Previously published in 2020 in Cleaning Up Glitter. 

High on the Hogback 


	Ben had lived in Bhutan for almost two years, when a Kuiper Belt object changed the course of history.  Astronomers monitored the solar system’s asteroid belt and understood pretty well what objects could pose a threat to earth, but none expected a massive object from the edge of the solar system.  NASA and its counterparts around the world noticed the object and began plotting the trajectory less than five weeks before it reached earth.  Those agencies warned their governments of what they called an “impact scenario” three weeks before the calculated impact.  The world’s governments warned their citizens three days later.

	For the first few days, most people greeted the news with a shrug and talk of “ho hum, another close approach by an asteroid”.  Ben was not one of those.  His two-decade-old practice of checking the news on-line every morning meant he maintained a good grasp of world events.  To him, the announcements sounded like a massive catastrophe, and he responded accordingly.  He immediately began stocking up on—some might say “hoarding”—necessities, such as non-perishable foods, matches and lighters, wet- and cold-weather clothing, and other survival-oriented goods and urged Sonam, his not-exactly-girlfriend, and other friends to do the same.

	Sonam argued a little at first.  “Why, though?” she asked.  “The water can’t get this high.  You said so yourself.”
	“I didn’t say ‘can’t’, but I don’t think it’s likely to.  Ask yourself this, though: where does our food come from?”
	Sonam managed a mini-supermarket jointly owned by her mother and her aunt so possessed more than average familiarity with the supply chain.  She pondered but a moment before replying, “India and Thailand mostly.”

	“Exactly!  Bangkok and Kolkata are at sea level, and even Delhi couldn’t be higher than 250 metres.  Jaigaon is less than two hundred, for goodness’ sake.  There isn’t going to be anything coming in through Phuntsholing.”
	Sonam recognized the sense in that and immediately set to work.  Without seeking authorization from her mother or her aunt, she ordered massive amounts of canned goods for immediate delivery.  Within the hour, she had nine truckloads of non-perishable food items and other crucial supplies on their way from Siliguri, Kolkata, and Bangkok.  She filled her own apartment and took several pickup-loads up to Ben’s larger apartment.  “If this disaster does not happen,” she told Ben, “I will be in big trouble.”
	“At least it’s non-perishable, so you can sell it eventually,” Ben replied, “and I can help pay the distributors, if necessary.”

	Living  above 7,700 feet elevation, Ben assumed anything other than a direct or nearby hit would not immediately or directly affect him or Sonam or their neighbors.  Knowing Bhutan imported the majority of its food, he saw widespread starvation as a possibility.  Instead of his usual weekly shopping trip to town, Ben went twice a day and came home in taxis laden with rice, beans of many kinds, lentils, boxes of canned vegetables and fruit, and all the other items on his list of supplies for surviving a prolonged disruption of both food supply and normal weather.

	That, in addition to the loads Sonam brought, filled Ben’s roomy apartment.  The first day, Ben seemed to be the only person in the valley stocking up on necessities.  Once Sonam began, however, she equalled or exceeded her friend’s zeal.  That, coupled with her job and the opportunities it afforded, left Sonam with what she calculated could support her for two years.  When she visited Ben’s hilltop home, she found boxes stacked to the ceiling and filled with useful supplies.

	The hoard she and her not-exactly-boyfriend had accumulated there occupied so much space, not one spot remained where she could stand with her arms outstretched and rotate a quarter-turn in either direction.  Sonam felt amazed by the stockpile—which she estimated might support him for almost ten years.  “I wonder if the Druk Gyalpo even has as much stored as you do.”
	“I expect the royal family has a warehouse full of supplies, maybe several of ’em.”
	“Do you think you’ll need all that?” she asked him.
	“It isn’t just for me,” he replied.  “It’s for you, too.”
	“But I have my own cache.  My flat is almost as full as yours.”

	“That’s good.  But this is for both of us.”
	Sonam liked Ben a great deal and consistently enjoyed his company.  Even though he was more than three times her age, she found him attractive and often thought about entering into a more intense and intimate relationship with him.  Ben had revealed his desire for a more intimate relationship eight months ago.  He also said he cherished their friendship and could accept being just her friend if she preferred that.  Through those months, Sonam didn’t feel confident she knew what she preferred.

	She had avoided intimate relationships with other men, since she and Ben had become friends.  Why? she sometimes asked herself, but she knew the answer.  She felt extremely fond of Ben and, like him, cherished the relationship they already enjoyed.  Now, here they were, making plans to support each other.  Thinking about that made Sonam feel good, made her feel all warm and cuddly.
	Why aren’t we living together? she asked herself.  With no real pause, her thoughts continued, Because he’s being a gentleman and I’m being silly.  Sonam had made a point of sounding non-committal in all their considerable talk about relationships, but she never lacked sensitivity—enough to recognize Ben said nothing because he didn’t want to offend her.  Maybe I should suggest it myself, she thought.

