Henry cut into another fold and saw "Janet Dahl."

Henry could not move. He looked out over the ocean at the seagulls riding the invisible liquid above the chalky cliffs. He knew everything would come crashing down soon, but not yet. He was still able to think and perceive and even analyze. He forced himself to look at the worn boots, leather, and the charred grass that framed the couple. She had made it all the way here. Very few people in the whole world could have achieved such a thing after the solar storm.

The weakness began to set in. Henry recognized the signs of shock and pretended to focus on something on the ground and sat down. He reached into the pocket of his coat and found a chocolate bar. He had to fight this shock. He bit off the plastic wrapper and spat it out in the wind and chewed off half of the chocolate bar and began to grind it with his teeth. It tasted absolutely nothing.

She would have burst out laughing if she’d seen him, and it made him chuckle. The forensic technician stood a few yards away and looked up from his work.

“Everything OK there?”

Henry held up the chocolate bar, mouth full, and nodded. The technician nodded with an impressed look on his face. Not many would eat chocolate next to a charred body. But hey, this was clearly an experienced doctor who had seen pretty much everything.

So, Henry thought to himself, she had made it all the way from San Francisco across the entire United States after the massive solar storm knocked out all electrical circuits in most of the world. And then, the most magnificent achievement, she had made it across the Atlantic somehow.

She must have banded together with this man, Henry looked at the tall charred body, and together they had traveled here. To find him? To be with him? To tell him that she loved him?

Instinctively he knew that’s exactly what had happened. She had done everything in her power to travel from one side of the Earth to the other during a time when people barely could survive. She had done what she thought was necessary to be here, Henry was certain of it. And she had made it here. She had made it! Out of love.

And he hadn’t. He hadn’t done a thing. He had stayed outside of London the entire time, in quite a comfortable setting. Not that he had enjoyed his existence, but he had not done what she had. He had stayed put, had enough food and shelter and safety. He had even been able to maintain his job as a doctor. He had almost built himself a new life. Almost.

What he didn’t tell anyone was that he had sat and worried and drunk himself to sleep, night after night since the solar storm. But he had not fought and clawed his way to the other side of the world to be with her, like she had done for him. He hadn't believed in it enough. He thought he had made too many mistakes already and that she would be better off without him. He didn’t expect her to… to what? To be this strong?

He thought he had depleted all abilities of feeling fear, regret and self-hatred by now, but there was a reserve. It hit him and hammered in a particularly sharp dagger in his core, and many small shards spread up through his abdomen and chest and froze his lungs and face and forced him to fight for air.

She hadn’t only dreamed up what seemed like impossible solutions day after day, like he had. No, she had taken action. She had done all this for him, and he was standing next to her now. Here. They were together here. Now.

He heard himself ask: "What else is in the bag?"

They found a car key. The key chain had “Sunburst, Montana” on it.

Montana? God, had she been up to Montana too?

"Anything else?" he asked, staring west as if he could somehow trace her journey here by looking toward home, there, beyond the horizon.

"Here, this." He held out his trembling hand and was handed a lump of metal but dared not look. It burned in his palm even if it was solid and dry. He finally mustered up enough courage to look at it. It was his wedding band that he had left on their dresser in San Francisco the morning he left for England.

Cabinet of Curiosities

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