Before We Die Alone

by Ike Hamill

  “You have to take it back. You have to change your decision. How do we change the course of the asteroid? How do you guys change this bow wave thing?”

  He grunts. “It’s way too late now,” he says. “The time to act was months ago. In my car-crash analogy, you’re just a foot away from disaster, and you’re moving at a hundred miles an hour.”

  The bag of blueberries slips from my hand and drops to the floor. I barely notice as the bear moves forward and picks up the plastic with his greedy lips. He returns a second later for the trash bag and takes his spoils to the hall.

  Eventually, I shrink down until I’m sitting on the lip of the tub.

  I don’t know if I can explain it, but up until that moment, it seemed the like end of the world was something that I was witnessing, not experiencing. The news came when I felt like I was already detached from reality, so it wasn’t that troubling. For the first time, sitting on the edge of the tub, it really sinks in. Everything is going away in less than a week.

  I barely speak to my family, but it pains me to think of them all dying at once.

  I only have a few friends, but I can’t stand the thought that they will all die in a fiery explosion that consumes the planet.

  I can’t move. All the blood is just pooling into my feet because I’m pretty sure that even my heart has quit beating.

  Chapter Fifteen

  * Despair *

  WHEN I STAND UP, it’s only because my bladder is so full that it has become painful. After relieving myself, I walk from the bathroom and take a giant step over the bear in the hall. I go into the TV room and sit on the edge of the couch. I turn on the TV and flip past all the news and special science reports.

  I find cartoons.

  Some of these cartoons are sixty and seventy years old. They’re so old that people who were little kids when they originally came out have now died of natural causes. Shown in movie theaters, some were drawn in CinemaScope formats, which would look pretty natural on my television. But, over the years, they were cropped down to a four-three aspect and then stretched back up to fill my screen. That means I’m only seeing a fraction of what the original artists intended. And who knows how much non-visible electromagnetic spectrum my TV is emitting? Certainly not me.

  For clarity—throughout history, people can’t decide on the proper aspect ratio of our visual media. From side to side, people see about 180 degrees. That means that a person can see what’s directly to the left and right of them, and everything in between. Vertically, we see less—only about 120 degrees. About 50 degrees up from my nose, and 70 down.

  In a movie theater, the images they show me are 1.8 to 2.4 times as wide as they are high. We get a little extra in the side to side, and give up a little vertically. I guess that makes sense. People are built to track things from left to right and right to left. We’re looking for running animals and swimming fish. Things move horizontally a lot more than they do vertically.

  At home, when I was growing up, TVs were always one and a third wider than tall. This was almost a square portal into the world. Now, in the 21st century, most everything is 1.77 at home.

  Confused?

  Take all the media that was ever created and cram it into whatever format is popular at the moment. The result? Garbage.

  I’m watching a cartoon rabbit blow the face off of a cartoon duck. Or maybe the duck blew himself up, I don’t remember. They’ll never show you a cartoon that has mock intercourse, or mock birth, but mock deaths occur every few seconds. Death is a constant companion, birth is forbidden.

  In a few minutes, a new cartoon comes on and I’m proven wrong. This one is about a drunk stork who kidnaps a rabbit and delivers him to a gorilla couple who are expecting their first baby. I wonder what happened to that baby gorilla, left alone in the woods. Maybe a duck shot his face off.

  Gorillas have tiny penises. They can weigh four-hundred pounds, but they have this tiny little reproductive organ with which they carry on their species. That fact is not covered in the cartoon. Sex is important because death is important. My urge to procreate is there only because of my inevitable death. But what if my offspring can’t survive? Would my urge go away with the realization? I suspect that a lot of the people in the world are currently having sex. They’re trying to extract as much pleasure as they can before the end of everything. But the pleasure is an illusion. Our bodies encourage us to live on through our offspring, but that concept is now dead.

  The duck is still alive. He blew his face off every which way, but he’s still alive.