	When less than a week remained before the predicted impact, people seemed to get the message and everyone who could stockpile began hoarding whatever they could get.  Ben and Sonam continued securing supplies but many products became unavailable.  They found adding to their stockpiles increasingly difficult but felt comforted by the enormous amount of provender almost filling Ben’s hilltop apartment.

	Sonam didn’t like her apartment in town.  She found the town noises and noise level annoying and a source of stress.  “Cities and big towns are stressful,” Ben said, and Sonam had begun to agree.  Living in town had its advantages, though, especially because she worked in town.  Everything lay near at hand.  Town living provided convenience, but at a price.  Ben raised another question.  “Now, it’s just annoying,” he said, “but how safe will it be to live surrounded by a few thousand starving people?”
	“So, you’re thinking what?”
	“That you can move in with me.  We’ll be safer up on that hogback ridge.  Even though it’s only a couple miles from town, most people wouldn’t ever bother to climb up there.”

	Sonam had half-expected or maybe even hoped for that suggestion or invitation or whatever it was, and recognized she wanted exactly that.  “What…ummmm…,” she began, and trailed off.
	“You wouldn’t have to sleep with me,” Ben said.  “I mean, of course I’d like that but it isn’t the point.  It isn’t a requirement.”
	“What is the point?”
	“The point is that I want to make sure you’re OK.  I want to take care of you.”

	Sonam recognized she liked the idea of being in a relationship in which Ben took care of her—and she took care of him sometimes.  The  thought of Ben sleeping beside her excited Sonam.  She was about to say so, when Ben continued, “Of course, I want to sleep with you—all the time.  I told you, though, that I feel very happy and privileged to be your friend.  If you don’t want to sleep with me, I still care about you and I’m still your friend.”
	“I do want to sleep with you, dammit,” she blurted out.  “I don’t know why I’ve waited so long.”

	That caught Ben by surprise, and he stood and looked at her for several moments.  Finally, he said, “Wow!  Oh, Sonam, that’s great.  When shall we begin that new phase of our lives, of our life together?”  He looked at his wrist as if checking a watch, which he didn’t wear, and said, “I’d be inclined to say, ‘How ’bout in five minutes?’ but maybe you’d rather wait until things settle down some?”
	“We might not be alive, when things settle down—if they ever do.  I’ve waited too long already, and I’ve made you wait too long.  I’d usually be at the shop until seven-thirty or eight, but I could get my amin to close up and go with you in an hour.  Almost everything on those nine trucks has sold out, so we don’t have much stock left anyway.  Amin won’t have an awful lot to do.  Is that OK?”

	Ben hugged his friend—not the first time he’d hugged her in the store, but almost—and said, “Oh, Sonam!  It’s much more that OK.  It’s wonderful.  Because you’re wonderful.”
	“I hope you’ll still say that tomorrow.”
	“Tomorrow!” Ben exclaimed.
	“I guess I haven’t said it out loud, not to you at least,” Sonam continued, “but I think you’re wonderful.”
	“Tomorrow!?” Ben repeated.  “I hope you’ll still be saying that in twenty or thirty years.”

	That took Sonam by surprise, and she tilted her head to look up at Ben’s face.  He surprised her again—with a kiss, their first.  His lips felt soft and gentle and strong at the same time.  They seemed to caress hers without actually moving, seemed to emit an affectionate energy that spread out and enveloped her like a cloud, like a protective cloak.
	They had just surfaced from their kiss, when Sonam’s mother walked into the shop.  She looked at them and quickly turned her head away, but not fast enough to hide her smile, as she made her way to the back room.

	Sonam pulled Ben’s head down and whispered, “Ama smiled,” in his ear.
	“I saw that,” he replied.  “That’s so neat.  I was afraid she’d be mad at me.”
	“I thought she’d be mad at me.”

	They relinquished their hug, shared one quick peck on the lips, and Sonam went to talk with her mother while Ben ran errands in town.  An hour later, he paid a taxi driver two hundred Ngultrum to take them and several boxes up to his home.  “Our home,” Ben said to Sonam, as the taxi departed and headed back down the hill.
	That phrase or the way Ben said it filled Sonam’s heart with joy.  The evening and night proceeded as one would expect.  Sonam’s previous experience meant Ben gave her only pleasure and caused her no pain.  That experience also supplied perspective, and in the morning, she rewarded her lover with, “You are both bigger and better than any other man I’ve ever known.”

