A New Millennium's Omega

by Marilyn Black

  I was amazed that he was so dedicated. I wish I could be dedicated about anything with the same passion he had for being relevant to kids in the future, especially considering that he was learning about pop culture that would be dated within just a few years. It was kind of weird to me, but I knew where his heart was and didn't want to stop him. It gave him pleasure, so who was I to stop him? It was his whole thing, his whole idea of what was a good idea, his idea of how to be a good father— and that's what mattered. He wanted to be a good father, and this dedication was the most impressive thing yet. I wanted him to know that he was a good job, but he wanted to let time itself let that be known.

  OXO

  November became December, and we were soon closing in on Y2K.

  That dreaded event that was known as Y2K was supposed to be the period where all computers stopped working. Planes would fall out of the sky, TVs would go haywire, radios would cease functioning, Limp Bizkit & Billy Ray Cyrus would play on repeat on every surviving radio station, and all sorts of funky things would go down. It was crazy because I knew exactly how it was going to work— a few computer programmers were going to fix some error in rounding numbers, and voila, everything would be fixed. What's more, that was mostly already done, so there was no reason to worry anyway.

  But Stuart was worried about it enough that I had to comfort him.

  This was probably the funniest event all year, that I was helping a man cope with dealing with an apocalypse that didn't even exist. He took it so seriously that I was concerned about him, even as everyone else I knew was treating it as a joke.

  Neil, for example, had a sign out in front of his shop that said, "Closed for the Apocalypse, Open on Wednesday"

  Scott met with Zeke for Christmas, and their mates were also mingling. Zeke's kid was named Miranda, and she didn't get along with Michael very well— she was into some sitcom called Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Michael thought it was the 'girly' counterpart to Harry Potter. I didn't know much about Harry Potter, but I did know enough that it was apparently about a British kid in a boarding school, but he was also a wizard who was the Chosen One to fight a dark lord. Sabrina the Teenaged Witch was a sitcom and had nothing to do with boarding schools or any particular ongoing plot. But I did like that they were clashing on similar enough subjects, even though I had to guess that Michael himself must've watched at least a little bit of Sabrina if he knew what kind of show it was.

  As for me, my watching habits were limited. Outside of the Blockbuster movie each night, I didn't watch much beyond the news and some passing show on scattered networks. Stuart was absorbing as much of pop culture as he could, however, and the Y2K debacle was something I'd tease him about until eternity rested.

  Christmas 1999 was a frenzied time, the most chaotic Christmas I could ever recall. I wondered if it was because of the Y2K panic and laughed at myself when Stuart and I dropped by the megamall about a town over— in Jenson— on December 20th and saw the sheer rush of people trying to get the most expensive stuff.

  Tommy was carrying Makayla in a stroller, while he and Neil walked about the place in an almost silent awe at the sheer commercialization that was being done to the holiday.

  Makayla was a damn cute baby, especially when she was clad in a frilly, almost Victorian-looking baby dress. I didn't understand why they put a bonnet on her— Tommy said something about her having sensitive eyes due to being part cat— but it made her look so doll-like that it was too cute to not like. It’s not like she wasn’t enjoying herself. I got to wiggle my fingers around her face while Neil and Tommy weren’t looking, and she reached out and tried to bite them. That was a pure kitten action, missing only the paws and tail. What’s more, her cries and coos resembled mews more often than not. I hadn’t worked with Cat babies much, so I was in no place to be surprised, but I still thought it extraordinarily cute that they would actually mew.

  The messed up part is that, after I bored her, she was able to sleep through the entire trip. This literal mini-city under a roof blasting jingle-pop with frantic wannabe-Santas desperately hunting for whatever consumer product they felt obliged to gift to their loved ones and enemies—wallets, makeup kits, cookbooks, colorful and hypergendered toys, many red and green bags from Gap and LL Bean undoubtedly going to disappoint a lot of kids, video game consoles to make up for it, you name it— and she slept through it.

  “Oh,” Tommy said with a twist on his face, “but she’ll wake up and cry for hours if the stars sparkle too brightly outside.”

  It was early in the afternoon, and we were all going through the central part of the mall, looking back and forth between places with colorful names like Gadzooks and Tower Records and Kaybee Toys and Deb. Stuart hanged on my arm the whole way through, and a few people side-eyed us as we strolled along, mostly aiming their eyes at his belly. The bump was noticeable by that point, but it wasn’t worth that much attention.

  I saw one guy with a rolling platform, and on it were two computers— a Compaq and another with the black-and-white cow design of a Gateway. Knowing how weak those computers were compared to mine made me feel as if I was living in the space age while everyone else was typing on pebbles and stones.

  The air inside the mall was warm to the point that Stuart started sweating, but that was his fault for wearing two layers of sweaters. I didn't help matters by throwing my arm over his shoulders and holding him tight. The entire time, he had a little paper bucket that passersby thought must’ve been popcorn or shrimp, but it was actually filled with little pellets of ice. He’d munch through these buckets endlessly, and I was starting to think it didn’t have anything to do with him being hot.

