A few days after Aunt Savyla had departed for Lystrashire, Haedon started to get sick of hardtack. It was a fuss-free meal (even a child could prepare a meal with it) but it was tasteless and unappetising and. Also, Haedon’s jaws were starting to ache from all the chewing. They ached even when he wasn’t actually eating the damn things.

Aunt Savyla was a marvellous cook and was able to rustle up delicious meals from just rice, raisins, dates, and tomatoes. He debated making a trip to the market where he could purchase fresh provisions, but he could not summon up the energy to walk there. It was more than an hour’s journey and he had never been very good at haggling anyway.

He decided that he would make do with hardtack for one more day.

One day, Haedon and Kyara came home from school to find Aunt Savyla’s dilapidated vehicle at the car park next to their apartment block.

“Look, Kyara! That’s Aunt Sav’s vehicle. She must be home!” said Haedon excitedly.

Haedon walked up to the vehicle and laid his palm on the bonnet. “It’s still warm. She must have got back not too long ago,” he said.

“I’ll leave you to catch up with Aunt Sav. Tell her I said hi,” said Kyara.

Suddenly recalling their homework for the day, Kyara yelled after him as Haedon sprinted up the stairs, “Don’t forget to work on your Geography project!” However, Haedon was already out of earshot and her words were whipped away by the wind.

Kyara took the stairs at a more leisurely pace. It was good to be out of the blazing sun but it was still a stifling 48 degrees in the shade. Checking the time on her phone, she saw that she had two hours before she needed to report for her part time job. With income from her father being so irregular, Kyara had taken on work at a supermarket to bring in extra cash for the family.

Tired from his exertion, Haedon stopped at his front door to take a breather, resting his palms on the door frame. He opened the door and saw that Aunt Savyla was in the midst of unpacking.

“Aunt Sav, I’m so glad you’re back,” declared Haedon. “Seriously, one more day of eating hardtack, and I would have turned into hardtack myself.”

“You foolish boy,” admonished Aunt Savyla. “Why didn’t you go and buy some food at the market? I did leave you some money.”

“The market’s too far,” whined Haedon. “Besides, buying food means I’ll need to cook it.”

“You look very pale,” observed Haedon. “Was the trip very difficult? Were the residents really stealing rations like the Authorities said they were?”

“The situation is not so simple,” said Aunt Savyla. “Climate change seems to have taken a turn for the worse recently, and the Authorities expect more weather havoc to follow. As such, they’ve reduced the rations for everyone. But someone screwed up and didn’t inform the residents of Lystrashire. The residents continued to draw the amount which they had been getting all along. When the Authorities found out, the shit hit the fan, because it meant that there weren’t enough rations for other towns. The residents refused to accept a lower quota of rations because, to be honest, the old amount was barely keeping them alive. You know that the amount of rations each town is allocated depends on their output, and Lystrashire has had a lot of bad luck recently, what with droughts one minute and floods the next. They haven’t been able to provide much output to the Authorities the past few months. In fact, the Authorities had to get the soldiers in to control the situation.”

Aunt Savyla closed her eyes, and her face took on a pained expression as she recalled what the soldiers did to the residents. Images of the rioting residents screaming and yelling as they were executed by the soldiers burned in her mind and she let out a shuddering breath.

“Let’s not talk about that,” said Aunt Savyla brightly. “Let’s talk about your exams.”

“Oh, Aunt Sav, “do we have to talk about school on the first day you’re back? I finished all my homework every day, I swear!” said Haedon.

“Hmm…we’ll see about that when you get your exam results,” said Aunt Savyla.

“What’s that sticking out of your pocket, Aunt Sav?” asked Haedon, his sharp eyes spotting something unusual.

Looking down at her pants, Aunt Savyla tried in vain to stuff the item deeper into her pocket. “Oh, this? It’s just a rag.”

Haedon refused to be brushed off. “Why would you put a rag in your pocket, Aunt Sav? And is that blood I see on the ‘rag’?”

Darting forward, Haedon pulled the item out of Aunt Savyla’s pocket and saw with dismay that it was a blood-stained piece of cloth. Brandishing the rag in Aunt Savyla’s face, he demanded, “Whose blood is this, Aunt Sav? Please tell me it isn’t yours.”

“Look at the time! I must get to the market. Otherwise, dinner will be late tonight,” said Aunt Savyla. Just as she was getting up, she was overcome by a fit of coughing which caused her to bend double. Clutching the table with one hand, she made a grab for the rag with her other hand. Haedon watched in speechless horror as Aunt Savyla expelled thick globules of bloody phlegm into the rag.

“It comes and goes,” said Aunt Savyla weakly. “I could be fine for a while, and then…” She was wracked by another bout of coughing.

“I’m bringing you to the hospital immediately,” said Haedon.

“Our insurance only covers basic illnesses though,” said Aunt Savyla weakly. “I’m pretty sure this kind of bleeding isn’t included.”

Haedon bit back his initial retort which was ‘To hell with the insurance!’ He decided to go with “Aunt Sav, you could be dying and all you can think about is the insurance?” He shook his head in despair. Sometimes, he just couldn’t understand grown-ups. With a shock, he realised he was now a grown-up too. I won’t be like them, he vowed.

Draping Aunt Savyla’s left arm over his shoulder, Haedon guided his aunt gently to the door and then the stairwell. They made their way at a snail’s pace down the stairs as Haedon was wary of triggering a flare-up in Aunt Savyla.