	Ben felt tempted to say, “In the Biblical sense?” but figured that expression would mean nothing to someone who had never seen a Bible in her life.  Instead, he thanked her, praised her, and initiated another round of conjugal sharing.  Sonam’s mother had given her daughter the day off, saying she could run the shop herself but wouldn’t have much to do anyway, because they had so little inventory.  As a result, the two new lovers enjoyed intimate sharing right through that day and into the next night.
	Sonam shared a couple of ’phone calls with her mother and learned her mother didn’t plan to open the shop the next day, so the idyll continued.  The lovebirds wouldn’t have known the asteroid-like comet-strike had occurred, if Sonam hadn’t rung her mother on the third day.  That call informed them the object struck in the mid-Atlantic and tsunamis had destroyed virtually all of the U.S. east of Colorado and New Mexico and most of Europe.  After hearing that news, the two returned to their previous activity for the rest of the day.

	When the two did venture out of bed, they noticed two things: extremely dark clouds covered the sky and discharged a heavy rain, and they still enjoyed the modern convenience of electric power, something they hadn’t expected.  In addition to an enormous amount of sensual pleasure, both discovered they derived tremendous enjoyment from sharing long conversations without either of them having to depart to go home or to work.  For several days, their enormous stockpile of food went almost untouched, because the two took almost no time to do anything other than enjoy their propinquity.

	In moments between coition, Sonam rang her ama once each day.  Those calls reassured the lovebirds that Sonam’s mom was OK and also brought the news that little had changed in town.  The older woman—older than Sonam, of course, although younger than Ben—told her daughter most people were still going to work.  As expected, though, no shipments of any kind arrived from outside the country.
	The honeymoon, in the sense of paying almost no attention at all to anything except each other, lasted through a few days short of two cycles of the moon, continuously invisible above the heavy overcast that made the days almost as dark as a clear, moonless night.  In that seventh week, Sonam began feeling ill.  She said nothing at first, not wanting to worry Ben and thinking maybe her irregular diet had caused some gastro-intestinal problem.  When she did mention her nausea four days later, he said, “Omigosh!  Just in the mornings?”


	“Yes, and it always goes away immediately, as soon as you start caressing me.”  She saw the worried look on her darling’s face but at the same time recognized the implications of what she had just said.  She felt ecstatic but worried that Ben might be upset.
	“I’m glad that helps,” he said, as he caressed her and proceeded to dispel her nausea in the nicest possible way.  As they clung to each other in the afterglow, Ben said, “Probably not the best possible time to have kids, but how do you feel about it.”

	“Happy—no, “happy” doesn’t do it.  Happier than I’ve ever been in my life.  Thrilled.  But you look so worried.  Do you not w—”
	“I just worry that it might be too soon for you.  As long as you’re OK with it, I’m delighted.  I can’t imagine anything nicer than adding that new kind of sharing to our relationship.”
	With that, Sonam relaxed and cuddled as close as she could to Ben, hugging him as if she wanted to eliminate the boundaries of skin between them and merge into a single organism.  While their lovemaking didn’t taper off dramatically, they did both begin to spend more time working to ensure they would have everything they needed for the well being of their child.  Ben amassed a huge collection of baby- and child-size clothing, including a good deal of foul weather gear.
	
Because no new supplies of anything were coming into the town—or the country—prices for the dwindling stock of goods of all kinds rose dramatically.  Ben insisted high prices presented no difficulty for them, both “because I made sure we have a substantial quantity of cash on hand, and because the banks are still open and functioning and I have money in both BoB and PNB.”  He said he couldn’t imagine the dark and precipitation and cold lasting even five years, but he bought foul weather gear and other clothes to fit all ages from infancy up to eight or nine, saying “Better safe than sorry.”
	The week before Ben began his baby-and-child-clothing buying spree, Sonam went to step outside, and he stopped her.  “Please don’t go out without a slicker, dear, and rubber gloves.”
	

        “Why?”
	“Because the rain is likely to be very acidic.”
	“Acidic!?”
	“Yeah, wait, I’ll show you.”
	He spent half an hour searching and came up with a small plastic object that looked a great deal like a tape dispenser.  He set it on the kitchen counter, donned a slicker and rubber gloves, and took a glass tumbler out onto the balcony.  There, he thrust the glass out into the falling rain until it was half full.  After bringing the glass back to the kitchen area, he doffed his rain gear and took a small strip of salmon colored paper from the dispenser.  When he dipped that into the glass, it turned bright red.  He showed Sonam the color chart.
	Sonam had achieved well in all the sciences at school but still said, “OK, less than four.  That’s pretty acid, isn’t it?  I forget.”
	
