Angela and the Balm by J D Strunk

Five hours. That’s how long Angela had been hiding in the basement. Five. Whole. Hours.

Angela couldn’t help but wonder how big her pupils were after all this time in the dark. Sometimes when she was younger she used to go into the bathroom with a flashlight and turn off the lights; once she’d given her pupils time to get nice and big, she’d shine the flashlight on them and watch the black shrink up quick in the bathroom mirror. Angela had always thought it strange that she didn’t feel it when her pupils shrunk. She felt like shrinking pupils was something a person should feel.

Now nearly seven, Angela was no longer entertained by such childish games. That’s why, when her father had told her to stay well-hidden until he came back home, Angela had gone down to the basement without complaint and without question. Children didn’t follow rules, but young ladies did. And while Angela was secretly holding out hope she might be rewarded for her obedience—ice cream?—the truth of the matter was she would have obeyed even without the possibility of reward.

As for the hiding game, it wasn’t new. They played it all the time at school. At the teachers’ instruction all the kids would move into the hallways as quickly as possible (without running or pushing or shoving) and kneel facing the walls, hands over necks. Once all the kids were in the proper position for two minutes the teachers would dismiss everyone to recess. But at school the hiding game felt like just that—a game. It was unsettling to be playing the hiding game at home. It felt more serious, somehow. Angela was not sure why it felt more serious, but all the same, it did.

Angela’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of popping in the streets. Her father always told her such popping was fireworks, but Angela had seen enough movies to know it to be gunfire. Angela felt her heart begin to race. Where was her father? He had gone to pick up Angela’s younger brother from preschool, but why was it taking him so long? Had there been an accident? An ambush? Angela cursed the East under her breath. None of this would even be happening if they hadn’t dropped their stupid balm all over stupid Atlanta and made everyone upset.

Balms. It was all anyone talked about anymore. Even before Atlanta there’d been talk of balms at school, mostly amongst the teachers. Some of the kids in Angela’s class hadn’t known what a balm was, but Angela knew. Sometimes during the winter her hands would get very dry and so her father would put a balm on them. Angela hated it—her hands would be all sticky and gooey for hours. And of course her father wouldn’t let her wash it off. Angela would just have to sit there with her arms in the air, hands greased and gleaming, waiting for it to dry.

At first Angela hadn’t understood why Atlanta being covered in balm should be so big a deal. After all, couldn’t they just wait for it to dry, like Angela did during the winter? She had told her father as much—that she didn’t see what the big deal was—and her father had told her to imagine what it’d be like if someone dropped a balm on Baltimore. And so Angela had imagined just that—she had imagined suburban Baltimore covered in balm. She imagined the streets and the trees and the grassy yards all coated in a slick layer of yellow grease. And after imagining it, she had to admit, she didn’t like the idea—not one bit. No wonder people were upset, she thought. It seemed to her to be a pretty jerky thing to do, to cover a city in balm.

And so Angela had asked her father, “But why did the East drop the balm on Atlanta?”

And her father had said, “Because the East is not good, like we are.”

“And how long before Atlanta is cleaned up?”

Her father told her it would take many years.

Years? Angela couldn’t believe it! Evidently more balm had been dropped on Atlanta than Angela could properly imagine—enough balm to destroy buildings. Enough, even, to kill people.

Outside, the popping finally stopped. For the next five minutes there wasn’t so much as the sound of a passing car. It was just when Angela felt her heart rate slowing to normal that another round of gunfire erupted—this time twice as loud as before. In fact, it sounded as if it was coming from right outside Angela’s house.

For a second time the gunfire ceased. In its absence Angela could hear a man yelling. Not her father, though. This man was saying things Angela couldn’t understand. And then, more gunfire.

Angela began rocking herself back and forth. She hoped desperately that her father wasn’t trying to come home just now. Angela wanted to see him—more than anything—but she didn’t want him to come home if there were people shooting each other just outside their house.

Angela kept hoping the popping would stop for good, but it didn’t stop. A pair of tears streamed down either side of Angela’s face. Why had her father left her alone? And why was it taking him so long to pick up her little brother? Where were they?

Just when Angela thought things couldn’t possibly get any noisier, there was a loud shattering of glass upstairs, followed by a heavy thump on the basement ceiling. The thump was followed by yet another stream of gunfire, this one the loudest yet—so loud that Angela was forced to cover her ears. And then… silence.

