Radio Sphere by Devin terSteeg Page B

them clearly from high enough— when reading The Giver on the topmost accessible floor of the remains of John Hancock Tower— I could watch the clusters of dots blithely roam. Some jumpsuit men came from down track with plastic gloves and containers covered with tarps or canvas or something. Even after the Callahan tunnel collapsed Logan kept regular patrols and the general appearance of order. Grandpa and dad worked very hard to hold the city together; each held high positions at one time. They kept the city from ruin.
    Greater Boston became a figurative island, surrounded by a sea of chaos and ignorance, except the occasional caravans that came in through Mass Pike from nowhere towns not on the old maps.
    The trucks were like clothing; scraps stitched together and lumbering around like Frankenstein’s monster— things that didn’t seem to fit in the world.
    The trucks were cobbled together from Logan’s hoarded tires; most had a bed built from a picnic table and children’s park equipment since all they needed to do was haul Great—paste from where ever they were grown.
    I watched the trucks because they rumbled and made no sense. How can piles of debris be energized to life— they were more than the sum of their parts and had a great usefulness— but were nothing like Wenji and her family. Of the eight trucks— Kitahn, Copley, Perry, Shaw, Lowry, Nena, Hepburn, and Dean— that motored about the city from time to time, Nena was my favorite. She had two silver slides on her side to wall the back of the truck and monkey bars that soldiers would dangle their legs through to gate the hatch. Nena limped the most and, when the soldier’s would remove the plastic green turtle shell of a hood to see and fix what may have gone wrong, she was loved the most by her companions.
    The soldiers who drive the trucks brought news bulletins and announcements from Logan, posted in public areas. The thin paper sheets and paint—like ink rendered the missives lives short, so most communities had a reader or two to relay the news.
    I kept records at the water dispensary, they’d set us up in Old South Church, which wasn’t too far a walk from my apartment. Many of the old churches were converted into water dispensaries since running water had been cut off to the city two centuries ago due to contamination, radiation. It was supposed to be clean water. The serosity was impure. I’d often watch the particles float in the water and dance across sunlight and wonder what they were. It had to be something gross; from a dead fish, frog poop, mud, or human bits.
    We kept handwritten records on paper, so we had a sizable staff to keep everything organized and accounted for. The city had re—purposed a lot of space around the financial district for workers to make paper, ink, and other necessities. Grandpa taught me cursive, but those weren’t allowed at work because nobody could read them. Handwriting died out at least two generations ago— we revived it; we were chosen because our hand—eye coordination allowed for the most legible writing in Boston. I got fed for working; it beat some of the other jobs people needed doing. Grandpa taught me most of my lessons growing up since he was already retired and lived with us, he was one of the few to have lived for over 300 19 years. He was a leader at Logan, an archivist, a strategist, the last of a certain type of educated man, a teacher.
    Dad told me there used to be a time, long ago, when people craved the knowledge to read and write, but that even Grandpa wasn’t old enough to have seen it. The whole city was saddened by Grandpa’s decline, how the radiation affected his memory, and the medicine that allowed for his extended life began to run out causing rapid decay and irreparable aging. The same happened to mom, the supplies at Mass General 20 waned, the last reserved for those already on the treatment. They won’t get enough— no more was going to come— causing synaptic