The Year of the Flood

Toby watches the sunrise from the AnooYoo Spa rooftop. She cannot shake the feeling that someone is watching her, but she realizes that this paranoia is a result of isolation. When the sun is up, she puts on her pink uniform and a sunhat, unlocks the door, and goes out into the garden. The garden used to be the place where they grew vegetables and herbs for the Spa Cafe, and it is well protected from the birds and animals, who weren’t very common back then but have significantly multiplied since the Flood.

Although Toby had stashed some food in case of an emergency like this, she is running out of it, so she’s happy to have the garden and its “chickenpeas,” “beananas,” and “polyberry bushes” (18). As she picks some spinach, she flicks off the green beetles that were sitting on it and steps on them. However, she immediately regrets this, so she makes a grave for the beetles and says the words “for the freeing of the soul and asking for pardon” (18). On the carrots she spots kudzu-moth caterpillars—the result of “genesplicing” (18)—developed to control the spreading of kudzu. Their designer gave the caterpillars a babyface so they would be hard to kill, but Toby throws them outside the fence anyway.

Returning from the garden, she notices a dog tail and assumes that a vulture dropped it. Toby recalls other things vultures dropped following the first weeks after the Flood, fingers being the worst.

Toby bathes on the rooftop, using the rainwater she’s collected. She puts on a pink smock with the nicknames of girls who used to work at the spa written on the back. One of those smocks used to belong to Ren. When the Flood began, everyone left to be with their families, “believing love could save them” (20). Toby was supposed to lock the door behind everyone; she accidentally locked herself inside as well.

Toby notices three pigs by the swimming pool and assumes that they have escaped from some kind of experimental farm. One of the pigs begins to dig under the fence to get to the garden, and Toby shouts to chase them away. She swiftly runs downstairs and gets her rifle. When she is back on the rooftop and ready to fire at the boar, she hesitates for a moment, remembering Adam One’s words about never killing “without just cause” (21). So she yells a warning, and as they look at her and notice the gun, they run away. Toby assumes that they must have seen a weapon before.

As the three pigs run away, Toby realizes that they will come back at night, dig under the fence, and ruin her food supply. Justifying it as self-defense, she aims and shoots the boar, but the two sows hide in the forest. Although Toby feels guilty, she is still tempted to go out with a knife and cut a piece of ham. Remembering the Vegivow she took when she joined the God’s Gardeners, she decides that “animal protein should be the last resort” (22).

She says the usual words of apology, although she’s not regretful. On the contrary, Toby decides that she needs some additional target practice. Aware that the pigs will return, she decides to carry her rifle at all times.

The narrative shifts to the past, when Toby went to get her rifle shortly after the pandemic’s first outbreaks. During the early period, Toby realized that this was no ordinary virus that could be stopped with “biotools and bleach” (24). She knew that having a weapon was illegal; nevertheless, she walked to the house where her parents once lived, and where her rifle was buried.

On her way there, she saw people panicking and trying to escape, and she made sure to avoid being seen. Toby heard gunshots and screams for help, but she continued walking cautiously without attracting attention to herself. When she reached the house, its windows were broken and the garage door was ajar, so Toby decided that no one was there. She took a shovel and a crowbar, and used them to dig near the house next door, where she had buried the weapon. After finding the rifle and the ammunition, Toby was relieved. But she couldn’t waste time, so she hurried back to the spa. People were rioting everywhere, and it took her three days to get to her hiding place. She saw footprints on the steps, but it seemed like no one had gotten inside.

The rifle used to belong to Toby’s father, who taught her how to shoot when she was 12. He believed that this was a necessary skill for everyone, but when CorpSeCorps outlawed firearms, he was forced to bury the rifle and some ammunition. He showed Toby where he had buried them, just in case she ever needed to use them.

When Toby was a child, her family lived in the semi-country, surrounded by trees. A developer wanted to buy their land, making many offers, but Toby’s father refused, explaining that not selling that house was “a matter of principle” (30) for him.

At the same time, CorpSeCorps, which began as a security company that was supposed to protect the Corporation, gained power and took over the police. Toby’s father lost his job selling air conditioners, and her mother developed a strange illness. She worked as a franchise operator and sold HelthWyzer supplements, so everyone was surprised when she fell sick, as she had a healthy lifestyle and took HelthWyzer supplements daily—she received her own customized package at a discount price. She was treated at the HelthWyzer Corp clinics, where doctors did tests and looked for a diagnosis, but her illness seemed to have no name. Although she was a member of the HelthWyzer Franchise Family, her discount for medical services was minimal, and their health insurance refused to cover the costs of treatment. Toby’s parents weren’t eligible for the public wellness coverage, and it was not a good idea to go to a public hospital, where they would just “give you a few germs and viruses you didn’t already have, and send you home” (31).

