The Man Who Watched The World End

by Dietzel, Chris

This made some of the girls in our group cry even more because up to that point they felt like they hadn’t really missed out on anything, and now they knew that wasn’t true. Only four or five years earlier, things had seemed so much more carefree.

  Half of our group, myself included, had Block siblings waiting for us at home. We talked about what it would be like for them to grow up: “At least we have this week. My brother will never have a senior week of his own. He doesn’t get to do anything at all. When I get back I’ll show him all the pictures we took and tell him as many stories from the week as I can think of.”

  Each of us realized the tradition of senior week was ending there on that beach. But that was only one small aspect of our culture that was fading away as the Blocks began to outnumber the regular adults. A girl sitting across the circle from me sobbed until she had worked herself into a stupor and needed to go for a walk with her boyfriend. My girlfriend rested her head healthy heart and lungs sof against my shoulder and I put my arm around her. No one snuck away to have sex on the beach. Talking about the future killed any raging teenage hormones we had.

  Up to that point I had struggled with the decision of whether or not to go to college. Acceptance letters from each of my top three choices were already hanging on my bedroom wall. Each time a letter arrived my mom asked if that was the school I thought I’d like to attend.

  “Mom, dad,” I said, upon returning from the beach, “I’m not going to go to college.”

  My father frowned, but didn’t say anything. My mother squeezed his hand before asking me why I was having a change of heart.

  I took a deep breath before saying, “Getting a degree doesn’t matter anymore. Nobody needs lawyers or doctors. In a couple of years no one is going to need project managers or tax specialists.”

  I put my arm around my mom when I said these things. It was important to let her know this wasn’t part of an impulsive decision, wasn’t me lashing out to hurt their feelings for no apparent reason. Simultaneously, my mom and dad put their heads into their hands. Even then, even for parents who had grown up in different times, it was easy to see that setting a course for your future might be a wasted effort. Too many things were changing.

  At the time, the number one book on the New York Times Bestsellers List was Steinbecker’s “Mapping the Great De-evolution.” Each chapter detailed the ramifications on society as the Blocks got older and the last generation of regular adults became senior citizens. Chapter 3 gave a forecast of what life would be like in five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years. The author posed a question to the reader: ‘What good is excelling in the business world if the business world is quickly becoming extinct?’ Many of the key institutions were already closing shop by that time: there were no more pre-schools or elementary schools, the final classes were being taught in high schools; in a couple of years the colleges and universities would be locked and no one would ever graduate again. The effects were filtering down to the armed forces, Wall Street, and every other facet of society.

  “The military isn’t recruiting new cadets. And most companies aren’t running internship programs anymore,” I told them.

  I saw my life as a road in which the end. Bobby Morrows. other was too far off in the distance to see, and yet I knew there was a clear end somewhere off on the horizon. The same road has been there for everyone; the difference with the road I saw ahead of me was that mine had no forks in which different paths could be taken. There was one path ahead of me and one path only.

  When neither of my parents said anything, I added, “My time will be better spent actually doing things rather than sitting in a classroom learning about doing things.”

  Steinbecker projected that by the time I was forty there would only be two billion regular people left in the world. When I was fifty there would be less then 500 million people left. (The numbers ended up being amazingly accurate.) My parents grumbled and sighed, but accepted my answer. Instead of sitting in a classroom, I spent a couple of years working on a road crew. I got to go all over the country building stronger and newer roads that were supposed to last until my generation was at the end of its time.

  Years later, from her hospital bed, my mother told me that she had a long talk with my father the night I told them about my plans to skip college. My dad was having a hard time coming to terms with the decision. He told her how his own father was the first person in their family to get a college degree and how that was always the thing my grandfather was most proud of. He told my mom that he was equally proud of being the second generation of our family to get a college diploma. He couldn’t help but be letdown that I wouldn’t be the third generation.

  She told him it wasn’t my fault, just something that had happened because the world was changing. He understood that, but it still upset him tremendously. My mother said she kissed his cheek before reminding him that she had never gone to college and she had turned out just fine. When he started to protest, she told him Andrew wasn’t going to college either.

  “I know that,” he said and turned away from her.

  Knowing her, she would have run her hand through his hair to sooth him. “It just gives the four of us more time to be together.” She didn’t have to say it was time together before the end.

  After that night, whenever my mom saw my dad get frustrated or feel sorry for himself, no matter what it was that was getting him down, she went up to him and told him to appreciate the time the four of us had together. Neither of them mentioned college again.

  Three years later, the four of us went to the final high school graduation in our town. My graduating class had three hundred kids. The final graduating class had twenty. None of us knew and yelled, “April Fool!”or# anyone graduating in that final and compact class, but it felt important to see the last ceremony, to see the last kid crossing the stage with a diploma. The Survival Bill was starting to pick up momentum in those days, so people were openly talking about the end as something that was not only to be accepted, but something to be planned for. All across the country the final high school graduations were being celebrated as an accomplishment that everyone should take part in. Fliers were handed out telling everyone, no matter how long ago they attended high school, to show up to the final senior class ceremony.