At level eight, Haedon asked Aunt Savyla to rest in a corner while he went to look for Kyara.

Hammering her door, Haedon called out urgently, “Kyara! Are you home?”

“Is it the end of the world?” Kyara joked as she opened the door. Her face turned serious when she saw that Haedon was not playing the fool.

Haedon updated Kyara succinctly on Aunt Savyla’s condition.

Knowing that time was of the essence, Kyara wisely did not ask any questions. Instead, she grabbed her bag and at the threshold, yelled, “Benedyn! I’m going with Haedon to the hospital. Aunt Sav needs help. Watch the twins!”

The only response was a grunt. Benedyn was Kyara’s older brother and all he cared about is was food and topping the leader board in the inane games he played on his mobile phone. The six-year-old twins, dubbed A and Z by their older siblings because between them, they were capable of every mischief you could spell in the entire alphabet, were home because their day care centre was closed for the day.

Haedon and Kyara took turns to help Aunt Savyla down the stairs. Bundling her into the car, Haedon saw with dismay that there were wads of bloody rags in the front passenger seat. It was a wonder that Aunt Sav managed to drive home, thought Haedon.

Buckling Aunt Savyla into the back seat as it was roomier, Haedon saw that clearly, she was in no condition to drive.

“Pass me the car keys, Aunt Sav,” said Haedon.

Fortunately, Haedon had driven illegally a few times before and was just able to manage the vehicle. In the car, Aunt Savyla coughed great wracking coughs that caused her to bend double. Driving carefully, he got them to the hospital safely. Aunt Savyla was whisked away by the nurse, who gulped and adjusted her mask for a tighter fit after hearing Aunt Savyla’s cough and seeing trails of blood leaking from Aunt Savyla’s ears.

Haedon and Kyara were instructed to await updates in the waiting area for family and friends, and there they were left to cool their heels for an hour.

After staring into space silently for a couple of minutes, Kyara touched Haedon gently on the shoulder. “I’ll go and get you a hot drink. Be right back,” she said.

Haedon looked at the walls of the waiting area, which were painted a colour that the interior decorators probably thought was a soothing green, but which conjured up images in Haedon’s mind of a cat’s vomit. A sick one suffering from diarrhoea.

Propaganda posters adorned the walls, exhorting citizens to engage in the correct behaviour.

“Show absolute obedience to Queen Imperiala!”

“Always follow the Authorities’ instructions! They have your welfare at heart!”

“Declare your powers immediately upon discovery! Failure to do so will result in punishment and/or death!”

All the exclamation marks reminded Haedon of the army of soldiers sent in to quell riots and arrest offenders. He had first-hand knowledge of the soldiers’ brutality, for as a young child, soldiers were sent in to arrest the alleged leader of a riot in the apartment block next to Haedon’s. Haedon had been woken up at dawn that day by stentorian shouts and the pounding of boots. He had watched in horror as a platoon of soldiers invaded the leader’s home like an army of black ants, and summarily executed the leader’s entire family. He watched a soldier stand over a baby with his rifle raised, where an infant lay crying. The next thing he knew, Aunt Savyla had pulled him sharply away from the window and drawn the curtains so hard that they nearly fell off the curtain track. “Don’t look,” she had hissed.

Shoot first and ask questions later, that had always been the soldiers’ modus operandi. Recalling the incident, Haedon was angry all over again.

“What’s taking them so long?” he fretted. No one had come to offer any update on Aunt Savyla’s condition, and Haedon was getting steadily more nervous as the minutes passed.

Kyara arrived with two cups of sugarless lukewarm coffee and some hardtack in tow.

“That’s all they had in the cafeteria,” Kyara said by way of apology.

“It’s all right, Kyara. Thanks for getting this. I don’t have any appetite though,” said Haedon.

Just then, a doctor stepped into the waiting area and looked around.

“Relatives of Savyla Forte?” he asked.

“I’m her nephew,” said Haedon, walking up to the doctor.

“Young man, I’m sorry to tell you that your aunt has contracted the Machupo virus,” he said. Shaking his head, he went on, “The thing is, we’re in a bit of a fix at the moment. We want to treat your aunt, well, I mean to say, every life is important because we all contribute to Queen Imperiala and the world, but it’s a matter of insurance, you see.”

“What about the insurance? I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Haedon, trying to keep his temper in check. They were losing precious minutes arguing about insurance when the doctor could have been saving Aunt Sav.

“The Marchupo virus is not on the list of approved illnesses that are covered under your aunt’s insurance, and the medicine for that is quite expensive, really quite expensive, at least twenty thousand dollars, so…” the doctor’s voice trailed off. He hated explaining to relatives about payment for treatment, and cursed Nurse Oriela, who had to choose that day to be on leave and who usually handled this aspect of the work.

“Unless,” said the doctor, brightening up, “you are able to pay cash for the treatment?”

Haedon clutched the doctor’s coat sleeves desperately. “She works for the Authorities, which means she works for Queen Imperiala. That should count for something, right?”

“My dear boy,” said the doctor, firmly removing Haedon’s fingers from his coat as if he was getting rid of unwanted garbage. “Your aunt is fortunate that she does have any insurance at all. Not everyone who works for the Authorities is entitled to insurance cover.”

Taking a step back from Haedon, the doctor narrowed his eyes, “Do I take it that you have no other means of paying for the treatment?”

“I don’t,” sobbed Haedon. Kyara, who had been standing by Haedon’s side silently, squeezed his arm in a show of support. No one they knew had such a large sum of money on hand.