“I just want to opt out of the incinerator cremation!” A man responded. Dune felt shocked—certainly hospitals, morgues, had cremation options? But others seemed to accept that bodies were going through the incinerator.

“That’s only for the homeless though.”

“Anyone can look homeless real quick if they get sick alone in the street.”

“Shit some of us was homeless ’til everyone left.” This from a woman whose face seemed permanently frozen in a surprised smile. There were some chuckles, some glances of suspicion. “What they suppose to do?”

This was really the most dreadful part of a crisis at this scale: what to do with the too-many bodies? Kama, this boy, they had loved ones to let them go. There were thousands of others whose stories weren’t getting told, whose names were unknown, whose pictures never made the cover of anything. They became numbers, erased twice.

Dune didn’t repeat her mistake of volunteering advice or even theories. She listened. She learned more waiting in that line than she’d gotten out of the radio.

The half of the city that had still been employed when the plague came had finally given up the farce of all but essential health and emergency response jobs. Child Protective Services was evacuating all healthy kids they found, even if their parents didn’t want to leave. It was unclear where they were taking the kids. Those not doing official emergency response work were mostly taking care of family, neighbors or strangers in their homes, hiding their children, or spending time at these centers, seeking answers that didn’t exist.

They were all her, she was all of them.

As the line doubled back on itself, Dune found herself passing the women who looked like farmers. They were quiet, but she felt their attention; felt familiar, but not known. She caught the eye of one woman, who nodded at her.

“Are you on your own?” The woman asked. She was older, slender, her hands large, folded together in front of her. The other two seemed to rock away from the one who asked the question.

Dune was cautious. “No.”

The woman nodded, a smirk at her eyes, Dune thought maybe this stranger approved of her reticence. “We’re trying to find chickens. You know of any?”

Dune wished she knew of a chicken. She desperately missed eggs, that had been one of the first things to disappear from the stores. Sometimes the food bags had the liquid egg mix in a box, but Dune didn’t trust that stuff. She shook her head.