  An empty field next to the school was transformed into an outdoor auditorium in order to accommodate the thousands of spectators. Balloons were stationed in every possible spot. There was free food. There was an open bar for the adults. Everyone was given a small plaque that marked the date and reason for being there. Door prizes were even given out. No amount of planning for the event to be a celebration, though, could override human nature. The festivities hadn’t even begun yet when the crowd found itself grumbling about the armies of gnats and the oppressive heat.

  The valedictorian was halfway through her speech when she said, “I’m not sure what the future will hold for our class, but—“ and that made her break down in tears. Her parents started crying too.

  In between sips of beer, a man in the rear corner of the field yelled, “They sure don’t make ‘em as smart as they used to!” and a fight broke out.

  The next speaker, the principal, tried as hard as he could to remind everyone that the night was meant for celebrating an important accomplishment: “I’ve seen three additions built onto this school. It has enough room to hold twice as many students now as when I first started.” He seemed to consider what he had said, then dabbed his eyes and walked off the stage without finishing his speech.

  No one listened to the next speaker; everyone was in line for another drink.

  At the end of the ceremony, per tradition, the senior class president invited the junior class president on stage to accept a symbolic key to the high school. There was, painfully, no one there to receive it.

  A man in the crowd yelled, “Honey, you got stuck with a lot of book smarts and no common sense.”

  Another fight broke out.

  and yelled, “April Fool!”or#


  December 17The fire has burned itself out for the evening. Another day without being found. Tomorrow, the flames will be rekindled and once again send smoke into the sky. It’s amazing how fast my possessions are eaten by the fire. Already, all of the nearby twigs are gone from outside my home, all of the smaller pieces of furniture from around my house are nothing more than ash, and now my collectibles are going up in flames. And still, no one has found us.

  The fire goes out at night for two reasons. First, the chances of someone noticing the black smoke against the night sky are not good enough to waste what remaining items I have to feed into the flames. And second, everything I throw into the fireplace burns away too quickly for me to be there all night. I would have to awaken every thirty minutes if I wanted to keep the fire going. If someone drives by Camelot in the middle of the night, they will never know how close they came to saving us.

  It’s only after the smoke has finished drifting away from my chimney that I write these entries. It’s only in the evening, when dinner is finished and the dishes have been cleaned, when darkness is the only thing outside my window, that I turn on my computer and start typing. Why is that? Do my daily struggles and worries need to follow me all day before I can digest them? Do I write about the things that worry me before I go to bed as a way to get it out of my system and have a clear mind before sleeping? It would seem like a good strategy to keep from having nightmares. It doesn’t work, though. My first thoughts upon waking are the same as the ones I had when my eyes closed. And the time in between is spent having horrific dreams.

  Hundreds of questions keep me restless at night. Is it too late to be rescued? Was the Johnsons’ decision to leave better than my decision to stay? Did they make it to where they wanted to go, or did they get stranded halfway there and set up residence in another abandoned neighborhood? What would my parents have thought was the better course of action? Would my mother and father have the foresight to see which destination would give Andrew his longest and safest life? If something happens to me, is Andrew better off living out his last days on the sofa, or would he be better off surrounded by hundreds of other Blocks in a group home?

  Perhaps my late night diary entries are the very thing keeping me up at night. They rub my face in doubt, force me to think about my worries. Maybe if I didn’t sit in front of this computer and concentrate on what exactly was bothering me I would be able to ignore. By the time spspjo future problems. It could be nice to let them sneak up on me, to worry about them at the last minute instead of dreading them as they approach. I could go to bed believing my biggest concern is the leaking roof.

  A lot of nights, my mind gets the better of me and I end up envisioning how silly I must look typing away on a keyboard—an old man’s random ramblings. I’m much too old to be self-conscious. Gone are the days when I got nervous at the thought of asking out the girl I liked. But the silence around me, combined with my loneliness, makes me too aware of my circumstances. If the houses on either side of me were occupied with people throwing parties or having family dinners, I wouldn’t feel so anxious being alone in front of my computer. Hell, I’d settle for quiet neighbors playing board games or reading books if it meant I wasn’t alone in Camelot.

  I fantasize about having a brother who can interrupt my thoughts by barging into my room with pointless banter. I’d act like I was irritated with him, but I would secretly welcome it. My problem—one of my problems—is that I have a brother down the hall, yet I’m still alone. Is it natural for people to put their thoughts and concerns on paper when they get to be my age, or is this something I do because I feel guilty about the way things are turning out?

  A lot of my days are spent wishing I could have the same life my father had. He got married. My mother gave him love. He had children. There was always noise and activity in the house. In me, he had an apprentice, someone he could pass along all the things he knew. Each morning he woke up and went to a job he wasn’t crazy about, but that offered him yet another constant through the years. It was all a man could hope for, and it’s exactly what I yearn for now.

  Instead, I have weeds. No wife. No children. Not even a job I would love to hate. Just weeds. Each time I look outside, the weeds have blotted out more of the driveway and the roads and everything else in their path. From my window, the street looks like it’s covered in algae, however, I know that when I get closer, the green would begin to distinguish itself into thousands and thousands of individual stalks.

