The Lost Children

By Martin Sercombe

 

Throughout the city, people started to die of unknown causes.

As each year past, the plague struck younger.

Soon there was no one left over the age of sixteen.

 

 

For those that remained, the mutations started slowly.

One child grew an extra finger,

another an odd shaped thumb.

A great forgetfulness spread across the city.

The children struggled to understand the purpose of the things left behind.

The word ‘fun’ almost vanished from their vocabulary.

A few youngsters tried to bring a little joy back into their lives.

A makeshift circus traveled from ravaged street to street.

The performers made do with whatever they could find.

A tame rat and a threadbare teddy bear became the stars of the show.

 Led by the extraordinary juggling skills of Klara the Clown.

But in the end, the challenges of everyday existence took their toll.

 

 

Soon the shops would empty

and the children would have to leave the city in search of food.

 

 Two of the boys decided to take matters in hand.

Together they would hunt for a new home,

a place where life might be a little easier.

They looked for a boat to take them down river.

On a misty morning they rowed downstream towards the ocean.

Soon after, two of the girls followed behind.

But the coastal town proved as desolate as the city they had left behind. 

Wild storms had destroyed much of what they found.

 Making it hard to choose a place to call home.

Back in the city a young girl named Scarlett was determined to get things organised.

She began by collecting cans of food and hiding them in a secret store where rival gangs wouldn’t find them.

She put her friend Ben in charge of organising the supplies.

Soon, more children were coming up with ideas on how to make life more comfortable. 

Together they secured an abandoned apartment building. They cleared out some of the junk and made it liveable. For the first time since the plague, Scarlett and her gang had a real home.

 Most evenings, Scarlett took charge in the kitchen.

Often there wasn't much choice on the menu.

 

After dinner a familiar question hung in the air. Would things ever return to the way the were before the plague? 

Some mornings the children went for a walk along the river, looking for stray chickens.

 If they were very lucky, they found eggs.

 But making a good omelette is quite a tricky task!

Some of the boys liked to walk for miles along the disused railway line.

It was a path that seemed to lead everywhere and nowhere. 

 

 They did eventually find a subway station.

It was a fun place to kick a ball around.

 They were very late getting back.

Scarlett worried.

Some evenings, two of the girls liked to climb a skyscraper to watch the night fall.

From  high above the city it was possible to see what the other gangs of children were up to.

The boys preferred rooftops.

When the weather got cooler, all the city children lit bonfires in Central Park. 

It was a time to relax and have a bit of fun.

 And sometimes even dance!

 

The chilly morning air brought a heavy fog along the Hudson River.

The children were getting hungry.

 They wondered how many fish were left in the river.

 

The boys found some abandoned nets by the river.

The chances of catching some fish felt better. 

 

 

 

Joe brought a fishing rod scavenged from an abandoned hardware store.

 

 The girls waited near by, thinking about breakfast.

 

 After a couple of hours of experimenting with different bait, Joe landed his first catch.

 

 The tram to Roosevelt Island made a great shelter from the storm.

 

 With just either other to keep away the cold and damp.

 

 

 

 

One day, two of the girls found the abandoned city library.

It became their new favourite place to spend time. 

 

They even started a makeshift school, where the older kids would teach the younger ones how to read and write.  

 

The more they read, the more they wanted to learn.

 

As winter approached, Scarlett worried about the cold.

She salvaged a generator and some old electric heaters.

 

The children huddled together to keep warm during the long dark nights.

 

When the snow arrived, they had to work harder getting in supplies.

 

But they had each other, they were surviving, and for now, that was enough.