Station Eleven: Chapter 43 Summary & Analysis

On Day Two, there is a brief excitement when people living in the airport recognize Elizabeth and Tyler. They seem to be in shock, and they complain that they wish their phones were working so they could tweet about hanging out with Arthur Leander’s kid at the end of the world.

By Day Three, all of the vending machines in the airport are empty, the battery in Tyler’s videogame is dead, and the girl needing Effexor is sick from withdrawal. A raiding party is sent to find drugs, and though they find useful items, they do not find the drug she needs. They dial 911 from a pay phone, but no one answers.

That night they break into the Mexican restaurant, where a man named Max leaves his credit card to pay. It remains untouched for ninety-seven days. The survivors have a bonfire out on the tarmac, getting drunk on Skymiles Lounge champagne. They hope a passing airplane or helicopter might see them, but nothing passes overhead.

On Day Five, they break into the gift shop for clean clothes. By Day Six all the snacks are gone. And on Day Seven, TV networks begin to blink off the air one by one. The power goes off and back on, meaning that it has switched to generator power. Since by Day Eight no one has come to the airport, a TSA agent named Tyrone goes out to hunt and returns with a deer.

While everyone else eats the deer, the girl who needs Effexor sneaks away. They mount a small search party, but are unable to find her. She has left behind all her belongings, which reveal that her name is Lily Patterson. Someone places her driver’s license next to Max’s credit card.

During this time, Tyler spends his days reading his comic books over and over again. Elizabeth constantly prays. The televisions are all silent. On Day Twelve the power goes out, though the toilets will still flush if they are filled with water.

On the Fifteenth Day, one of three pilots among the stranded people announces that he will take an airplane to LA in hopes of finding his family. He invites anyone who wants to come with him, and most people who live west or in Asia end up leaving the next day, hoping to find family or closer to home. This trip leaves only fifty-four survivors living in the Severn City Airport. As the time reaches the point when the plane is probably approaching LA, Clark thinks of his memories of the city, including the awkward dinner party at Arthur’s house. Tyler is almost always silent, while Elizabeth tells Clark, “I can’t wait till things get back to normal.”

After this departure to LA, another pilot named Roy announces that he’s going to do a reconnaissance flight on a small airplane. He never returns.

A little while later, Clark and Elizabeth discuss the end of civilization. She doesn’t believe that it has truly come to an end, and can’t understand Clark’s point that civilization was already fragile. She believes that this catastrophe will pass. She tells him about a book she read about vampires that made it appear as if the world had ended, but slowly revealed that in reality only North America had been quarantined to save the rest of the world from vampirism. Clark says he doesn’t think this is quarantine and that there is nothing else out there. Elizabeth maintains that everything happens for a reason.

In order to maintain appearances, Clark is careful to shave every three days. He believes that this will help prevent crime and a decay of the people in the airport. On Day Twenty-Seven, he parts his hair in the middle and shaves one side, returning to the style he wore as a young man. His friend Dolores gives him funny looks, but Clark feels more like himself than ever.

To maintain his sanity, Clark trains himself not to think about and not to look at certain things. He tries not to think about the people he knew outside the airport, or the final airplane that landed but was kept away from the airport. Snow falls after Roy’s departure, and Elizabeth insists on keeping a runway clean, even after it’s clear that Roy won’t return, as preparation for the rescue she believes is coming. They once see a helicopter pass in the far distance, but they never see another aircraft in the air after that.

Without artificial light, the night sky is brighter than anyone can remember seeing. Clark at first questions if the brilliance of the Milky Way is his own imagination, but Dolores confirms it’s just because the age of light pollution has ended. Always optimistic, Elizabeth maintains that the lights will eventually come back on someday.

Every night, the citizens of the airport have a bonfire. Slowly, the conditions begin to feel normal. Tyler keeps mostly to himself and reads his comic books and the New Testament. The people living in the airport trade languages and learn to live together. There is a rape on the night of Day Eighty-five, and the assailant is tied up and forced into the forest at gunpoint.

Dolores wonders why no one has ever arrived at the airport. With Garrett, Annette, and Clark, she discusses the possible horrors occurring out in the world. Silently, Tyler wanders in and comments that everything happens for a reason, to which Garrett says that Elizabeth is a lunatic. Clark then suggests sending out a scouting party.

The scouts, Tyrone, Dolores, and Allen, leave the morning of Day One Hundred. In the tension of waiting for them to return, Clark wonders what Robert would do if he were there. At this point, he arrives at the idea of collecting obsolete items and creating an impromptu museum. He thus begins the Museum of Civilization. Placing a snow globe on display, he considers how many human hands were required to design, manufacture, and ship the small product and marvels at what human civilization once was.

The next day, the scouting party returns with some supplies. No one approached them during the journey, which they describe as silent. But a day later, a stranger (later named as James) walks in. The man seems stunned as opposed to dangerous. When instructed to drop his weapon, he cooperates, and slowly tries to speak. Crying, he tells the people from the airport that he was in a hotel and he followed the scouting party’s footprints. He’s crying, he says, because he believed that he was the only one who had survived.