“I’m with you so far…”
“I think it’s nature’s way of telling us to calm the fuck down and behave.”
“You frightened me for a second, there, man. Thought you were surfing on Kate’s wave for a second.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
Kate thought it was the rapture. She thought she’d ascend.” I paused. “She didn’t.”
“Of course not, bro. This ain’t any goddam rapture. I haven’t seen anybody beamed up into the cosmos, have you?”
He didn’t wait for my answer. “And anyway, I saw fucking dogs melting, bro. What kinda God would send a doggy to the big fire?”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Valid, Der. Very valid”.
“Damn right it’s valid! Anyway, whatever’s happened has happened. I'm thinking we’re in the clear. I'm also thinking that just in case we’re not in the clear...”
I laughed openly, knowing full well where he was going with this. “We should hang out and get high?” I asked.
“We should hang out and get high!” Der confirmed.
“Ah fuck, I’ll be over soon as I can.”
“That’s my man!” Derwood hung up the phone.
I pulled my shit together as fast as I could. Cleaned myself up and got me some fresh clothes.
I made sure to pocket the knife Kate had been planning to skewer me with, just in case I ran into any assholes out there, then made for the door. I took one last look back at the reddish, brown stain that had been my betrothed, and made my way out into the smoke-filled dawn.
***
It’s been two days now since the world underwent its cremation and there have been no more cases of spontaneous combustion since that first, crazy night and the following morning.
The power’s still down, and the streets have gotten pretty dangerous pretty quickly. Lots of looting going on out there…both of products and people.
Women mostly.
Derwood has taken to calling the situation ‘Humanity Uncut’.
I'm thinking he's probably right.
It’s looking like a very uncertain future for the human race, but hasn’t it always looked that way?
***
Some would argue that the human empire was always destined to fall. Others would argue that it had already fallen long before the fires came.
Why some people burned up and others survived we may never know. It may have been a genetic issue, or something to do with man-made global warming, or a reaping performed by Mother Nature, as Derwood suggested.
It’s even possible that Kate was onto something and that if there is a divine consciousness in the universe, it got well and truly sick of our shit. Derwood’s theory isn’t that far removed from hers, only a little more humble.
That still doesn’t explain why some humans and wildlife survived though.
And if it was a God, it must be a real prick to kill all those innocents so ruthlessly.
Me …I'm not the world’s deepest thinker. This mystery is for better men than good old Donnie to fathom.
On a personal level, I’d lost my wife long before that sunny morning, and whether she was chosen specifically or the whole thing was a crap-shoot, she made the choice to leave the world in a less than noble state of being. That makes me sad, but in essence she’d died long before that day.
Feels like a part of me burned up too…a part that won’t be missed.
Maybe now I can rebuild myself from the ground up, along with everyone else that’s left in this brave new world we’re facing.
Could be we all live on forever in a cutthroat, post-apocalyptic world like savages.
Could be we rise to greatness now that we have this clean slate to work with.
Hell, it could be our gooses are all cooked by the coming sunrise and we’re living on borrowed time.
One way or the other, though, I'm spending time with my best buddy, and living my life to the fullest.
It’s something of a shame that it took a Kentucky-Fried morning to make me realize how precious our time is, and how important it is that we be ourselves in the time we have, but I'm done with regret, and with looking back.
I’m done with being consumed by sorrow.
Derwood has gotten his hands on a generator. God only knows where from, but I woke up and here it is.
His aim is simple…get the Xbox back up and running.
I think he may actually manage it.
I’m feeling hopeful about the matter.
From now on, I'm a ‘glass half full’ kinda guy.
And, just to clarify, I'm staying single...
TELEVISION EYE
She’s got a TV eye on me. She’s got a TV eye – Iggy Pop
It’s 8pm on the fifteenth of June, and as the evening sun shines its warming rays down on the residents of Sandy Shores, a small group of children kick around a worn-down ball upon the heat-softened tarmac that makes up the one-lane road on Filamore Drive.
They make the best of the last caresses of the setting sun, knowing that soon enough their parents will call from creaking trailer doorways and beckon them into the light of their homes, out of the looming darkness where danger is ever present, even in this tiny, forgotten patch of land where everyone knows everyone.
For most of the residents on Filamore Drive, the working day is done (if it had ever gotten started in the first place), and the adults are all huddled together in front of their televisions, supping beers, rolling blunts, and making out. The sounds emanating from the assortment of trailers that line both sides of the dusty little neighborhood fight for sonic supremacy in the Texan dusk, as an army of radio’s kick out the classics, televisions drone their familiar drones, and a sole lawnmower buzzes like an angry wasp while an elderly man fights a losing battle with his rapidly declining patch of grass.
There's a trailer parked a little farther back than the rest of them. Off the beaten track, as it were.
One that looks exceptionally run down, even in this less-than-dazzling environment.