  There was a real big Christmas tree in the center of the mall, and it was there that we saw Scott and Jasper with Michael. He was sitting on Santa's lap, and his face was so red and eyes so wide with fright that I was about to throw up laughing.

  I thought that he was going to pass out, but he did well—I didn't get to hear what he asked Santa until he came running back to us. For a kid his age to still be scared of Santa seemed goofy to me.

  Stuart fanned himself and looked to a video game shop.

  "What's wrong, honey?"

  He pointed to it and said, "You think our child will like one of those?" Specifically he pointed at a white box adorned with text stating it to be a ‘Dreamcast’, and I was familiar with it—but that’s not what got to me.

  "They're going to be a baby! They can't play video games yet. And by the time they're old enough to understand anything they see on screen, who knows what they'll have out by then."

  He smiled and cupped his hands around his mouth, something he was doing a lot lately. It was part of his increasing mood swings. He'd think something I said was funny one hour and then get mad at me for saying the exact same thing a few hours later.

  On second thought, I doubled down on my original assertation: the baby bump was still slight, but it was definitely growing much more pronounced. We expected our child to be born either in March or very early April at the latest. The accelerated rate foal/kitten hybrids matured in utero was easy to miscalculate, especially if you were used to the eleven-month gestation period of pure Unicorns or, conversely, the two-month gestation period for Cats.

  Throughout the entire trip, he would talk about being so worried about Y2K actually coming to pass and then having to raise his child in a post-apocalyptic world. If it was going to be born as a spring foal, then what would it know other than chaos and devastation?

  "Nothing's going to happen," I said to him while scratching his chin as we sat in the car. We had picked up some gifts for friends and family— I got Neil a computer, because he didn't know what to look for; Zeke wanted me to surprise him, so I got him a bunch of things. Scott didn't want anything, so naturally, I bought him a massage chair.

  I also let Stuart buy anything for Tommy, and we agreed to not get each other anything— there was something we wanted from the other that couldn't be purchased.

 
Well, for him, he just wanted the world to still be there on January 1st.

  So I told him, "Even if the world's gone, I'll still be there."

  He didn't like this that much. "See? Even you're saying it now! It's gonna happen, isn't it?"

  OXO

  Christmas Day came and went, and it was nice meeting with the old folks again. I hadn't spent a purely pleasant day with Neil and Scott the entire time I'd been in Brooks Creek, so for that Christmas, we decided to make a big feast worthy of Unicorns. Malcolm couldn’t be there, however. Malcolm, the bastard, was burning through the last of his inheritance and destroying every bridge he rented over in New York. As for our Beta brothers Jay and Eric, they joined us at our father’s lodge, which was located just outside the north of Brooks Creek. Father was well. He was a fascinatingly rugged Alpha, a man who was 120 years old, but much like his eldest son, spent most of his life and inheritance fucking around and didn’t actually mate with anyone until he was in his 70s, which was pushing even Unicorn genetics. Even though his time was coming soon enough, he still looked young.

  Besides Malcolm, the only other one missing was Alex, the Omega runt of the litter, and he hadn’t talked to us in years anyhow. We all hoped he was okay, but it was up to him to show himself.

  All in all, it was nice get-together filled with a lot of rabid gift wrap tearing.

  Stuart and Tommy wanted to go to the park, which I thought was a bit of a waste until they clarified that they wanted to go at night.

  Tommy wasn't lying when he said it'd be magical. We walked around the tree-lined paths, in perpetual awe at the magical scenes of Christmas lights running across the entire length of the park, on every tree, and lighting up the ground and air with a beautiful rainbow of colors. I thought I was in a fantasy novel myself.

  New Year's finally came around, and Stuart was freaking out all day. He kept pacing around, watching TV, and anticipating the complete collapse of all infrastructure. He kept asking me if buildings were going to collapse or if cars would explode and then got angry when I laughed at him.

  "This is serious!" he said, pulling his body in like he was about to tackle me. "Billions of lives are at stake!"

  "It's just computers! People didn't optimize computers to deal with the year 2000, and that's it. That's all that's going to happen. It's been dealt with. I even know several people who have been working to handle it, and they also say that it's a complete nonissue. Just a few hours of work for certain networks and computer updates. You'll be okay!"

  He wasn't listening, but his panic was adorable. More than that, it was good for bonding— he was so scared that he kept coming back to me, throwing himself in my arms. I had to keep reassuring him all day that nothing bad was going to happen and that it was just a big joke, really, something that the media ran with because the media sells fear.

  I'd rub his hair and pet his back, letting him cry into my chest.

  The fireworks didn't help. They started much earlier, with several jokers setting them off as early as 3 in the afternoon.

  I couldn't blame them. It was really surreal in a way, being there at that exact point in history that I'd be able to watch one millennium turn into another. Even if it wasn't exactly technically the new millennium and wouldn't be for another year, I still got to watch it go from 1999 to 2000. A thousand years passed since there were three zeroes in a year name, and as soon as I realized that, I also realized how inconsequential the whole ordeal was.

  I can't be the only one who thinks that's adorable! He was afraid of fireworks on New Year's Eve all because he thought it was the world starting to end.

  The sun did start hanging low in the sky, and eventually, night came over the world only to be brightened by the colors and pops of a millennium's death.