  When I see the world as it is today, I’m glad Andrew is the only one here with me. I don’t know what I’d do if I had a wife and children to protect. They wouldn’t be allowed to play outside; they wouldn’t know what it was like to go camping or even waste time in a tree house. I’d lose my mind if I looked outside and saw my son’s baseball glove on the ground as the dogs dragged him, still alive and screaming, into the depths of the woods. What kind of life would they enjoy if they were trapped in a house with their father and an uncle who didn’t talk or move?

  I wish for a life in which I could have settled down and yelled, “April Fool!”s ,bell with my childhood sweetheart, married her, had two or three children, watched them grow into young adults. I fantasize about being my son’s little league coach and cheering louder than any other parent when he gets a game-winning hit. I find myself daydreaming about the interrogation that would take place the first time my daughter brought a boy over to the house. I’d scare that little bastard so bad he’d piss himself right in front of my baby girl. They seemed like stupid aspirations when I was a kid. Maybe I can just get back to the same frame of mind I had when I was twenty and didn’t want to be tied down by crying kids or a nagging wife. I used to burst out laughing when my other friends talked about graduating high school and getting married. Get married? Why? But now, with wrinkled skin and no one to talk to except Andrew, I see the value of what I mocked.

  That final high school graduation, many years ago now, might have been when the end was truly signaled, at least for me. It wasn’t when all of the world’s infants were born with non-functioning minds, it was when the other kids around me stopped worrying about what they would be when they grew up and began to focus on taking care of the masses of Blocks.

  My mom used to sit by my bed when I was a boy and tell me that anything was possible; I could grow up to be anything I wanted if I just tried hard enough and never gave up. I wonder what kind of message I would tell my own son today—if I had one. It would be a lie to say any wish, any dream, is still possible. Aspiring to be President is pointless because the government disbanded. There are no more actors or baseball players to hang posters of in your bedroom. Astronauts are a thing of the past. As are firemen, lawyers, doctors, and everything else boys used to dream of being at that age when all of life is still ahead of them. There are no more occupations, there is only growing old. You can grow old in empty neighborhoods or in cities that used to hold millions of people and now only hold hundreds, but either way the result is the same.

  If the glass is half full: I sort of understand what it’s like to raise a child because I’ve had to take care of Andrew his entire life. I clean him when he needs cleaning, I put him to bed, make sure he’s not cold, keep him healthy. There weren’t, though, any of the first time experiences a father gets to go through that make fatherhood worthwhile. I’ll never get to take Andrew to the bus stop for his first day of school. I’ll never sit in the stands during his little league games. And I’ll never see him get nervous before his first date. If there is a bright side to be found, I also won’t have to go through him resenting me for making him do his homework before he’s allowed to go outside and play. I’ll never accidently overhear him cursing me under his breath for giving him an early curfew. I get an imposter’s version of what it might be like to be a father. I feed Andrew, watch over him, give him shelter, talk to him all day. I get some of the experiences in disproportionate amounts while never experiencing other aspects at all. It’s almost like a bad lifelong
version of an April Fools’ joke.

  I have to remind myself that Andrew isn’t a child, but my brother. I take care of him, but that do and yelled, “April Fool!”s ,bellesn’t define his life or my own. When you go without many people to talk to, you start forgetting what you really feel. You find yourself hoping someone else can remind you of who you used to be and who you’re becoming. Maybe this diary will do that for me now.

  December 18A god damn snake tried to fight me today. The first few boxes of baseball cards didn’t last very long, so I went down to get some more to use for fuel in my chimney. I should have known there would be trouble because I sat up last night listening to a mouse crying for help from under my feet. Who would have guessed such a little animal could wail in fear so loud? I wasn’t able to find the mouse when I went down there today, it wasn’t whining to be saved anymore, so I assume a snake finally flushed it out of its hiding spot and finished the job.

  Maybe it was the same snake that attacked me. It wasn’t content with attempting a simple striking bite; it wanted a full on duel where only one of us would be alive at the end. I gave a nice cat-like jump away from its strike. After my jump I was only two feet away from where I had started—in my youth it would have been five or six feet—but it was still more than I thought my old body capable of.

  The snake moved toward me. When I backed away, it followed. I stomped the ground to let it know a large predator was in front of it, but instead of deterring the reptile, it got more aggressive and came right at me with its tongue firing in and out. It slithered at me faster than I thought a snake could move. I turned and ran back upstairs as quickly as my creaky knees would let me. That fucking snake slithered up the steps, one step at a time, until it was right on the other side of the closed basement door. As I collected my breath, I could hear it slithering there. Waiting. The snake was too big to fit under the gap between the floor and the door. With my foot, I pushed the towel back in front of the door. The snake remained there for a while to see if I wanted to give round two a try, then hissed and slithered off in irritation. I gave it the middle finger as it departed. I’ve never seen a snake act like that before. I guess all of the animals, not just the wolves and bears, want me for food. Or the snakes are mad that I’m slowly removing boxes from down there.