  There’s a bear in my hall who claims to be a thousand years old, and yet he has genitals. What’s the point of sex if you live forever?

  “What are we watching?” the bear asks. He lumbers into my TV room and sits on the couch. It sags and creaks under his weight. I have to shift to the side or else I’m slipping into the depression he’s creating. He’s so big that it’s like he has his own gravitational pull.

  “What’s the point of sex if you live forever?” I ask.

  The bear looks at me.

  “Reproduction. Pleasure,” he says.

  “It seems like you would be worried about overpopulation.”

  “I won’t live forever, if that is what you’re getting at. The universe is infinite, although understanding is finite,” he says.

  He seems a lot more philosophical, now that he has some blueberries in him. On the TV, a cartoon rabbit is besting a cartoon bull.

  “I don’t understand why there would even be a debate. You knew how to save the earth, but you didn’t do anything? You say the universe is infinite, and yet there was a contingent who wanted Earth to be wiped clean so it could start over? Why wouldn’t you want to preserve life where you find it?”

  He expels a breath. On the TV, the rabbit just launched the bull over a big canister, labeled TNT. The bear barks out a laugh.

  He turns to me. “There’s some bad stuff coming for this planet, either way.”

  “What kind of bad stuff? What’s worse than an asteroid that kills everything?”

  “You people have nearly reached a saturation point here,” he says. “The population has nearly doubled in your lifetime, yes? What do you think it going to happen in the next fifty years?”

  “Global warming? Running out of resources?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. Genocide. Eugenics. Worse things, even. Vegans. In a hundred years or so, you wouldn’t recognize this place. Imagine all of humanity confined within the walls of a single city. They’ve managed to save one tiny area from destruction.”

  “Isn’t that better than the whole thing being destroyed?”

  “Not nearly. If the asteroid wipes it clean, things are coming back pretty quick. A thousand years and life is everywhere again. If people knock it out, you’re talking hundreds of thousands of years where most everything is uninhabitable. Nobody wants that. I voted for you, on the off-chance that a few of us could guide this whole thing to sanity, but the simulations don’t lie. Even if the asteroid didn’t hit, this place would be a shit-heap within a century. Then, most of the planet would be off-limits for a quarter of a million years.”

  “It’s not fair. We deserve a chance to at least know our fate. If people understood what was at stake, we would make the right decisions.”

  He laughs again. “Plenty of people know what is at stake. World leaders, scientists, plenty of people knew it was likely that an asteroid strike would be coming. What did they spend their resources on?” He raises his paws with the question.

  I don’t know, really. I know there was some money going to space exploration. At least I think there was. Surely some of that money was dedicated to protecting us from asteroids. I guess it wasn’t enough.

  “What about you?”

  He’s scratching his belly with his claws. He looks at me and tilts his head.

  “What about me?”

  “Where will you go? How will you survive? You’re not going to stick around here and explode w
ith the rest of us, are you?”

  “If I’m lucky, I’ll stay out of custody. Then, who knows? Maybe someplace quiet. I need some time to reflect, you know?”

  “Sounds nice for you,” I say with a frown. He’s very casual about the complete destruction of my species.

  “Yeah. I’ve been a little stressed out. I’ve lost some of my vigor.”

  “You never told me what you were incarcerated for.”

  “I was framed,” he says. “Simple as that. No worries. I just have to wait for all those guys to clear out and then I’m on the breeze. They thought they had me trapped here. Locked up in that enclosure. They would give anything to get me back in custody. You know what’s nice? The upper atmosphere of Venus is pretty nice. You stay about forty miles above the surface, and it’s just like L.A. Get a nice little airship with glass walls and watch the lightning. Quiet. Peaceful. Maybe I’ll do that.”

  “How do you get there? You have a rocket or something?”

  He laughs at me. “You shouldn’t see everything so linearly. You’ve put a lot of restrictions on your thinking, you know?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

  He laughs once more. It’s a deep sound that feels more jolly than derisive. Still, I can’t help but think that he looks down on me, on all of us.

