The Dreamers

35.

In the beds in the hospital and in the cots in the library, and in the giant tents rippling across the college quad, and in the cots set up in the dining halls, and in the cots set up in the classrooms, and in the brand-new tents, a second wave, built from supplies meant for use in Liberia or New Guinea, and in the special tents set up for the soldiers who themselves have now begun to slip under, and in anonymous beds in anonymous houses now scattered throughout Santa Lora—the dreamers go on dreaming.

There is a feeling that the town is emptying out, though no one is going anywhere. The sensation persists among the survivors, though, a feeling of exodus, as if we can all sense without knowing it, like lights in the periphery, the consciousness flashing in other people’s heads.

At this point, it becomes hard to keep an accurate count of cases. A thousand, they think. Maybe more.

The hair grows. The fingernails curl. There are not enough workers to keep the toenails clipped or the faces shaved. And besides, these tasks are dangerous to perform with hands wrapped in three pairs of latex gloves.

More of them are dying than before. Malnutrition. Dehydration.

If a bedsore appears and fails to heal, there is not always someone nearby to notice.

The Victorians famously feared being mistaken for dead and then buried alive, but now the opposite begins to happen in Santa Lora—some of the people lying so quietly in those cots are mistaken instead for alive.