The Hauntings of Playing God (The Great De-Evolution)

by Chris Dietzel

  But instead she was given an assortment of Blocks, and she accepts this because she knows they are all she has. Without them pushing her each day, her back would give her a reason to stay in bed. Her arthritis would seem crippling. Her ankles would realize they are degenerative and refuse to let her move around all day. But because she has this need, this drive to keep her moving, keep her busy, her back remains relatively quiet, her ankles relent with minimal groans, her arthritis takes the day off.

  The Blocks are keeping her alive as much as she is keeping them alive. Repeating this mantra at night, after her chores are done, even keeps the nightmares away every once in a while. Not every night, but sometimes. That is all she can ask.

  42

  Things have quieted since the last hurricane. She gets through her chores each day with enough time to enjoy a couple hours of sunlight. Another Block has gone to the incinerator, but this one, like the last, died of natural causes. As far as she is concerned, life is good.

  As she walks from cot to cot the only noises are from the power generator and from her feet scuffling across the floor. If the power generator goes quiet during one of its cool-down cycles, if she stops walking, the entire cavernous hall will be perfectly silent.

  There was a time when parades would pass by this very school, processions full of bands, dancers, floats, costumed characters. If a parade passed by right now, the marching band would be enough by itself to energize the entire gymnasium. She can’t help but think of all the other ways people used to liven the city streets. Those noises made this very group home seem like a completely different place back when people were still flocking to the final settlements.

  This thought leads to a memory of the lavish weddings that used to capture the entire world’s attention. Nothing topped a royal wedding.

  These memories can lead to nothing good; she tries to quiet the thought as soon as it enters her mind. But to no avail.

  There were motorcades of limousines on their way to the cathedral. And who could forget the throngs of reporters clamoring to get the best photographs, thousands of flash bulbs going off simultaneously. People screaming with delight. A wedding gown so beautiful it looked like it was ripped from a fairy tale. One of her Blocks, a paparazzi, had even been lucky enough to document the ceremony.

  Just as soon as the entire atmosphere is populated with the sights and sounds that kept her drawn to the television as a child, the princess disappears, only to be replaced in this daydream by Morgan. But surely she cannot marry the prince. The prince also disappears, and her only options are the men she actually knows. At the front of the cathedral, dressed in her gorgeous gown, she will have to pick from one of her remaining Blocks.

  And when she looks at the pews, she notices that there are not hundreds of spectators there to view the proceedings. Rather, only her remaining fourteen Blocks are present. She notes with an annoyed growl that her Blocks are dispersed randomly throughout the pews in no organized fashion, and she knows this is because their cots are dispersed in the gymnasium in the same way now that there are no longer organized rows and quadrants. There are no photographers except for her Block, the paparazzi. No one else in the world is mesmerized by the footage. No one views the ceremony on TV and dreams of the same thing for their daughter one day.

  There is nothing.

  This is why she wishes she could have prevented her imagination from taking her there. Because now, even though she admits things are currently better than they have been any time since Elaine’s death, she is sad and lonely and feeling sorry for herself. And she knows she is the only one to blame for this. That type of wedding never even appealed to her, but her mind puts her in places and scenarios that she can never control. Likewise, she has never wished to be a princess or receive the adoration of an entire country, but she likes knowing that somewhere, someone can dream of those things and hope they may come true some day.

  There are no possibilities anymore other than waking up and taking care of the few remaining Blocks scattered about, or leaving them and walking to an apartment and living out her days there, which isn’t really an option at all, and so no option exists.

  She wonders if this fear of her circumstances, this disillusion with her place in the world, was exactly why the first men looked up at the sky and wished for something greater. Maybe life on Earth wasn’t so bad, they thought, if it was only a temporary phase of their existence. Maybe being under the control of a tyrant or having an arranged marriage wasn’t so bad if freedom and true love could be experienced in the afterlife. Maybe waking up each day, only to drudge through an existence of chores, all the while longing for dreams that would go unfulfilled, was tolerable because for the rest of eternity they would be reunited with lost loved ones and feel no more pain.

  Was that where the very first belief in an afterlife came from, from someone unhappy with their place in the world? If that is what the belief was founded on, she thinks, the likelihood of going to heaven doesn’t look very promising—things do not exist merely because you wish them to. If that were the case, a cure would have been found for the Great De-evolution.

  She has herself worked into a depression that is all her own making. A good day has been tainted by daydreams and wishful thinking. But in addition to that, she has convinced herself that this world is all that exists and that her unhappiness here will not be followed by anything else, but especially not by an eternity of love and peace. Her life on this earth, for over almost an entire century, has the climax of nothing more than caring for people who would have been happier if they were never born in the first place. There is no salvation, no higher purpose.

  Not only this, but she knows there cannot be a god because God would not have put her on this earth just to spend decades taking care of people who are the very cause of human extinction. No god is that spiteful.