        “About like lemon juice maybe.”
	“So, not like a car battery.”
	“No, but not something you want to have in contact with your skin for more than a few seconds.”
	After that, they both exercised caution when going outside.  They went outside rarely, mainly to walk down to visit Sonam’s mother and to buy or scavenge items on their various lists.  Ben dispensed Vitamin C tablets morning and evening, once fresh fruit became impossible to procure.  The family’s indoor existence coupled with the continuing darkness prompted him to begin dispensing from his hoard of Vitamin D tablets as well.

	Several members of the country’s legislature succumbed in the initial disaster or the first few weeks of dark and rain.  Many others left the capital to return to their home villages, some intending to help in recovery efforts, others intending to die with their families.  As a result, governance returned to the not-so-distant old days, with the Druk Gyalpo, the king, making all decisions with the help of a few trusted advisors.  Most of the country’s surviving population cheered that as a good thing.

	The king and what remained of the government made a valiant joint effort to enforce the long-standing national ban on slaughtering animals, but history opposed them.  With people starving and thousands of cattle wandering freely throughout the country, slaughtering livestock became routine.  That state of affairs lasted only about six months, after which no cattle, goats, sheep, or pigs remained.  A few zealously guarded chickens survived and continued producing eggs, but hungry humans had wiped out other livestock except perhaps a few individual animals that might have escaped into the forests.  Even the huge population of stray dogs throughout Bhutan soon vanished to feed starving humans.  A very few carefully sequestered pets survived.

	The population didn’t descend into cannibalism but adopted a grudging vegetarianism with what meager supplies they could find.  The darkness and rain continued as intense as ever, although Ben and Sonam confirmed the rain’s pH had risen to above four, a reassuring sign.  The continuing Cimmerian murk caused Ben and therefore Sonam to worry about the survival of plants—not individual plants but whole germ lines.  “So, we need to do something about that,” she said, “but what can we do?”
	“With electric power still available, surely it’d be possible to hang huge arrays of lights in big buildings, warehouses and the like, and create an artificial growing environment.  Even just keeping a few examples of each useful plant alive would enable people to propagate them, once more favorable conditions return.”

	“That would be a huge job.”
	“Yes, someone would have to convince the Druk Gyalpo to do it as a matter of national security—world security, really.”
	“Someone?”
	“Yeah, it doesn’t matter who does it, as long as the king gets the system set up.  He’d be a hero all around the world in years to come.”
	“Then you’d better talk to him.”
	“Me!?  I’ve never met the Druk Gyalpo, probably couldn’t get an audience with him.  It needs to b—”
	“The person who speaks to His Royal Highness has to be someone intelligent who understands the science—both the science of the asteroid and weather and the biology of the plants.  And the technology of the building and lighting and stuff.”

	“Yeah, maybe, but—”
	“I don’t know anyone else who could cover all that.  Do you?  And the person needs to be…what’s that word…”  Sonam paused and thought a moment, then said, “I think it’s ‘chair-is-matic’ or something like that.”
	“’Charismatic’?” Ben corrected her pronunciation.
	“Yes!  Charismatic, the person has to be charismatic—and that’s you for sure.”
	“I don’t know about that.  I—”
	“Ben, dear, now is not the time to be modest.  You are a charmer.  You must know that.  You have more chair—I mean, charisma than anyone else I’ve ever met.  You’re the man for the job.”

	“But I would never get an audience with the Druk Gyalpo.  I don’t know anybody in the royal family or anything.”
	“But you know people who know them or at least who have contact with them.  That’s probably enough.”
	“Who?”
	“Your friend, that lawyer, Rajiv Prakash.  He’s had dealings with the royal family.”

	“But he isn’t even Bhutanese, he’s In—”
	“Doesn’t matter.  He has contacts with them.  Also, your old boss—well, sort of boss—Dorji Dawa.  His wife is related to the queen.  He’s close to the royal family.”
	“Oh, yeah, I’d heard that—but maybe not so much on good terms with me, since I left his employ.  I s’pose we always got along well, though.”

	“Exactly.  And my ama and my amin know Ugyen Danzin, and he’s on very good terms with His Royal Highness.  I think you can get an audience.  You have something to give him.  You have knowledge that, like you said—”
	“As you said.”
	“Thank you.  As you said, you will make him a world-wide hero and savior.  He will grant you an audience, and he will listen.”

