What the Hand: A Novel About the End of the World and Beyond

by Stockwell, Todd

  Some time later, however, Barack had a change of heart, because he asked forgiveness for his part in ushering in the New World Order and turned to Jesus. That change of heart got him into the suburbs of the New Kingdom. I’ve seen his place: a four bedroom with white shutters and a well-manicured lawn on a quiet street.

  ***

  Most of the streets are quiet in the New Kingdom. People are polite and helpful to their neighbors, but they don’t bother each other with needless chat. They are much more introspective than they were on the Old Earth, always reflecting on this or that aspect of their former lives.

  Wise men throughout history espoused the virtues of silence, producing such wonderful lines as “Silence is golden,” “Be seen and not heard,” “Men of few words are the best men,” “Never miss a good chance to shut up,” “When you have nothing to say, say nothing,” “Till human voices wake us and we drown,” just to mention a few. But in the end, these great words were lost amongst the noise, wisdom virtually ignored by people on the Old Earth who worshiped the gossiper, blowhard, or fast talker, as if silence itself was some kind of enemy.

  Perhaps it was. Maybe people didn’t want to listen to the nonsense floating around in their own heads, voices reminding them of their failings, or their past.

  Floating around somewhere in my head was the knowledge of the inevitability of my mortgage company’s demise. I filtered out that noise, listening only to the voices of my pride and greed telling me the whole mortgage debacle was a temporary calamity, and so I drained our savings and maxed out our personal credit cards to keep the business going.

  But it was doomed. The banks had decided to stop lending months before—except they never bothered to tell the lowly brokerages about it.

  Still, Renee was a good sport about the whole thing. She never would have left me over money, not even financial ruin. She left me because I turned my back on her, because I betrayed her, because I was already gone.

  ***

  The divorce rate in the United States was already over sixty percent when we split. By the time the Antichrist took over it was closer to eighty percent. This statistic gave the New World Order an excuse to abolish the institution of marriage altogether. The Antichrist didn’t like marriage, and he especially didn’t like families—not that there were any real families left after the children were taken in the Rapture.

  The reason the divorce rate was so high even before the New World Order was because, for most people, divorce was easier than staying together. In the past divorce was the harder thing to do because it went against people’s ethics. Back in the day, people considered marriage a moral and religious commitment, and they would stick to it for the most part, come what may. But ethics, long the target of the Illuminati, who were out to destroy the family, morality, compassion, goodwill, honesty, and on and on, had nearly become a thing of the past.

  ***

  I had discarded my business and personal ethics. I was losing any sense of morality through booze, drugs, and other vices. I was dishonest. I had wrecked my family. I had some compassion left, but mostly for myself, as I let my daughter’s heart break.

  ***

  That’s the thing people didn’t quite grasp about divorce—the extent of the devastation children went through. Parents would say stuff like, “We were fighting in front of the kids all the time,” or “It was better for them after the divorce.” And family therapists and marriage counselors would all agree, as if they had some special insight into the mind of a child.

  I mean there were always exceptions—like if a father was a complete lunatic or something, beating the crap out of everyone and whatnot, or, as in my case, cheating on his spouse, abandoning his family physically and emotionally—of course then it would make sense for a wife to run for the hills, but eighty percent wasn’t about exceptions. Divorce had become the norm. The Illuminati had been pushing their bogus psychology on unsuspecting families and academia for decades, making it easy for everyone to destroy their children’s sense of security and well-being.

  ***

  The human family on the Old Earth was God’s creation, the parent-child relationship a model of our relationship to Him. Just as nothing is more devastating than separation from God, the family unit was everything to a child. Children were told over and over again by those they trusted that everything would be all right. We told Sophie the same thing. But it wasn’t all right, and it never would be.

  Some children cried, some misbehaved, some pouted or threw tantrums, some lashed out, and some remained silent and unreachable. But to some extent they would internalize the utter hopelessness they felt and would never be quite the same.

  ***

  I ignored it, but I saw it then as clear as I see it now—the change in my little girl. Sophie was pretending, pretending all the time—pretending for us because we kept asking her to. But her eyes could not pretend, however hard she tried. They were green and large and light on the outside, but further back, back where the soul was supposed to break the curtain, it could not, for she was hurt and lost and in the dark.

  5

  By the time I received final confirmation of my divorce, I had been living in the Valley apartment for close to a year. I visited Sophie or had her staying with me on a regular basis and without much restriction. But Renee had asked for and received a more concrete schedule in the divorce, and eventually my visitation rights were reduced to one night a week and every other weekend. It was more stable for Sophie, but it was tearing me up inside, and I stopped trying. I quit looking for a job, spent what little money I had on drugs and alcohol, and hung around my apartment using and wallowing in self-pity, at least when my daughter wasn’t around.

  Sophie was twelve by then, and she had my number. No matter how sober I was while she was with me, she knew something was different. She told her mom she was uncomfortable around me and didn’t want to spend the night anymore. I didn’t blame her at all—me and my crummy and dirty apartment, jobless, tired from all the partying in between, offering her bits and pieces of myself. How pathetic I was. But I felt abandoned and played the victim anyway. It was then that I really gave up. I let the demons in, and we had a long party until the earthquake hit.