  “You’re really incredible,” she says aloud, to herself. None of the Blocks agree or disagree with this sentiment. “One memory of a royal wedding has you feeling sorry for yourself, has you questioning your life, badmouthing a higher power. You’re a real piece of work.”

  But chiding herself does no good. A simple rebuke cannot counter all the self-doubt she has brought upon herself. The best thing to do, she knows, is to finish up her chores for the day and go to bed. In the morning, she may be in a better mood again. She might not only believe there is a God, but also that He has a plan for her. If she can just finish up her chores and go to sleep, everything will be better.

  Maybe life is all about how you feel at the end of each day versus how you felt when you first woke up.

  43

  Self-pity is a disease. The shooting pain in her foot is proof of this. She didn’t do anything out of the ordinary the previous day. Yes, she was tired by the time she got done cleaning and caring for the last Block, but no more tired than normal. Her back ached from bending over each cot. This is to be expected, though. Her ankles were sore from walking all day, but her foot was fine. Today, however, her foot is swollen and bruised, as if the forklift ran over it. The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other is a battle.

  There is no reason for her foot to be misshapen and purple. Most people would chalk this type of injury up to “old age,” that her body isn’t young and healthy the way it used to be. Most people shrug it off as their body trying to tell them to take it easy and stop putting so much strain on it. Morgan doesn’t feel this way, however. The only thing out of the ordinary from the day before is that she spent the time feeling sorry for herself. And today her foot feels like every bone inside must be broken.

  The only explanation is quite simple: this is her body’s way of identifying with the sense of defeat. In all the years she went about her chores without complaint she never woke up with random injuries. This is a punishment. But is God the one punishing her? Is the universe? Are they the same thing? Or is she doing this to herself?

  She doesn’t have a reason why the pain is localized to her foot instea
d of, say, her elbow or wrist or neck, but she also doesn’t care. The pain is a distraction to the questions that plague her. Excruciating spasms shoot up her calf and knee when she puts any weight on her foot. Luckily, one of the other caretakers was using crutches before they passed away. They are still in a locker in the corner of the gymnasium. She limps wildly toward them, stumbling repeatedly. Pulling the two wooden sticks from the metal bin, she is able to continue her rounds.

  Each time she moves, though, the crutches rub away more of the tender flesh under her armpits. By the time she is done caring for the first Block, her skin is raw. She considers using one of the group home’s wheelchairs to move from cot to cot, but thinks better of it. Once she gets used to the wheelchair, she won’t stop using it. And once she no longer spends her days walking, her body will take the hint and begin to give up. She will be dead in a week. That is how nature works: you are only healthy until you don’t think you are, and once you don’t think you are, you die.

  So she hobbles. Slowly.

  She puts two fingers to her armpit, expecting them to come away bloody, but they are not. A blanket is wrapped around her foot to cushion it from the ground and another around the top of each crutch to pad them under her armpit.

  At this pace, she will only be able to care for two Blocks each hour. Once again, she won’t be done until late in the evening. A weakness comes over her, takes her strength away, as she remembers what it was like to disconnect a nutrient bag, knowing it will mean the death of someone who is counting on her.

  The thought eats at her all day. She remembers the neat rows that used to line the group home. It was only a few weeks ago that Elaine died and left Morgan to care for the four quadrants of Blocks by herself. And in that short time, less than a quarter of them are still alive.

  The worst part is selecting who will die next. The remaining Blocks are survivors; they struggled to live when Morgan was sick and bed-ridden. They don’t deserve to persevere through that just to be picked at random for a trip to the incinerator.

  Nothing positive can come from looking across the gym and picking who will have their nutrient bag disconnected next. Rather than thinking about who might be a fraction weaker than the others, she picks the very next body.

  The Block, Chris, was a business continuity planner, meaning he was responsible for ensuring companies could function after any kind of crisis. People like him were in huge demand in the days following any national emergency or natural disaster. Chris didn’t have a degree in the field; colleges didn’t even offer degrees in something as practical as continuity of operations back when he was in school. Instead, he stumbled into the field after graduating with a degree in English—as if companies needed or wanted anyone who was an expert on William Blake’s poetry. Instead, he happened into a job working with others who wrote plans and procedures for addressing every type of natural and man-made disaster and learned the field from them. For ensuring your IT systems remained available, there were disaster recovery plans. For ensuring the people who needed information had all the info they needed, there were crisis communications plans. There wasn’t a single event that couldn’t be planned for, even a worst case scenario, a term that people in his field were fond of using in order to get bigger budgets for their projects.

  But then the Great De-evolution happened. People who were unable to care of themselves began appearing, were the only people who would ever be born again. Companies came running to Chris, asking what they should do.

  All he could do was shrug. “I have absolutely no idea. I don’t think this is something you can plan for.”

  “But that’s what we pay you for.”

  “I’m sorry,” he would tell them. “What I meant to say was, I don’t think this is something we can address.” And then, “This is the end.”