From inside this particular trailer, the familiar sounds and voices of the community’s (and perhaps the state’s) most well-loved news channel push themselves through the cracked front window and out into the relative quiet of the weed-infested driveway.
The sounds never reach the rest of the community nor mingle with the comforting symphony that is small-town living.
Its 8pm on the fifteenth of June, and in Sandy Shores, life is going down smooth and slow.
***
For Mike, life had always been a stone-cold case of black and white.
Each and every aspect of his existence was built around the concept of absolutes - right and wrong, good and evil, reality and fantasy.
It wasn’t that he spent a great deal of his time speculating on the limitations of human existence, only that simplicity was built into his very DNA, hardwired into his internal computer, the program remaining assuredly unaltered over his years.
Mike was no theologian nor was he of an intellectual bent. Those were pastimes and concerns for wiser, more passionate men. In fact, Mike Echol’s entire worldview was not of the sort that anyone, even in their most generous moment, could call perceptive. Mike’s mind never swayed towards understanding the expanses of human experience or the mysteries of man’s condition, and it rarely left the comfortable conscious campfire of his two great loves - his country and his beer.
Mike loved both these things with a fervor that bordered on religious. Religion, as it happened, came a close runner-up to the two dominating poles of his existence.
A star-spangled flag danced proudly in the Texan winds on a pole he’d erected to the rusted paneling of his trailer, and his cooler was never short of a brew or two. Any time his buddies, Merle and Josh, came by, the guitar would come out, the songs would be sung – mostly Christian – and the alcohol would flow.
His bible, though rarely opened, rested on a dusty dressing table, right underneath a small framed image of his Lord, Jesus Christ. Th
e Good Lords’ image looked worse for wear these days, the corners turned up with time and the heat of the Texan sun. The deep blue of those glorious eyes that used to shine so bright that Mike imagined the Lord was looking straight into his heart, was all but grey.
If there had ever been erected a poster boy to represent the great American western man - the blue-collar, hard-working god-fearing and country-loving gentleman that made the great United States of America run smoothly - it was Mike.
Honest and humble a man as he was, Mike saw himself as ranking among the most grounded of people. He loved the baby Jesus Christ, he loved the man in the White House, and he loved the beautiful state where he’d spent the entirety of his quiet, humble life. He was neither fanciful in his thinking nor belligerent in nature. Anyone living in Sandy Shores would tell you he was a stand-up guy.
A true ‘good-ole boy’.
No airs nor graces to be found.
And certainly a man with no desire to upset the applecart of his own simple, uncomplicated existence.
So it came as a huge shock to Mike, as he sat there before his TV on his beaten down sofa with a cold Coors in one hand and a Marlboro burning down in the other, when like a bolt out of a clear southern sky he found himself realizing - with all the terrible clarity of an alcoholic who wakes up after oblivion to find his life has jumped ship - that every word that was coming out of the pretty blonde newsreaders mouth was absolute, 100% pure, multi-purpose bullshit.
Mike hadn’t been giving much thought to what the gal had been reporting on when his moment of clarity came knocking. He’d been far more concerned with the tantalizing contours of her full breasts as they pressed against the fabric of her slightly-too-tight shirt, and the come-to-bed glint behind her smiling eyes, to give any real attention to the crisis she was documenting.
After all, it was more of the same thing that filled the airwaves on any given day...
Another fire-fight had taken place in some far-flung corner of the Middle-East, in some god-forsaken region where the populace where more prone to strapping bombs to their chests and blowing themselves into kibbles than enjoying a good beer.
Same old, same old.
It was all too depressing, and as far as Mike was concerned, the whole lot of them could burn .
Bunch of damned barbarians anyway, he’d thought.
‘Prism News’ was the only news organization he would ever give his time to. He saw himself as just as much of a card-carrying member of the chest-beating, patriotic crowd the channel attracted, as any man.
He was proud of this and saw it as his duty as a citizen to unquestioningly support the war machine.
After all, America was and always would be the good guys. The government that had sent our boys and girls out there had only our best interests at heart. The least we could do was support them, no questions asked.
One Muslim dead or a thousand…it wasn’t his problem.
The presenter (he’d forgotten her name somewhere between his fourth and fifth beer) had been detailing an attack on an outpost that had led to the deaths of three US troops, two British boys, and an unspecified number of middle-eastern casualties. The footage shown was the usual sad cavalcade of destruction, military nobility, and heartfelt praise for the dead soldiers. There had been an interview with a high-standing member of congress who forcefully maintained that the boys had died in the name of duty, and that the sacrifice they’d made at the altar of freedom was one that ‘we as a nation’ would not take in vain.
All good stuff.
Yet it was right then that Mike had a vague sense that something was wrong with this picture.
He was pretty sure the esteemed member of congress was deferred during that ugly business in Vietnam, yet there he was, proudly and bravely declaring that the ‘conflict must continue’ as though he had even the slightest understanding of what war did to a man.
Mike also was becoming fitfully aware that there were no images being shown of the dead on the enemy’s side.