  ***

  The Great Los Angeles Earthquake was one more addition to the many natural disasters on the planet, steadily increasing in frequency and power since such things were recorded. These were more of the “birth pangs” described by Jesus in the Book of Matthew, created by the ugly energy of man and allowed by God to encourage repentance.

  ***

  I was watching television late one night in bed, trying to come off a two-day coke binge so I could visit my daughter the next evening in a somewhat respectable state, when I was awakened by a loud roar and a shaking that became more violent with every second.

  Then there was a terrific jolt that catapulted me into the ceiling. When I landed, my bed fell through the ceiling below, along with the whole cruddy apartment building. Had I not been on the top floor, I might have been crushed like the other twenty-seven people who died at the Tarzana Gateway Apartments that night, some so smashed they had to be scooped up with shovels.

  ***

  A few days later, I would go back to sift through the wreckage for my things while they dealt with the carnage. Morbidly enough, after I gathered what little was salvageable, I hung around to watch the gruesome abstersion, but worse, this childhood rhyme popped into my head:

  Fatty and Skinny went to bed

  Fatty rolled over and Skinny was dead.

  Fatty called the doctor, and the doctor said,

  What’s that pancake doing in bed?

  ***

  The earthquake had a magnitude of 9.3, making it the second largest quake in recorded history. It had the power of 24,000 Hiroshimas, devastating Los Angeles and killing some 167,000 people. The city would never be fully rebuilt. The immediate aftermath caused fires, flooding, food and water shortages, looting, and mayhem of all kinds—another
Saturday night in the Los Angeles area.

  Actually, there hadn’t been a regular Saturday night in Los Angeles for some time. Martial law had been declared and a midnight curfew imposed soon after the president’s assassination and destruction of the Capitol caused the economy to tank, and severe rioting broke out across the country.

  Because most of the regular Army was off fighting in other countries, a new army called the American Security Force was formed. The ASF was already in place when the earthquake hit, out in patrols enforcing the midnight curfew with orders to shoot on sight anyone who dared break it.

  Ironically, the ASF was largely a foreign army, another brainchild of the Illuminati, already in the works well before the assassination and rioting occurred. The Illuminati had slowly dismantled the state police and militias, infusing the ASF with anyone they could sign up coming over the borders, believing foreigners would have fewer qualms about killing American citizens in the streets. They were right.

  On the night of the earthquake, groups of these ASF soldiers, who had only previously broken the boredom by getting a rare shot off at a curfew breaker, not only had the excitement of the earthquake, but now, because of it, confused and frightened targets presented themselves all over the place. Some of their group leaders had the common sense to forego the shooting order in light of the situation, overriding the moans and groans of their trigger-happy cadets, but others took full advantage of the disaster, firing on the funny, screaming people in their pajamas, nightgowns, and underwear.

  ***

  Somehow, buried underneath my ceiling and all manner of debris, I survived relatively unscathed. With one thought in mind, I picked myself out the rubble. I needed to get to my daughter.

  With my car buried somewhere in the apartment garage, I had to reach the house on foot. This wasn’t the best part of town before the earthquake, and despite the curfew, there were already groups of thugs rummaging through the mess, looking for food, valuables, and victims to molest. So I decided I better have some kind of weapon for the journey. I could still see my bed through the maze of dust and drywall, and I was hoping I could get under it to where I kept an aluminum softball bat. I was just pulling away a piece of drywall when someone kicked me in the back. I looked up to find a couple of rough characters ready to pounce. “I don’t have anything on me!” I pleaded. “Can’t you see I’m in my underwear, pal?”

  ***

  While the hooligan who kicked me pondered that, I dove under the bed, flailing desperately for my bat. He and his buddy, hooligan #2, grabbed a leg and pulled as I managed to get my hands on the silver beauty. I came out swinging, whipping it into #1’s ankle. He fell over, and I was then able to stand while I turned 180 degrees, leveling the bat at #2’s head, inflicting a blow that sent his ear an inch into his skull. I then beat #1, who was busy nursing his ankle, probably to death.

  ***

  Actually, it didn’t happen anything at all like that, like I was suddenly Buford Pusser. I read the actual account at the Hall of Knowledge. I completely fabricated the whole thing. I mean I did hit the first guy in the ankle, but that was about it. The second guy tripped and fell on some debris while I was flailing at him with the bat. I swung at him a few times after he was on the ground but only managed to hit him once in the shoulder. Still, I wasn’t lying about it. I was simply delusional. I mean I actually remember beating those guys severely; such was my inebriated and panicked state. I really thought it happened that way. I even asked God’s forgiveness for possibly killing them.

  ***

  The only reason I bring it up now is to make the point that I would have done anything to get to Sophie that night. I was on a mission and nothing was going to stop me. I was willing to kill or be killed to get to my little girl. The Old Earth saying, “Love makes the world go around,” is true. I looked it up. It made me willing to kill, and it made me, a middle-aged man with a coke habit, run seven miles through the burning and chaotic neighbors around Los Angeles, all the way to my ex-wife’s house. Along the route, I heard gunshots that may or may not have been directed toward me. I did not notice and I did not care. I was going to get to my daughter. I loved her enough to die for her but not enough to live for her. Love is an interesting thing.

