PODs Read Free

reporters grabbed for the documents that staffers handed out—packets outlining the government’s course of action and the eligibility requirements for the raffle. The television shifted scenes and returned to the regular newscaster, who immediately started blathering about the President’s speech.
    All I could process were the numbers.
    Only seventy thousand of us will live. Twenty thousand have already been chosen. That leaves fifty thousand openings for the raffle winners. The rest of us will be left to deal with the virus, left to die .
    I could tell by my parents’ strained looks they were thinking the same thing.
    No one had thought it would come to this. Everyone assumed a cure would be found, or at least a treatment—something would be able to stop it. But it looked like a tiny virus would be the downfall of civilization.
    Sometimes life’s a bitch .

    Thursday
    The raffle was scheduled to begin at seven that night. At seven sharp my parents and I sat waiting in front of the television. We squeezed together on the couch, my mom on my right and my dad on my left. The television hung over the fireplace in front of us.
    Even though the room was warm, my mom and I huddled under a fleece blanket. It acted as our shield, keeping the ugliness away. My mom’s hand skimmed back and forth over the blanket on my knee in silent reassurance. My dad’s arm stretched across the couch, his hand resting on my mom’s shoulder. I was nestled, too warm, between their bodies. Drops of sweat fell from beneath my hair and slithered down my back. I shivered involuntarily and my mother hugged me tighter to her.
    We waited silently for the raffle to begin. I’m not sure exactly what we expected to see. I envisioned several scenarios. In one I saw a room-sized computer—complete with flashing lights and buzzers—spitting out social security numbers like cash from an ATM. Or maybe a small laptop would scroll number after number across the screen, while a small printer beside it captured each one on paper. Then another image would fly through my thoughts. A large digital display—like the arrival and departure screens at an airport—would show nine spinning columns. One by one they’d stop, revealing a number until all nine were showing, the word “live” or “die” flashing beside it.
    Whatever I thought I’d see, it was definitely not what I saw—which was nothing. Absolutely nothing was broadcast. The selection was done behind closed doors. No cameras or reporters were allowed inside. The newscaster seemed just as surprised as we were and scrambled to fill time. He recapped the events leading up to the raffle, told us in mind-numbing detail everything we already knew. What he didn’t tell us was the one thing we needed to know, but feared knowing at the same time—who was going to live and who was going to die.
    Twenty minutes after seven the newscaster announced that the selection process had ended and the phone calls had begun. My heart was in my stomach as I waited to hear our phone ring. I was hopeful we’d be picked. My mom was a cardiac nurse and my dad a college professor; surely they’d be needed for rebuilding the country.
    But the raffle is random. My parents’ professions won’t earn spaces in a POD .
    An hour went by and our phones sat silent. My hope was waning. I paced the living room floor, staring at the black house phone—one minute begging it to ring, the next cursing it. I checked that my cell phone wasn’t on silent—four times. My heart was beating so hard it hurt. My shirt stuck to my sweaty back, and wisps of hair stuck to my face.
    The phone is gonna ring, it has to. We still have a chance. It’ll take a long time to phone fifty thousand people .
    I thought of a hundred possible reasons our phones hadn’t rung, trying to reassure myself.
    Two hours. My hope was gone. I knew the chances of our phone ringing had been slim to begin with, but as time ticked by so did our shots at places in the