	The discussion continued longer than most without an interruption for carnal activities, an indication that both considered the topic important.  Another indication could be gleaned from their returning to the topic repeatedly in the following days, and yet another from Sonam’s contacts with her mother and aunt.  Both women put social wheels in motion.
	Benson Johns, Junior, remained blissfully unaware of his parents’ concern at his birth into a crepuscular world.  He and his mother—and, indeed, all three—bonded well and enjoyed each other’s company.

	Sonam felt severely deprived in the last couple of weeks of her pregnancy and advocated early resumption of conjugal activities despite Ben Senior’s concerns about possible adverse impacts on her health or possibly causing her pain or both.  She insisted, he worried; she continued to insist and began actively working at seducing her partner; he continued to worry.  Ben’s resistance crumbled after three days, and Sonam declared then and for long afterward that the pleasure was well worth the little bit of discomfort.
	Young Ben had long since mastered crawling and sitting up by the day the rain paused.  The rain-free interlude lasted less than half an hour, but it gave everyone some reassurance that at least the rain could stop.  By then, Sonam’s large belly proclaimed the imminent arrival of the little guy’s brother, an event that occurred without the benefit of any sunshine in Bhutan.

	Ben Junior was walking and his brother two months old, by the time the second pause occurred, and that pause lasted more than half an hour but less than an hour.  At eighteen and eight-and-a-half months respectively, the boys enjoyed an afternoon with a break of two hours.  In the meantime, their parents took them for frequent walks in a couple of the big grow-houses, as the indoor orchards and gardens became known.  The boys couldn’t yet have understood that was a privilege accorded only a few very special visitors.

	At the ages of twenty-six months and seventeen months, the toddlers experienced sunshine for the first time.  Ben Senior told his sons, “Don’t look at it—it can hurt your eyes very badly.  It can seriously damage them.”
	Both the boys said,. “It’s very bright.”
	“It is,” their father agreed.  “Look at the hills and the people and the buildings.”

	The sun cast hard shadows for about twenty minutes that day but returned three months later for twice as long.  Meanwhile, the not-quite-but-still-almost-incessant rain’s pH had risen to almost five.  As if to honor young Ben’s third birthday, the sun appeared that day for a full hour for the first time post-impact, before the cloud and rain returned.
	In accord with Ben Senior’s now famous suggestions, many of the grow houses preserved valuable fruit and nut trees against the day when they could again grow in a natural environment.  Other grow houses preserved germ lines of garden vegetables while producing substantial crops in a successful effort to improve the diet of the surviving population.

	That population amounted to about fifty per cent of the country’s pre-impact numbers.  India, with far more surviving individuals, contained much less than one per cent of its former population.  The intermontane West of the United States preserved almost one per cent of that country’s former population.  In the new conditions, the U.S. and India supported about the same population, about three times that of Bhutan.  In both of those large countries, as also elsewhere, people had begun re-occupying the drowned lands and attempting to reëstablish agriculture.  The total human population of the planet amounted to fewer than fifty million, and global warming no longer posed a threat.

	Sonam felt glad to be one of the survivors but even more glad to be Ben’s partner and the mother of their sons.  After four years, when rain-free daytime hours made regular appearances, she enjoyed Ben Senior’s company and love-making more than ever.  Another year, and the birth of their daughter Tenzin occurred on a day with no rain at all from an invisible sunrise to a visible sunset.
	In countries around the world, people began using whatever resources they could find in attempts to re-introduce agriculture and horticulture to land that had lain fallow and sodden for half a decade.  Some succeeded; many did not, and starvation remained a constant threat everywhere.  As the rain lessened, however, and the sunny hours increased, more and more areas began producing food crops.

	Coastal peoples fared somewhat better, because the absence of fishing pressure for more than four years allowed fish stocks to rebound.  The lack of sunlight to provide energy for the growth of algae and other base-of-the-food-chain organisms hampered the recovery by limiting the food available to crustaceans and fish.  Even so, those who managed to fish in the dark supplied protein to their families and communities.

Educated as a scientist and graduated by M.I.T. as a mathematician, Cora Tate has earned her living as a full-time professional entertainer most of her life, including a stint as a regular performer on the prestigious Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.  Cora’s repeated attempts to escape the entertainment industry have brought work as a librarian, physics teacher, syndicated newspaper columnist, and city planner, among other occupations.  Cora lives and writes in Bhutan. In previous decades she has lived, performed, and taught in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Denmark.  She has written five novels, three novellas (two of which have been published), and three novelettes (two published, one forthcoming).  Although she considers herself primarily a novelist, she has written eighty-some short stories, some of which have appeared in the Galway Review, Quail Bell, Overland, Indiana Voice Journal, Red Fez, Page & Spine, Scarlet Leaf Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and other literary journals.  Cora’s short story “While The Iron Is Hot” won the Fair Australia Prize.