  His customers didn’t like hearing the news so bluntly. They went to other professionals in the same field to see what they had to say. But the sooner they realized what Chris was saying was true, the better it would be for everyone.

  And because of that, the specialized business area that was responsible for ensuring operations could continue, no matter what type of disaster struck, became one of the very first casualties of the Great De-evolution. Chris no longer had any value in the professional world, so he packed up the few things that mattered to him and began walking south.

  He chose to travel on foot because his profession had taught him how unreliable roads and trains would be during emergencies. Without any place he needed to be, he took his time hiking down the Appalachian Trail, a walk he had always wanted to do anyway. Each night, he made dinner by campfires he had started himself. He watched deer walking with their young ones. He was awake for every sunrise and every sunset. Life didn’t get any better. And when the trail ended, he continued south to Florida where he ended up in this home.

  Morgan smiles at the man, touches his hand, then reaches over and unscrews his nutrient bag.

  “Are you sure you’re making the right decision?” he asks. “Have you performed a business impact analysis?”

  His questions go unanswered. She would like to comfort him more, but if his death is meant to give her more time to spend caring for the living, that is what she will do. Without a word, she leaves his side and begins caring for the next Block. Chris will be dead in the morning.

  44

  Suddenly, she is shaking. Even before anything happens in her dream, she is filled with dread. It’s the feeling she had when she was a child and knew she had earned her parents’ wrath. It’s the queasiness she had in middle school upon seeing a dead dog in the middle of the street. And it’s the weakness that comes over her before she disconnects a Block’s nutrient bag.

  Brad, her soldier from quadrant 2, is standing one bed away from her. Like always, she is in her cot. It appears that he, in her place, is the one making the rounds of the facility.

  Because of the Great De-evolution, Brad never had a chance to put his military training to use. He never helped occupy a foreign country, never shot his rifle at insurgents. Other than the occupation Elaine gave him, there is no reason to think he has a violent bone in his body. Even now, there is no gun in his hand, no knife at her throat. He is not torturing her. There is no hint of bodily harm, no instrument to tear her fingernails off one by one. And yet she is so scared she fears she might go to the bathroom right where she lay.

  Terror makes it impossible to attempt a useless scream. Her hands remain by her side, frozen in place, unable to offer any protection. Brad looks down at her with amusement; she is not soldier material.

  Her mind races, but no part of her will move. If she is paralyzed by fear, it is a fear so overwhelming that all she can do is blink. She tries to blink so hard that she wakes up, but that trick doesn’t work this time. If she is motionless because she is a Block, she knows even blinking is pointless because this, too, is out of her control.

  Trickles of sweat run down her forehead and, under the covers, collect on the inside of her elbows and her palms. Her clothes are soaked. Fear has a complete hold over her.

  The former soldier does not interrogate or threaten her, but his mere closeness makes her want to scream. Panic is going to turn her into a raving lunatic. Maybe that is the device by which he will kill her; he won’t slice her open, he will cause her to lose her mind. And because the things that happen in her dreams will occur in real life, she will wake up screaming, with no idea who she is or why she is surrounded by unmoving bodies. She will go hobbling off into the streets the exact same way George did.

  Brad leans forward and inspects the body in the bed next to Morgan’s. With his attention elsewhere, Morgan wishes she could sink all the way through the skinny mattress, through the floor, and into the ground.

  But then the Green Beret is done looking at the body in front of him. With only a slight movement of the hips, he is now facing her. Before she can think of anything else, he moves in her direction. He is only one foot away from her now.
r />   She is no longer breathing.

  He leans over and looks directly into her pupils. If she could control one muscle right now, it would be to clench her eyes shut so she didn’t have to see this man and whatever it is that he is going to do to her.

  Even in her nightmare, though, she knows this is useless: He would simply force my eyes open if he wanted them open. He is trained to get whatever he wants.

  He remains there, staring down at her. His fist doesn’t smash into her nose. He doesn’t wrap his fingers around her throat. But neither does he smile or offer comfort. He merely stands there, watching her without emotion, not caring about her at all.

  This causes a fresh wave of fear to pulse through her. Sure, he might not torture her, but only because she is meaningless to him. His face tells her that much. She forces her eyes shut. It’s better not to know how she is going to die.

  She waits and waits. Nothing happens. The gym is silent.

  When she opens her eyes again, he is gone. Her hand pats the mattress to make sure she can really move. She leans over and looks under her bed. He is not there. Her eyes go back across the gym. Brad is in his bed in the area that used to be quadrant 2. She looks around at her surroundings to make sure nothing has changed. Fourteen Blocks are scattered about the room. Her clothes, like in her dreams, are soaked through with sweat.

  Although still unsure what any of it is supposed to mean, she finds herself thinking the Blocks aren’t coming for her in these nightmares out of pure revenge, but simply because, in her dreams, she is a Block and is the next person who will have to have their nutrient bag disconnected.