Toby’s father took two mortgages to pay for his wife’s treatment, but nothing helped. As a result, he sold their house for a much lower price than was offered initially and bought a tiny house in a new subdivision, smuggling the rifle with him and reburying it in the new place. Since he took so many days off to take care of his wife, he lost his job, and he had to sell their solarcar and furniture to make some money.

At this time Toby was away at college, which she could afford because of a scholarship from the Martha Graham Academy and her work as a waitress in the student cafeteria. She wanted to help care for her mother, but Toby’s father assured her that there was nothing she could do. When Toby came home for her mother’s funeral, the house was already up for sale, and her father was ruined by “humiliation, pain, and failure” (32).

At night, after the funeral, Toby heard the rifle fire as her father killed himself. For many hours she pondered what to do; she couldn’t call an ambulance, because they would see that her father owned a weapon, which was illegal, or they might even accuse her of murder.

Finally, she went to the garage, wrapped her father’s body first in a blanket, then in garbage bags, and buried him under the patio, whispering a short prayer. Although Toby was regretful, she felt that her father would have understood her actions because he was “a practical man” (33). Afterward, Toby wrapped the rifle in a plastic bag and buried it under the patio of the apparently vacant house next door.

In the morning, she walked out of the house without looking back or taking anything with her. Toby wasn’t worried that someone would look for her; if her college wanted to know what happened to her, the CorpSeCorps would spread the information that she had become a victim of a “cruising pimp on the lookout for fresh recruits” (34). People would feel relieved that at least she could use her body to make money and thus wouldn’t starve to death. As for her father, everyone would assume that he ran away to avoid paying for his wife’s funeral, which was a common occurrence.

During the period that followed, Toby survived the best way she could. She burned her identity documents but didn’t have money to buy new ones, thus she couldn’t work officially. At first she used her savings to rent a tiny room, and she shared a bathroom with six illegal Thai immigrants, who wouldn’t go to the police to report her because the CorpSeCorps were notorious for shooting and secretly burying immigrants, which was a lot cheaper than deportation.

On the floor below her apartment was “an endangered-species luxury couture operation” (36), which sold animal skins to affluent customers and skinned carcasses to a chain of gourmet restaurants. Although the endangered species trade was officially illegal, the CorpSeCorps received big bribes and provided cover for those in the business.

At first, Toby worked as a furzooter: she put on a fake-fur animal suit with a cartoon head and carried an advertising sign around her neck, but she quit after the first week. She couldn’t force herself to dress up as endangered species that was being slaughtered on the floor below her. So afterward, she made some money first by selling her hair, then by selling her eggs. But as Toby later found out, the extraction needle used during the procedure was infected, and she was accidentally sterilized.

Realizing that she would never have children made Toby think of Stan, the boy she dated at college. He wanted children, but back then Toby was sure they were too young and too poor for it. When her mother got sick, Toby knew she’d have to drop out of college soon, so she cut all contact with Stan.

After learning that she was now sterile, Toby spent all her money on “a drug-fueled holiday from reality” (39). But after a few days, she realized she had to decide whether she wanted to live or die. Toby chose the former, so she found a job at a chain called SecretBurger. No one knew what type of animal protein they put in their burgers, but rumor had it that cat fur, a fragment of a mouse tail, and even a human fingernail were all found in the food. The owners bribed the CorpSeCorpsMen so they wouldn’t investigate their chain, which was beneficial for both parties: they all had big profits, and SecretBurger also cleaned the streets of dead bodies and stray cats.

SecretBurger paid rock-bottom salary, but Toby got two free burgers a day, which meant she could survive. Toby’s coworker, Rebecca Eckler, warned Toby about their manager, a man called Blanco who chose a girl among newcomers and raped her repeatedly together with his bodyguards. Blanco used to work as a bouncer at a strip club called Scales and Tails, and after he was fired, his connections in the CorpSeCorps helped him secure a job in the SecretBurger chain. Blanco was furious about this turn in his career, so he took advantage of his access to the girls at SecretBurger.

