Sarah Lang

For my first one / the lumpectomy went well. / Clean margins. / I wish I had a larger supply of painkillers, but I don’t. / There will be a scar. / But, and don’t freak out—which I know is the stage we have been in for weeks—, when I biopsied a lymph node / we are dealing with a biological threat here. / The only thing I know that fits is the Bubonic Plague. / This could be an engineered and/or evolved form. / We need to figure this out. / We need antibiotics. / Yesterday.

I’m lonely as fucking shit all. / Is that what you want to hear? / And with all that tech you can’t use a shortwave to even tell me you’re alive? / I know you are working very hard to fix things. / But that doesn’t negate the fact I’m stuck here / trying to remake everything / do surgeries I can barely do / on a good day. / And that the end of that day / I want you there. / Sue me for being selfish.

We need to divide up into skill sets. / Raise a hand if you have or can even handle a gun. / Okay, our first mission to to get pharmaceuticals. / For this you have to cover the now resident pharmacist. / That water, last I remember / is potable. / We need a latrine that won’t contaminate it. / Does anyone here have any experience in this at all? / Good. / Make a team. / We also need to make sure that water is potable / worst case, we boil it / which means we need fire. / Constantly. / Anyone want to join that team? / Good. / Food is thus far not an issue, but it will be. / Please let me know if you have any preservation knowledge / no matter how little. / The rest of us are going to board up this place up and connect it to any nearby housing. / Do we have the stuff we need here? / Okay, then two people are going into town to get it. / Who can do this best? / Go. / We also need a generator and to raid even a HS science lab. / But that comes later. / Please safely get the meds and supplies / The HS lab will be how we tell what is going on / not how to fix it.

Our hands are in the air. / We do not want to hurt you; / in fact we would love it if you joined us. / If you try and stop us / we will kill you and take what we want anyway. / I’m asking you to be our pharmacist / and grab everything you can. / You’ve heard the news. / The sooner we do this the better. / Please. / I have no desire to harm you / but I have a desire to live. / I’ve made a list of meds / but I’m sure you can do one better. / And you are invited to come with us. / We have clean water and food. / That is more than your house is going to have.

T, / my darling dearest, / you’ll be okay. / In fact you’ll be brilliant. / And you never needed me for that. / Good-Bye, my love.

My grandfather gave me a keyboard. / The first song I learned was “Silent Night.” GAGE.

I’m writing F=ma in your Dad’s shirt. / I think he would be proud, of my attempt at least. / He could do this far better than I. / I got languages.

Do you know what else kiddo, / sometimes I do not want to stand tall & write this book. / Not always. / Sometimes I just want your father to come home / or someone else to do it. / And ask for help.

Here it is.

[Again, not edited.]

This is a book that teaches you everything I couldn’t. / I just realized I never told you about “the man in the moon.” I wish I could have been there. / And no, he isn’t a real man, / just the shape of the craters. / We move through space and so do many things. And sometimes they do hit us. / In this case, many hit the moon / and made that face. / The “man in the moon.”

//

Right now I miss your father, our house. You should have seen our house. We had just picked out faucets. / I argued the bathtub should be just as good as the kitchen sink / I miss him because I don’t want to walk out the door and meet new people, I just want to see him. / Out that door.

More here.