And just like that, these things didn’t feel right.
They felt…immoral.
The sensation was as alien to him as a universe without a well-meaning creator.
In that moment, something inside him rose to the surface. It began in his belly as a sickly fluttering of wings, and spread through his system, making his heart beat to a faster drum. His eyes began to sting and his vision clouded over for a fraction of a second. He felt his palms begin to sweat and his mouth begin to dry. A creeping disquiet was beginning to build in him.
Am I having a panic attack?
Mike had little time to ponder the matter at any length before his mind utterly betrayed his lifelong belief system, and whispered ever so softly into his conscience...
These were people, too.
And that congressman is a coward and a hypocrite.
Mike’s beer slipped from his numb hand and clunked onto the carpet, lukewarm liquid slowly chugging out onto the flowered design like a bloodstain.
Mike was shocked to find himself declaring aloud, in semi-inebriated disgust, “Fucking liars!”
His mind reeled from this vastly unwelcome realization. The sure-fire certainty he’d heard in his own voice shook Mike to his core.
Or rather, what he thought was his core.
The shock of self-awareness took an immediate backseat, as Mrs. Full-Tits on the TV stopped what she was saying mid-sentence, looked up into the camera from the report she’d been perusing on her shiny silver desk, dropped her trademark sexy smile, and in a chillingly cold tone, said, “ That’s not the reaction we’re looking for, Michael.”
***
Mike stared at the screen.
The reporter stared back.
With his thoughts tumbling down dark tunnels, he reached with shaking hands for the controller, and began to press the channel-change button in rapid succession.
Nothing happened.
The screen flickered momentarily every time he pushed the button, as though the channel would indeed change, but the image that remained before him was that of the no-nonsense reporter.
She was still staring directly at him, silent.
This can’t be, he thought.
He mustered the best and only reasonable response he could find. “What the fuck?”
Without missing a beat, the woman smiled.
He noticed, in the awful fullness of a split-second, that the smile never met her eyes. There was no humor there other than the mirth a spider may affect had it the capacity to express its vicious intent to the fly.
“The ‘fuck’, as you so eloquently put it, Michael, is that you’re beginning to upset me.”
Mike tried to formulate words. None were forthcoming, though his mind was rushing headlong into some very scary places.
He dropped the remote and stared, aghast.
She continued. “Do you think it would be at all possible to close your mouth, Michael? I have no desire to study the contents of your gullet.”
“What the fuck?” Mike asked again, to no one at all.
“Mike. Can I call you Mike?”
The words seemed to slide from his mouth, like drool from a newborn baby. “Sure...okay.”
“Thank you, Mike. Thank you.” She cleared her throat and clasped her hands on the desk before her. “You’re probably wondering why you’re sat her in your dirty underwear and talking to your television, yes?”
It took him a moment to find his voice. “I’m having a fucking breakdown, aren’t I? That or the beer’s out of date. Or I’ve been spiked with some shit the kids these days take. Or—”
“No, Mike. You’re not having a breakdown of any sort. At least not of any sort you have in mind. We do have a breakdown though… between you and me…one of communication.”
“The fuck?” He mumbled stupidly, lending credence to her observation.
“Could you be a dear and put out the cigarette in your hand before you burn the whole house down, Mike? That would be set a good preced
ent for our time together.”
The Marlboro was burned down to the filter, and his forefinger had already begun blackening from the heat.
Mike hadn’t felt a thing until she mentioned it.
With a small hiss of pain, he threw the remains of the cigarette in the ashtray, wondering as he did so if perhaps it really had been laced with some sort of psychedelic.
His friend, Merle, was known to dabble.
“I’ll kill the bastard,” he growled.
The television lady sighed as though she’d been through this tired process a thousand times before. “Kill who, Mike? No one has brought you to this moment but yourself.”
“You’re a hallucination.”
“I assure you I'm not.”
“And I assure you, you are! Now fuck off! Televisions don’t talk back!”
She smiled. “This one does.”
“No. This one doesn’t!” Mike lunged of the couch and hit the manual on/off button, this time so hard he nearly broke his finger.
The image remained.
The creepy bitch had raised her eyebrow like she was dealing with the dumbest dipshit at the disco.
On hands and knees, he desperately crawled behind the box and yanked the plug from the socket.
Impossible, the television remained switched on. “I'm not going anywhere, Mike. Now do you think you could sit down and start acting like an adult?”
Her tone reminded him of his fifth-grade English teacher.
He hated his fifth-grade English teacher.
He was scared of her, too.
Mike found himself obeying her, standing up and backing towards the sofa. He plunked down on the soft couch and stared, caught somewhere in a minefield between crippling fear and stark outrage.
She cleared her throat again. “As I was saying, you’re not going insane. You’re not under the influence of any intoxicants other than the ones we deem fit for consumption.” She smiled, adding, “One of which is now spilled liberally across your fine rug.”
Consumed- The Complete Works Page 11