  ***

  It turned out there hadn’t been much to worry about. Like most of the drywall and pinewood homes in the area, my ex-wife’s house held up pretty well, and Sophie and Renee were fine. Furniture tossed about the house, the floors covered with broken dishes, glasses, and other items flung from shelves and cabinets, but all in all it was a pretty fair earthquake to my family, considering the damage, injury, and loss of life elsewhere in the city.

  ***

  Yes, I begged my wife’s forgiveness, again. And since my wife was a generous and good person, and scared to death with everything going on in the world, and because she knew how much Sophie wanted things the way they were, and because she needed help around the house with the earthquake mess and all, she let me slither back into their lives.

  And for a while things were good. But I’d already let the demons in, and it was only a matter of time before I messed things up again.

  ***

  Those were the last days I would spend with Sophie on the Old Earth. I took the same job I’d had during college, driving a taxi. I worked from five o’clock in the evening until the midnight curfew, watched television till one or two a.m., slept till a quarter to eight, took Sophie to school, picked her up, watched movies, played video games, or kicked a soccer ball around the yard with her. We even had some laughs again.

  ***

  Living with Renee and Sophie again was wonderful, but I was down about everything else in my life. I couldn’t get over myself, over losing our home and my business. I couldn’t let the good be enough. I was weak and tired, and the demons and the cocaine kept calling. And so, eventually, Renee caught me and kicked me to the curb. I loved my daughter with everything I was. Let it be said—I loved my daughter not enough.

  ***

  Besides the Great Earthquake, quite a few huge natural disasters hit the planet around the same time, causing untold numbers of casualties. An abnormal monsoon season caused massive flooding across Asia, wiping out a few hundred thousand people, and no less than fifteen good sized hurricanes along the Gulf and East coasts killed at least as many more. One hurricane decimated the City of Houston and another completely flooded Long Island and lower Manhattan. Then there were the volcanic eruptions in Iceland, Japan, and the Philippines, more wars breaking out everywhere, new famines not only in Africa but India and China as well, and strange and unstoppable diseases spreading sickness over large population centers in third world countries. Every week a calamity was reported somewhere. It should have gotten everyone’s attention. The due date was nearing, while most of us continued our nonsensical journeys.

  And when the pressure mounted, and the world felt like it would boil over like some great disregarded stew, there came a sudden break in the fun. Yeah, just like that, nothing happened for about five months. It was a weird calm. I think that’s what finally woke up the last holdouts to make the cut. But even those of us who didn’t wake up couldn’t deny the feeling something big was about to happen.

  And something big did happen. First, a star appeared out of nowhere, large and bright as two full moons. My daughter told me it was God’s star. I told her, of course it was. And it was, but I had no idea at the time.

  Then, a few days later, they disappeared—-some people who you thought were good and decent people, some people who you thought were Christians and some people you knew were not, and other people, too. People you might never have expected.

  I knew what happened. A lot of us did. And I knew why I was left behind. Most of my life had been spent taking the easy way out, doing the things that made me feel good, no matter who got hurt. I had turned my back on God a long time ago. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in a church, read a Bible, or even said a lousy prayer.
/>   ***

  I had a lot of time to think about my life after they were gone, pondering where it all went wrong. Looking back, all I could see was a blur of lies, immorality, vice, greed, gluttony, vandalism, theft, and all manner of nonsense.

  I didn’t even remember exactly when or why I became a loser. It seemed I’d always had this lack of character. I remembered stealing dimes from my elementary school cafeteria where I was the milk monitor in the first grade. I was caught by a freckle-faced girl. She yelled for the cafeteria lady, except I was able to calm her down and talk my way out of it somehow. At six years old I was already an accomplished liar.

  ***

  My father couldn’t stomach a liar. Late one night when I was ten, I crept into the kitchen and ate a cake donut with pink frosting and white coconut flakes. I took it out of a box of half a dozen or so my dad had been saving for breakfast.

  The next morning I heard him shouting our names: “Gerry, Geoff, George, Gina…” Lining us up like Marine recruits, he began his interrogation, quickly eliminating Gina after deciding she was too small to reach the donuts, which had been sitting on top of the refrigerator. None of us said a word. I was too scared to confess, and, of course, Gerry and Geoff didn’t have any idea what the heck he was talking about. So my father said we better figure out who stole the donut and sent us to our bedroom to work it out amongst ourselves.

  Gerry and Geoff went at each other right away because they thought I was too young or chicken to be involved, but I joined in anyway because that’s what the best liars do. Then we all had a heart attack because my father opened the door real fast, hollering at us some more. “Did you figure it out? What’s taking you so long?”

  Nobody said anything because they didn’t know anything, except for me, and I wasn’t going to say anything. So my father decided to bring us back into the den one at time to give us a whipping if we didn’t tell him who did it, because this cake donut had suddenly become the missing Hope Diamond or something.