Fever

The waters were still that morning, and the water tapped gently on the sides of the boat as it swayed from side to side. The coast of New Washington was faintly visible to the east, dry black mountains fading into gray. She watched a fish as big as her leg swim by below, shadowed by a handful of smaller darters. The anchor chain disappeared into the gloom -- she imagined it descending until eventually its teeth locked into sand and rocks some thousand feet below.

The bulk of the family was belowdecks, but Esaiah sat looking out at the land, his white head turned away from her. In his gnarled hands he held a small but very thick book -- his fingers obscured the title, but she knew that it read Clive's Almanac, and in smaller letters, More Years Than You Could Ever Need -- Every Day of Every Month of Every Year Through 2120 -- This Book Will Outlive You -- See The Future Through the Days of the Week -- When Will Your 99th Birthday Fall?

"You good, baba?" she said, scooting down the deck towards him. Far away, a distant cormorant circled.

He sighed deeply. "Soon we'll reach the end of the almanac." The book's binding had almost entirely disintegrated, and what was left of the colorful paper color was held on by patches of duct tape that ran along the spine and wrapped around the back like a shield.

"Can't you just start over from the beginning? It's like the same thing for a billion pages."

He looked mournfully out at the water. "Each year is off by a few days from any other. We'll start to lose our place... Slowly, month by month, we'll lose track of time..."

"Ignore him," Emila said, slowly seating herself next to Memma with a groan. "My back is not pleased with me... Esaiah, don't be such a downer. Why do you even have that thing out here?"

"You," he said, pointing a nobbled finger at her nose, "Are a bad daughter. What would mother say?"

"Probably, 'Eat some fish, have a drink, forget the past,'" Emila snapped. "Don't test me. I know what day it is."

Memma looked from one to the other. "What day is it?"

"It's not actually important," Emila shrugged.

"On the contrary, it is the most important." Baba looked downright irked now. "Today is Fire Day. And not just any Fire Day, but the one hundredth anniversary of the first Fire Day."

Memma knew vaguely what Fire Day was, but Avin, her mother, was adamant that it wasn't a topic little girls should learn about.

"What happened on the first Fire Day?" she asked slyly.

Emila gave her a sideways glance, the corner of her mouth quirking up, and did a quick scan of the deck: Avin was nowhere to be seen.

"I don't know if I should..." Baba began hesitantly.

"Oh, tell her, Esaiah. She's practically as tall as you are."

"She is not," he said strictly. "Sunshine, it is not a nice story."

"I can handle it," she said, trying her best at a solemn expression.

"Well, just don't tell your mother." He sighed and resettled himself on the deck. "Can I have a pillow?"

Memma jumped up, pulled a pillow out of the storage chest, and threw it in his direction. It would have gone in the water had Emila not caught it, but as it was she settled it behind him and he prepared for the story.

"Many years ago, when this book was newly printed," he began, tapping the cover of the almanac, "Everything was going to shit. People were -- to say the least -- desperate and miserable. Communities were breaking down, people were killing each other, and even the land was shifting and collapsing into the sea. It was a bad, bad time."

"Was this when Gran was born?"

"Yes, Gran herself was a little girl when this was going on, god rest her soul. Now at this time -- this may be hard to believe, but I swear on the almanac it's true -- people were everywhere on the land. You could hardly walk ten miles without running into somebody. And they built mountains of metal needles to live in, and traveled a great deal. In some ways it was a great time. The things those people built, from what Gran told me..."

He drifted off into reflection for a moment. The water lapped at Memma's toes and she wiggled them impatiently, not wanting to interrupt and risk the story ending there.

"Fire Day," Emila prompted.

"Yes, right. So in this crowded land world, there came upon the land a great sickness. Some people call it the Fever, or Fire Fever, but that sounds like a dance craze in my opinion. In any case, a sort of plague began to spread person to person. And each of them and all of them developed a peculiar thirst to destroy what made them miserable.

"For a time it was contained: there was some low-level smashing and rioting, individual arson. But the farther it spread the more it grew, until hundreds of thousands took to the streets and set on fire anything that could burn. And still more people caught the sickness, and across the world the cities and towns and houses burned, and people dropped fire from the sky, and the very land caught aflame, and this passion gripped the people of the earth until everything that would burn had burned and the few still alive were left in an ashy blankness.

"Gran -- your mother's grandmother -- was only a little girl when all this came to pass. As the fever spread her mother and father brought as much food and water as they could and took to the ocean in a tiny boat, touching shore only when they needed to restock. In all of this the sea proved more fertile than the land, and eventually they learned to feed themselves and live only on the water. And so when the burning ended they shunned the desecrated coastline, and found others who had also survived on the water, and for decades we have prevailed -- right down to you, Memma.

"This day, Fire Day, marks the day one hundred years ago when the fever began to spread."

Memma looked out at the distant black mountains. It was difficult to image the blasted terrain of New Washington full of dry green seaweed and fish that walked like people.

"Well," Memma said hesitantly after a moment, "It seems like we're doing pretty good, all things considered."

Baba flicked the back of her head. "We prevail. Don't tell your mother."

The distant cormorant swooped and rose again with a fish thrashing wildly in its beak. What was it like, she wondered, to hate the world so much that you burned all you could to ash?