“A black bird come morning

When the sun has reached its peak

A black bird come morning

Its feast between its beak…”

 

Francine repeated the rhyme as she rolled back and forth in bed, tussling with the prospect of facing reality.

 

“It’s time to wake up,” said the voice of her new bunkmate Sylvia. “We’re on cleanup duty today.”

 

* * *

 

Francine side-stepped down the line, listening to the same recording over the loudspeakers as every morning.

 

“You’re here to protect and uplift your fellow man. The radiation is dissipating with each and every new day. Remember, humanity needs you. You’re building the future.”

 

She grabbed a packet of protein slurry, a bottle of recycled water, and a sugar ball.

 

“Those things will rot your teeth,” said Sylvia.

 

“It’s Friday,” replied Francine. “I deserve a treat.”

 

“For breakfast?”

 

“And lunch and dinner.”

 

Sylvia laughed.

 

“I think we’re going to be good friends, roomie.”

 

Francine followed her new friend to an empty table.

 

“Hey, Sylvia.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I’ve only ever been assigned babysitting and record keeping. To be honest, I’m relieved to be doing something else after six months of crying babies and eye-watering boredom. What’s cleanup duty like? Are we going to see... anything bad?”

 

Sylvia shook her head.

 

“Nothing bad. We’ll just sift through debris for any supplies or valuables worth trading. I’ve done it twice before and both times we found jewelry. What’s record-keeping like?”

 

“Mostly thumbing through old magazines and books for any information worth putting on the internet when it’s rebuilt.”

 

* * *

 

Francine picked up a canned good and examined it.

 

Score. Chili.

 

“You really used to live here?” asked Sylvia.

 

“Yeah,” replied Francine. “We had a community pool. A lounge with billiards and an arcade cabinet.”

 

“An arcade? This place must’ve been super outdated. They stopped making those, what, fifty years ago? 2050?”

 

“At least. The owner of the apartment building had retro tastes, I guess. Where did you live?”

 

“The Star Rise,” replied Sylvia. “My parents both worked for Stars Corp.”

 

“Ah, so you had money money.”

 

“My parents did. I had an allowance of only fifty credits a week.”

 

Francine raised her right eyebrow. That was almost as much as each of her parents made, and they both worked sixty hours a week.

 

“Must’ve been rough,” she replied. Francine picked up another can. She went to put it into her bag but stopped when she noticed a familiar dresser. “Sylvia...”

 

“What’s up?”

 

“Can you come help me move this?”

 

“That old dresser? Why?”

 

“Because it’s my dresser. I want to access the bottom drawer but there’s all this drywall in the way.”

“What’s in there?”

 

“Hopefully memories.”

 

Francine pushed alongside her roommate and together they moved the dresser away from the debris.

She opened the bottom drawer.

 

“A penguin plushy?” said Sylvia.

 

“My black bird,” replied Francine.

 

“Your what?”

 

“My mother used to sing me a song every morning when I was little. It was just something she made up to make me smile. In it, there’s a black bird, and she’d mentioned once that she pictured a raven each time she sang, it was her way to calm my nerves about all the news of the attacks, the raven symbolizing something bad coming in the morning and that she’d be there for me no matter what, but I responded with saying I pictured a penguin. I’ve never seen her laugh so hard. My gift for Christmas that year, in a brown box underneath our plastic tree, was this penguin.”

 

“That must be what you were mumbling this morning,” said Sylvia. “I couldn’t quite understand it, but now I get it. ‘Black bird come morning, when the sun is at its peak...’ something like that.”

 

“You’re close. There are a couple more verses. My mother would spread her hands out as wide as she could after the last verse. Even if it didn’t make much sense.”

 

“Were you parents,” she pointed to the rubble, “still inside?”

 

Francine nodded.

 

“My mother pushed me into the hall and told me to head to the stairs. My father had been struck by the collapse of the upstairs floor. She went back for him. Then the building started to give.” She placed the plushie on her shoulder and her head on it. “Only a handful of people made it out.”

“I’m so sorry. That must’ve been scary.”

 

“I can still hear the panicked screams when I close my eyes. Singing my mother’s song soothes me. I had no idea I was singing it in my sleep.”

 

“You’re lucky. My last two clean-ups were at Star Rise. I didn’t find a single thing of mine. I didn’t have any plushies,” she smirked, “being a teenager and all. But recovering my Octo-Vision goggles would’ve been nice. I miss playing eight different games at once. Heck, I miss video games in general. All they have back at Port are those old board games.”

 

Francine thought about playing board games with her parents every Sunday, it was their way to make sure they spent time together as a family.

“Board games are so lame,” she replied.

 

“We should head back. I don’t want to miss our chance at getting lunch before our night duties.”

 

“Did you happen to see what we’re scheduled for?”

 

“Not yet.”

 

“Do you think things will ever get back to normal?”

 

“Not in our lifetimes.”

 

* * *

 

After lunch, Francine sang to herself as she and her new friend walked to the duties board.

 

“A black bird come morning

When the sun has reached its peak

A black bird come morning

Its feast between its beak

A black bird come morning

I’ll sing it this song

A black bird come morning

I love you this long.”