Lizabeth signed, “What’s this?” Her what face scrunched in confusion. My wee one was holding a red rectangle. I was confused myself for a moment trying the dirty bright thing over and over.

I started to sign “it’s a card,” but our sign language didn’t have a word for “card.” We had good to eat, trade, and danger danger. I thought of the before times when I was my granddaughter’s age. There had been video games and streaming channels and fried Twinkles at the state fair. I didn’t have any words for my girl to explain all the things she had never seen. Instead I made the chopping symbol for “hurry hurry.” Impatiently I gestured to the sky and turned back to gathering. Lizabeth and I forage for chanterelles and tender dandelion leaves. Lizabeth found a chicken of the forest as big as her head. She smiled happy as Sundays.

Quietly we harvested without stop always keeping each other in sight. Lizabeth saw the warning smoke thin grey smoke against the blue. That meant drones spotted. I set my own warning smoke to alert the others gathering and we headed back to the underground.

Keeping low, the girl and I sprinted. My knees were swift and I knew my back would ache in the night. Despite her heavy pack Lizabeth scrambled like a gazelle through the overgrown park. Another plume rose against the horizon. The Hunts were moving in. They were relentless and had better tech. Fortunately they sucked at communication and strategy. The girl and I slipped past abandoned office buildings and shoe stores. I spied a baby doll in a cracked shopfront window. We hold hands and enter our subway entrance to home.

Suddenly tired, I leave Lizabeth with her friends to go to school and I hand in our provisions to our food bank. MaryBell signs for me to chitchat but I wave slowly to say my heart was too heavy to share. MaryBell nods and hands me a container of clean water, flatbread, a pot of hot soup and a compassionate tilt to her head. I headed to our small quarters and ate my dinner with my daughter and my husband and my parents and my grand and all the others I have lost.

“What is this?” Lizabeth’s tiny voice startled me awake. I had fallen asleep sitting up at our tiny table. We only talk underground and we only whisper. Sound carries underground, sound carries in the quiet night. To be silent is to survive. Opening her sweater, my girl retrieved the red shiny card with a snowman holding a glittery candy cane. Her eyes grew wide while I explained greeting cards, visiting family, candy, wrapped presents, stockings, one horse open sleighs. Her eyes grew merry and bright as we whispered late into the night.