It was only when Angela began to become lightheaded that she realized she was not breathing. Quietly as possible she refilled her lungs with small, quick breaths. Once she had caught her breath, she directed her eyes upward, toward the basement ceiling. She could not see the ceiling—it was so dark in the basement she couldn’t even see her hand when she held it in front of her face. But Angela was glad for that. There were times she feared darkness, but this was not one of those times. Right now she welcomed the darkness that enveloped her. The darkness was her blanket. In darkness, she was safe.

*             *             *

For the longest time Angela kept completely still where she sat. There was someone in her house—she was sure of it. By the sound of it they had come crashing through the living room window. And since she hadn’t heard anything since the crash, Angela figured they were probably still in the same spot they’d landed. Perhaps they too were catching their breath?

Presently Angela heard the slightest of moans from the floorboards above her head. The moan was accompanied by a small shower of dust which Angela couldn’t see but nonetheless felt as it fell into her hair and onto her skin and face. Angela’s nose was tickled by the dust. And then—no, no, please no—anything but… ah… Ah… AH-CHOOOOO!!!

Angela could have died. The sneeze had come out of nowhere.

For a few seconds following the sneeze the floor above Angela’s head stopped creaking. When the creaking resumed, the intruder’s steps became faster, and Angela could only presume where they were headed. Sure enough, half a minute later she heard the sound she had been dreading most: the opening of the basement door. The sound was followed by footfalls on the wooden basement steps. The heaviness of the feet hitting the steps led Angela to believe that the stranger was a man, maybe even a soldier. Whoever the intruder was, they were being quite cautious, as it took them a full minute to descend the fourteen steps into the basement. The progress continued to remain slow once they reached the basement floor, where wood was replaced by cement.

The basement was organized into three rooms, with each room continuing off the one preceding it. Only the third and final room looked nice. The nice room was also the only of the three rooms to have a proper door—the first and second rooms were connected by cinder-block entryways. Angela sat hidden in the third room, the door to which currently stood wide open. The child had tried to close the door upon coming downstairs five hours ago, but it was made of solid steel, and as such weighed more than she did. Even with her entire weight pressed against it Angela hadn’t been able to get the door to budge so much as an inch.

After giving up on the door, Angela had crouched behind the house’s furnace, her back pressed against the cold concrete wall. And this is where she had remained ever since. There was a small gap between the furnace and the cinder-block wall through which Angela had a clear view of the open doorway. The intruder had not turned on any lights, but he had a flashlight, the light from which helped Angela place the unwelcome guest in the second room. The light grew brighter, then dimmer, and then brighter again as the stranger scanned the darkened room for people—for Angela.

When the flashlight finally came to rest on the entryway of the third room, Angela feared her heart would explode at any moment. And if it didn’t explode, then surely the sound of its beating would give her away. Angela hated her heart for beating so loud. Whose side was it on?

Through the gap, Angela watched the light grow brighter and brighter until its source was at last revealed. As it turned out, it wasn’t actually a flashlight, but rather the light at the end of a gun. A very big gun. Attached to the gun was a soldier, but not the kind of soldier Angela had imagined it would be. She had been picturing a large man, tall and muscular, with skull tattoos on his arms and mean, beady eyes. And while the soldier standing at the doorway was a man, he was not particularly tall, and he was far from muscular. In fact, he looked downright thin. He appeared injured as well; there was a piece of cloth tied to his left arm, just below the shoulder. Below the bandage the man’s jacket was wet. The wet arm appeared limp, as though it was not getting instructions from the man’s brain on where to go. Whenever the man moved, the wet arm lagged behind for a second, and then took another second to stop swinging.

The soldier’s face was difficult to see in the darkness, but when light from the gun reflected off the metal of the furnace Angela was given a brief glimpse, and with it she found that it, too, was not what she had expected. For one, the man was absolutely filthy. It looked as though he had been playing in flour, except that the flour was gray, instead of white. The only part of the soldier’s face that wasn’t dirty was his eyes, which looked serious, but serious from concentration, not anger.

Even though the soldier was not what Angela had been expecting, she was still terrified. She knew a solider didn’t have to look mean to be mean. The meanest teachers at school were the prettiest.

For the longest time the soldier didn’t step into the third room; he just stood at the entryway, shining his light back and forth, back and forth. A couple of times he shined it up on the ceiling, as if curious as to how the house was built.

At long last the soldier entered the room—Angela’s room. Once inside he began to walk the room’s perimeter, starting with the far side. For the most part, Angela could see where the soldier was, but sometimes he would disappear from view behind a pile of boxes or a wooden support beam, before reappearing again a few seconds later. Every time the soldier disappeared in this way Angela felt as if she might throw up.

