The Republic of Eastern Iowa

The wind-up alarm clock on Frank Ramey’s nightstand still ticked like a good citizen, even though everything else in the world had started acting like it forgot its job. Its little brass bell didn’t ring-didn’t need to; Frank had been awake all night, back propped against the headboard with pillows stacked behind him like sandbags against a flood. The flowery quilted comforter was pulled up over his lap, the fabric rough where it should’ve been soft, and the green light from the eastern and western horizons made the room look staged for a bad dream. Mavis lay beside him, cheek turned into her pillow, snoring softly, as if the universe’s sudden tantrum had never happened.

Outside, there were few of usual early morning noises. A dog yapping at nothing. He heard the crowing of a rooster, and the thought occurred to him that the city of Clinton, Iowa, had an ordinance against keeping chickens within the city limits. He might get a minute to look at that later, he thought before quickly dismissing the idea altogether.

The only other sound was the clock and Mavis’s breath, steady and smug.

Three nights ago, during a press conference on TV, the president had been in mid insult - his voice carrying through the living room like a radio left too loud.

Then the screen went black.The lights in the house went black as well. The refrigerator stopped running, the air conditioner followed with a sickly silence.

It was hard for Frank to believe that happened only three nights ago. In the darkness of the house, a green glow filtered into the room through the windows. Frank felt his way to the front door, opened it, and stepped outside onto his sidewalk.

There was a bright but diffuse green glow in the sky, low on the eastern horizon. No street lights. No house lights. Nothing that would indicate there was ever such a thing as electricity.

The wheels in Frank’s head turned frantically. His mind flashed to the civil defense training he had undergone in his years as mayor of this town. Everything seemed to indicate that something utterly dreadful had taken place and there might be radioactive fallout.

That night, illuminated by the green light, Frank decided to take action. He and Mavis grabbed the mattress from their bed, and dragged it down into the basement.

That’s where they stayed for the next 24 hours. There was comfort in the fact that there were no sounds of explosions, no indication of any physical damage at least to their part of the city. But the civil defense training said the best place to protect yourself against the early onset of fallout was in a fallout shelter or in the basement.

Frank didn’t have a fallout shelter. Neither did anyone else as far as he knew. So the basement would be as safe as things could get for them, at least for the time being.

As he and his wife sat in the darkness of the basement, with the dank smells of damp concrete filling their nostrils, Frank was both curious and alarmed by the fact that the phone didn’t ring. Usually when the power went out, like after a severe thunderstorm or a tornado warning, his phone would ring off the hook with constituents demanding to know what he, as mayor, was going to do to restore power. There was none of that tonight, nor would there be the next day.

After a second night sleeping in the basement, Frank ventured up to the living room and looked outside once more. In the early morning light, the green glow was still quite noticeable. His civil defense training made it clear that after 48 hours, it was probably safe to leave the basement. The wind had been still, the leaves on the trees hung droopy from their branches. If there had been any fallout, the wind didn’t seem to be bringing it any closer to the city.

Frank and Mavis dragged the mattress back upstairs and put it back on the bed frame. Mavis, being Mavis, ensured the bed was completely made before they tucked in that night.

They didn’t speak much. They both had questions that neither seemed to know how to ask, let alone how to answer.

Now in the early morning of the third day, the green glow came from both directions of the sky - east and west - two diffuse alien moons someone forgot to finish painting.

Frank stared at the bedroom window until his eyes were dry and achy. He reminded himself he was still a man in charge of a city that could handle emergencies, even if the emergency was the whole electrical backbone of the country snapping like twig. He sat up farther, pressing the quilt tighter over his knees, and swung his feet toward the floor. Cold wood met him like a slap.

Mavis’s snoring continued. Frank felt the unfairness of it settle in his stomach. She could sleep through a blackout. He couldn’t sleep through the aftermath of one.

He turned to look at his wife of 32 years.

“I think I’m gonna pop out and check on Old Buck,” he said

Mavis stirred, a small movement that made her hair slide.

“He’s fine. I’m sure he’s fine....