The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide to Disillusionment

Murray Hill

An unexplored culture is bound to be a source of anxiety and fear to those who only view it from afar. Sometimes those fears are justified, but never in the way we expect them to be.

– The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide, Vol. 2, excerpt from line 987

"You're free to walk around the island. You are not permitted to harm anyone or anything. When you have told us all that we need to know, you will be permitted to leave," Genghis told him.

Barnabas had recovered well. His injuries were healing. His hand ached a little, but he could bend all of his fingers and his thumb with little difficulty. His ribs and legs ached a bit too, but the healing progress was impressive. He could move about with very little discomfort. They had even mended his clothes. They felt new. The damned xombie tech worked. He wished he could find a way to steal it.

He had spent a very long time in solitude. Way more time than he was used to. He lost count of the days, but it felt like it may have been two months alone in that vast room, watching the ceiling. Barnabas spent a lot of time listening. Unable to raise himself up enough to see down from the windows of the building, he was certain he could hear the sound of lapping water somewhere far below him. It was very faint. The storms were terrifying, and by the end of his stay it had started to sleet. Xombies came in at regular intervals and fed him or moved him about. They had his groin and ass hooked up to something he couldn't see. All the inputs and outputs were handled by strange mechanics. Some days it was as if he had been taken aboard a spaceship. He hallucinated. His silent handlers arrived with long arms and fingers and green heads with huge eyes. He laughed and screamed and cried. It was a mess.

He was happier to be out and about than he cared to admit. He did not want to seem grateful, surrounded by the enemy. They knew he had taken down their little Westchester outpost. Their kindness now was surely a ruse; softening him up for some gruesome punishment or death.

There were mostly xombies on this ruin of Manhattan. They had held him in a metal and glass tower a half-mile south. The buildings to the east and west of Murray Hill were slowly being claimed by the waters. A myriad assortment of boats trawled the passageways between the precarious buildings. Nothing survives the advancing ocean. She is relentless.

Wordlessly, Barnabas turned away and headed across the isthmus southward toward the submerged building where he thought he had been imprisoned.

Walking among the xombie homes, little cubes, stacked one atop the other with stairs and ladders atop the limited acreage, Barnabas came to a community of Jews, the women in headscarves or wigs, the men in hats with black coats. Barnabas recognized their garb from a similar community in the Marion region. His town did some trading with them. The Marion Hasidim were tight-knit and well organized. This community was something new. They were coexisting with the xombies. Barnabas found that curious. He approached a young man walking with his wife and daughter.

"Good day to you," he said, suddenly aware of his own strange clothing.

"Shalom," responded the young man.

"I'm new here. Can you tell me about your community? You're Orthodox, are you not?" Barnabas was remembering words from his interaction with the Marion community. He wasn't sure he was getting it right.

"Mm, not so much English. Ton ir redn eydish?" the man replied.

"I don't understand," Barnabas said.

"Ir zent shtil?" the man replied, pointing to his head.

"I don't understand you." Barnabas was more perplexed. These Jews didn't seem to speak English. Perhaps they didn't need to in order to interact with the xombies.