Toby thought that she was safe because when she started at SecretBurger, Blanco fancied Dora, who was a “plump optimist” (43) when she first came to the outlet. After Blanco’s sexual assaults, Dora became skinny and bruised. One day Rebecca told Toby that Dora tried to run away, and Blanco killed her. At lunchtime that same day, Blanco invited Toby into his office. She was escorted by his two bodyguards, in case she tried to run away. In the office, Blanco addressed Toby as “skinny bitch” (44) and told her that from now on, he would love her, and she would love him. Before sexually abusing Toby, Blanco threatened to “snap [her] like a twig” (44) if she worked against him.

Toby’s life became miserable: Blanco’s abuses devastated her, but he forced her to say thank you each time. She couldn’t eat lunch because he demanded her services during her lunch break, so she became even more skinny and bruised. She felt like she was moving along “a dark tunnel” (46), and her life resources were running out. Toby didn’t have a single person to talk to because Rebecca had disappeared, and no one knew where.

One morning, Toby saw a strange crowd in the Sewage Lagoon—the shady neighborhood where the SecretBurger outlet was located. Toby assumed it was some kind of a religious group because they were carrying signs and singing. Their leader was a bearded man in a caftan, and he was surrounded by children of “all colors” (47), who were chanting “No meat!” (48). Toby realized that she had heard of this cult; they had a meager garden somewhere on a rooftop somewhere.

The leader introduced himself as Adam One, and he gave a testimony about how he once was a carnivore atheist but then heard a Voice that told him not to eat his fellow creatures. Adam One continued to preach, ignoring threats from the Sewage Lagooners. When he noticed Toby, he encouraged her to join them, but Blanco came out and threatened to beat him up. Adam One remained nonchalant and continued talking to Toby until Blanco tried to attack him but missed. When Blanco fell on the ground, Toby at first wanted to help him get up, fearing the consequences if she didn’t, but instead she kicked Blanco’s head.

Adam One urged her to run away, and Toby agreed because Blanco was conscious enough to realize what happened, and he wouldn’t forgive her humiliating him like this.

After running for some time, the group reached a building and climbed up the fire escape, finally arriving at the garden. There, Toby was welcomed by Rebecca, who hinted that the group went to SecretBurger intending to get Toby out. Toby was surprised by the garden’s beauty. Looking at its multiple plants and flowers, Toby began to cry “with relief and gratitude” (52). Everyone in the Garden treated her nicely and addressed her as “dear” or “sweetheart.”

The same evening, after a modest celebration in Toby’s honor, Adam One gave a speech about salvation. When her initial excitement passed, Toby grew uneasy, wondering who the people around her were.

Toby’s first weeks with the Gardeners were uneventful. Since Adam One gave her no orders and she didn’t have any of the skills that other women in the group did, Toby resorted to cleaning the violet biolets. In the meantime, she tried to understand the Gardeners’ hierarchy: Adams and Eves were ranked higher, although Adam One insisted that everyone was equal on the spiritual level, and the number next to the name indicted a person’s area of expertise and not their rank.

Since Toby didn’t want to convert and become a Gardener, she felt like she should repay their kindness and generosity by working hard. So she took up a few more tasks in addition to cleaning the violet biolets.

After a few months, Adam One asked her to “put her other talents to work” (55); somehow he knew that she studied Holistic Healing in college. So Toby made herbal lotions and creams, and when Adam One asked her to teach the children how to do the same, she started giving a few classes a day.

Nevertheless, Toby sometimes wanted to desert. On one occasion, when she felt a craving for animal protein, she asked Rebecca if she ever had similar thoughts. Rebecca assured her that SecretBurger must add something addictive to their food, and that was why people craved it.

In the meantime, Toby learned about the Gardeners’ theology. They were convinced of impending disaster that would wipe all humans off the face of the planet, but they would be saved with the help of the food they kept in the secret storages called Ararats. When Toby asked Rebecca whether she believed the Gardeners’ teaching, she assured Toby that they were good people who meant well.

Despite their kindness toward her, Toby couldn’t imagine staying with the Gardeners. She sometimes dreamed of running away, but she knew it was dangerous; Blanco must still be looking for her, planning his revenge. He used to boast that “no woman ever got away from him” (57), so he would ensure Toby suffered for his humiliation.

Toby told Adam One that she didn’t want to jeopardize the Gardeners in case Blanco came looking for her. Adam One assured her that she was safe in the rooftop garden, as they lived in the Sinkhole, while Blanco was in the Sewage Lagoon, and the two mobs didn’t trespass. Moreover, from what Adam One knew, CorpSeCorps declared the Gardeners off-limits because it would be “bad for their image to eviscerate anything with God in its name” (58). Adam One assured Toby that she was safe with them. Despite her doubts, she believed him.