It was after one such disappearance that a flash of light exploded angrily into Angela’s eyes, blinding her. The light was painful, after having spent such a long time in the dark.

“BETTER DEAD THAN EAST!” cried Angela, her eyes blurring with tears. “BETTER DEAD THAN EAST, BETTER DEAD THAN EAST!!!”

With her eyes still half-closed, Angela waited for… well, she wasn’t quite sure what she was waiting for. She felt ready for anything; ready to fight, ready to scream—ready to claw and tear and bite.

But if the soldier meant to hurt Angela, he was sure taking his sweet time in doing it. At first he just stared at the girl, appearing only slightly less bewildered than she. Finally he took the light out of Angela’s face and slung the gun over the shoulder of his healthy arm. The soldier found the room’s light switch on the wall and flipped it on, and for the first time Angela got a good glimpse of his face. The face held no anger, no hostility. It was a kind face. If anything, the soldier looked relieved, albeit tired. One look into the soldier’s determined green eyes and Angela knew herself to be safe.

His eyes still on Angela, the soldier let out a heavy sigh. “You scared me,” he said, his voice hoarse and thin.

The notion that it had been Angela who had done the scaring struck the girl as so silly that she found herself unable to reply—her mouth refused to form words.

“I take it you’re Angie Lowry?” said the soldier.

Mouth agape, Angela nodded.

“Couldn’t make it easy for me, huh?” said the soldier. He massaged his temple with his healthy hand. “You know what it’s like searching a strange house? Christ almighty. I think you took ten years off my life.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your father.”

“You’re not East?”

“The East don’t speak English, darling.” The soldier pointed to a rectangular patch on his jacket. “Stars and stripes. Just like you.”

“My Daddy went to get my brother.”

“I know. They’re safe. But hey, we gotta go, honey. The East is coming up fast. Their scouts are already here. We need to get to Philly.”

Angela’s eyes drifted to the soldier’s limp arm. With the room now lit up she could see that his whole arm beneath the shoulder was dark red.

“Is your arm okay?” she asked.

“I’ll get a new one. Let’s go.”

The soldier kneeled and extended his healthy arm, indicating that Angela should climb onto him. Angela did as instructed, wrapping her arms around the soldier’s neck. Angela was surprised at how effortlessly the man held her with only one arm. He was stronger than he looked.

“You don’t smell bad,” said Angela as the two made their way through the basement and up the wooden stairs. “You’re dirty, but you don’t smell bad.”

“Thanks,” said the soldier.

They made their way through the kitchen and out to the living room, where Angela saw her suspicion verified—the soldier had entered the house through a window. They didn’t leave through the window, though. They used the door.

Once outside, it took Angela a few seconds to process her street. There was garbage and broken bits of things everywhere. All the cars in the immediate area, including Angela’s mother’s Honda, were riddled with bullet holes. Same for the neighboring houses. The white picket fences that separated Angela’s lawn from the neighbors’ had been shattered into thousands of pieces, the splinters of which lay scattered throughout the un-mowed yards. At the edge of Angela’s yard, half hidden behind her mother’s bullet-ridden sedan, lay a bloodied body. The body was wearing a soldier’s uniform, but a different uniform from that of the soldier on whose arm Angela currently sat.

As soon as Angela saw the body she knew she was going to cry. “Is he dead?” Angela asked, her voice quavering.

“Yes,” said the soldier, speed-walking across Angela’s yard, past the body and toward an armored Humvee that sat waiting at the end of the cul-de-sac.

“You killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he shoot your arm?”

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

The pair arrived at the Humvee and the soldier helped Angela into the passenger side.

“Buckle up,” he said.

Angela nodded blankly, the tears she had been anticipating having failed to arrive.

When the soldier joined her in the Humvee, Angela let out an impressive sigh. “They balmed Atlanta,” she said.

“I know.”

“Is it still covered?”

The soldier looked at her. “Covered?”

“Yes,” said Angela knowingly. “Atlanta—is it still covered? In balm?”

After staring intently at the little girl for several seconds, a large grin spread across the soldier’s gray mouth.

“Yes, it’s still covered.”

“That’s a jerky thing to do, don’t you think? To cover a city in balm?”

“Very jerky.”

Angela nodded, then took to looking out the window for the rest of the drive north. Outside it had begun to snow again, but not the good kind. It was gray snow—like on the soldier’s face. Gray snow was no good for building snowmen. Angela had tried.

J D Strunk

Image by Peter H from Pixabay – Dark steps leading to a basement with one small window.