  There was a lot of stuff on TV, all celebrating the end of the millennium, with some history programs doing a recap of everything that happened in each century. It was fascinating to watch.

  But eventually, it was time to finally go out to the park. As I expected, Stuart didn't want to go. His reason?

  "We might get hit by a falling plane!"

  My gosh, it was so adorable.

  OXO

  The countdown started.

  "10!" everyone shouted. I pulled Stuart in closer, letting him snuggle close to my heart. He wasn't crying or anything like he had been. Honestly, even when he cried, he wasn't bawling or super terrified, but he did seem distressed.

  "9!" We were watching a makeshift ball drop over a lake. The fireworks had also stopped, so we got to feel every second.

  "8!" Stuart had me so tightly in his grip that I was going to pop if he squeezed any tighter.

  "7!" Michael had been playing Pokémon for most of the night, and he remembered to bring batteries. I had batteries in my pocket for him to use, just in case, but I didn't plan on giving them to him any time past 11 just because I wanted him to experience this with us. When I saw his Game Boy, I understood exactly why he wanted to sit on a table under a lamp.

  "6!" Oh wow. Only six seconds left of a millennium.

  Then five.

  Then four.

  Then three.

  Stuart looked at me, and I to him. He was smiling like there wasn't a care in the world.

  "2!"

  "1!"

  We snogged, deeply and totally, to the point we fell over onto the grass in each other's embrace.

  Welcome to the year 2000.

  Stuart

  January 1st, 2000

  I sat on a park bench at about 4 AM, munching on ice chips and still wondering if Freddy thought I was actually scared about Y2K. All this time, he never picked up on the fact I was just looking for an excuse to keep hugging him. Yeah, I'd probably never hear the end of it, but it was worth decades of laughing just to be in his arms for a few minutes. I'd probably spent most of those last two months in his arms, so that was, what, a thousand years of laughter? Fine by me!

  Everyone was dancing in Donatello Park, while cars were honking their horns, and fireworks kept popping off. It was the biggest New Years' celebration I had ever seen in my life, and it better have been. Frederick never said anything about it, but I thought it was so amazing to be alive to watch one millennium turn into another.

  Seriously. A MILLENNIUM. Those only come by every thousand years, you know. And we got to see it happen. Freddy and I opened the millennium in each other's arms. I wondered if anyone on January 1st, 1000 did the same thing. Or was the world so different that they didn't even know what day it was?

  That was our New Year's celebration. It was as happy as I hoped it would be, and I felt delighted that I didn't have to keep pretending to be scared of Y2K anymore. By that point, Frederick had explained it so much to me that I actually had a tiny bit of understanding of what he was talking about.

  As the sun started rising way later that morning, we were still out in the park, and I regretted not chatting with Michael or Miranda to learn about what else they were into.

  Freddy genuinely didn't understand why I did this, and he kept talking about how pop culture would change by the time they grew up, but that wasn't why I card. It was because I wanted to catch up on things just so I wouldn't be so totally out of my element when our child eventually started growing up and liking things. I could talk to them, knowing exactly what they were talking about.

  January 1st became January 2nd, and the high of a new millennium starting (or not starting) had already started wearing off, at least in our household.

  On January 3rd, there was a hilarious and sad commercial about people who had bought a bunch of stuff on credit under the assumption that the world would end on January 1st. Since the world didn't end, they were stuck with big bills.

  Frederick came to me and said, "God, I can't believe this."

  "What's wrong?" It was right after that news story, so it was so convenient to hear.

  "Remember that Bosnian family I was talking about?"

  The memory of that discussion about the
family that didn't have clothes and lost their male relatives in a very horrible tragedy came back to me. "Yeah, I do. What happened?"

  He sat in his massage chair facing the TV and said, "The mother bought into this shit."

  "Y2K?"

  "Yep. She finally got some money to spend, and she was so desperate to give her children a good life but also got suckered into this media fearmongering shit that she decided to spend about $15,000 to buy a bunch of food and useless stuff. They couldn't even return some of it because it was already used."

  "Wooow..."

  "Yeah, wow. This is what I mean, why you shouldn't pay attention to these sorts of stories. They're just selling fear to justify their continued existence. They want people to live in fear."

  Living in fear. That was a very heavy subject, and the first thing that came back to my mind wasn't of the Bosnian refugees but of Tommy and how he must've been so scared bearing the scars of his life with Jonathan.

  He had told me more of what had gone on ever since he poured his heart out to us about it, and I greatly appreciated this. He told me exactly what happened from the moment he met Jonathan all the way to when Neil and Jonathan clashed. The knowledge had tainted my love of that tower in the yard deeply, especially when I learned that my suspicion about it being a way to keep someone in was right.

  Still, Tommy had opened up, and he was so much happier for it.

  When we met up again on January 10th, he said as much to me. The only thing making the scene more awkward than it had to be was when I saw I was talking to Tommy, but he had Heath Ledger’s face.

  "Sometimes, you do have to face these things head-on. Because if you don't, it'll bottle up inside you, and the pressure'll start to build. And who knows what could happen then," said Heath-Tommy.