  “There’s a nice little planet on the Cygnus arm. I’ve only been there once, but I’ve been meaning to go back. It’s a lot like this place, but with no land animals. Boring as hell, but good for a rest. Maybe I’ll head there for a while. That’s what I’ll do—stick to Venus until the show here is over, and then scoot over to Maldy. Like I said—regroup. Besides, nobody will look for me there. Shit has to cool down eventually, right?”

  There are so many things I could ask him. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get a straight answer.

  I think of one thing I would like to know. It could make a big difference for me.

  “You said they would give anything to get you back in custody—how come they only sent one guy? Is that grizzly the only one looking for you?”

  At first I don’t think he’s going to answer. The cartoon they’re showing now features a pair of crows. They’re tearing apart the house of an upstanding white dog, who is just trying to be a good citizen. It’s one of those cartoons that I thought was too racist to air anymore. The bear seems to like it.

  When he does answer, I’m surprised that he even remembers the question. “That’s a brown bear, and he was just here to make sure I stayed in the zoo. Nobody thought I was going to escape. Most everyone has left. He’ll leave soon too. He’s not going to want to stick around for the end.”

  Over the years, I’ve learned to sense when Adam is on the other side of the grate. I would bet almost anything that he has been there for a while. In fact, I’m surprised the bear hasn’t mentioned it. I would like to talk with Adam, but the only way to get rid of the bear is to make him think that it’s his idea to leave.

  “I’m going to go to my room,” I say. “You can stretch out on this couch if you need a nap.”

  He grunts. “No. I’ll take the bed. I’m too big for this couch. You can have it.”

  He scoots to the edge of the couch and then rolls forward to his feet. The floor sags a little. He turns back.

  “You have any reading material?”

  “Like what?”

  “Porn?”

  I shake my head. “Sorry.”

  He grunts and waddles off through the door. I lean over and swing it shut behind him. It only takes a few minutes before I hear his snoring coming through the wall.

  “Did you hear any of that?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Adam whispers from the grate. “You mean the part where the forces who might be able to save the human race would do anything to know the whereabouts of that bear?”

  “Exactly,” I say. “All I have to do is find that brown bear again.”

  “I have you covered,” Adam says. “The kids have been hissing about him again.”

  “Oh?”

  “Have you been to Squaire?”

  “No, but I know where it is.”

  “Try there.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  * Meeting *

  AROUND THE CORNER FROM my place, the buildings get taller. Some big offices block out the horizon. Before you get to those, there’s a mid-rise building that has government offices on one side, and telephone company switches on the other. At the top is a restaurant called Squaire. They have a rooftop garden with outdoor tables that fill up quick this time of year.

  I’m wearing a coat over my messy t-shirt. I would have changed, but all my clothes were in the bedroom with the snoring black bear.

  I get to the building without incident, and I’m surprised to find the doors to the lobby open. Nothing should be open this time of night. The lobby is dark and the elevator button doesn’t light up when I hit it. I’ll have to take the stairs. I wonder if the doors are magnetically locked or something. Maybe the power-outage is to blame for the building being wide open. That explanation seems a lot less sinister, so I latch onto it.

  Fortunately, the stairwell has narrow windows that let in enough light from the street so I can see. I wind up and up around the staircase. The restaurant’s logo is on the door at the top. I’ve found the right place.

  When I open the door, the carpeted hall has a funny smell. I’m not sure why, but it suddenly seems like a bad idea to be here. I want to just let the door shut and go back to my place. Sure, there’s danger there, but it’s a known danger. Again, I have to remind myself of the ticking clock. Nothing is going to matter if the world is destroyed in a week. What’s the worst that could happen? At most, I’m risking six days.

  I step through.

  The floor is a little sticky, and it’s way too dark when the door to the stairwell closes. The door I’m looking for is to my right. I run my hand down the wall as I go, squishing more with every step. I find the doors to the restaurant and I let myself in. I can see the outside dining area through the glass wall, so I head that direction.

  It’s a very pretty dining area. I’m not surprised—I’ve always heard how expensive it is. The tables and chairs are covered at the moment. They’re interspersed with complex gardens and water features. It’s like an oasis up here on top of this building.

  The college students were right. There’s a giant brown bear stretched out in the gazebo.

  I climb the steps, thinking he’s asleep. I see the twinkle of his watching eyes.

  “You’re tracking blood everywhere,” he says.

  My hand immediately goes to my side, but I’m pretty sure I’m not actively bleeding. I look down at my shoes and see that he’s right. Somewhere I’ve stepped in blood. The hallway!

  “I had to subdue a lot of people to secure this building. Looks like you’ve walked through some of them.”

  I want to wash off my shoes, but it will have to wait.

  “You still looking for that black bear?” I ask.

  He’s up in an instant. After spending some time growing accustomed to the black bear, I’m shocked at how big this bear is by comparison. He closes the distance to me and begins to sniff at my clothing.

  “I didn’t smell it over the blood, but I do now,” he says. “You’ve been with him. Where is he?”

  He raises a paw and parks a claw just beneath my chin.

  “Relax,” I say. “I’ll tell you exactly where he is. Just give me a moment.”

  “For what?”

  “For some negotiation,” I say. He settles until he’s sitting in front of me. If he’s trying to be menacing, it is working perfectly.

  His voice is so low that it’s nearly a growl. “What kind of negotiation?”

  “The kind where we talk about the asteroid,” I say. “I know it’s important for you to get the black bear back into custody, and I know precisely where he is. I also know that it would be possible for you to nudge the asteroid a little so it doesn’t hit this planet. I’ll be happy
to help you out as soon as you guarantee that the asteroid won’t hit us, and maybe secure me a little cash.”

  I don’t care about the money, but when haggling I’ve found it’s important to have a demand I’m willing to concede.

  He doesn’t seem interested in haggling. He only growls in response.

  “Okay,” I say. I put my hands up and take a small step back. “You’re not interested in haggling. I guess I’ll be on my way.”

  “How about I pin you down and use my claws to peel strips of skin from your back? Perhaps then you would tell me?”

  “Interesting thing about torture,” I say. “It only works because people have an inherent fear of death. Now that I’m completely convinced that I’m going to die next week, torture wouldn’t have an effect on me. My life is over either way.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” he says. “I always though that torture was about pain. How long do you think we can make a week stretch out?”

  He’s up on his feet again. On all fours, he has to raise his head to look me in the eye. When he lifts up to his hind legs, I’m barely up to his shoulders.

  I hold my ground. I don’t really believe what I said about torture. I have no interest at all in seeing how much agony this bear could pack into the next hour, let alone the next week. But, now that I’ve opened the conversation, I’m not going to survive unless I hold my ground.

  I shed my coat and then peel off my t-shirt. My torso is a nightmare. I have stitched up lacerations from the black bear. They’re still stained from that orange disinfectant from the hospital. I have an open wound from the knife. The edges are black with dried blood, and the hole in my flesh catches the light and glistens. I’m also dirty with blueberry stains. The effect is stunning, at least to me. The bear’s nose twitches, but he doesn’t say anything.

  For clarity—disinfectant is poison that we rub on our skin to kill bacteria. When the skin has been lacerated, the idea is to kill all the bacteria in case some harmful strain tries to take up residence. Of course, I was also prescribed ten days worth of antibiotics. Those are pills that would do the same thing inside my body. Using antibiotics and disinfectants for decades has helped some strains of bacteria become much more deadly. Those species of bacteria were losing a war of resources to innocuous or benevolent varieties. Once we killed the good bacteria, only the toughest and worst were left to reproduce. I wonder if we’ve done the same thing with murderers. We lock up all the shitty ones, leaving a fertile hunting ground for the real menace.