Nuclear Town USA

by David Nell

  I think only momentarily about my last question, knowing that the first two were cautionary warm-ups to the singular question I have carried in my mind for months as I watched my entire life collapse, the entire world collapse, and as I emerged as its only survivor.

  "Why me?" I ask.

  "Why the hell not?" the girl retorts, now a tad more playfully.

  And that is that.

  I entertained myself some nights with flights of grandeur, imagining that my solitude in the end times was only an indication of my own exceptionalism. That I was in fact left behind for a purpose and after a life of unremarkable banality, I would discover myself to be the final piece in a cosmic jigsaw puzzle. But with four words, cackled at me sardonically from my own dead daughter, I know those dreams to be just that. Dreams. And silly dreams, now that I take more time to reflect on them. Too many Charlton Heston movies. My shoulders slump almost imperceptibly. I hope not to give my host the satisfaction of witnessing my disappointment.

  I fail at that, too, of course. Sensing the unmaking of my pride, The Unmaker cocks its head back at an inhuman angle and howls with delight. It has done its job again, and done it well. When the Meggie-creature finishes bellowing its victory into the night, the woods return to silence. It is in that moment that I perceive the silence for the first time. Not just quiet, where all of those things that go bump and twitter lie dormant, where those things that could be making noise are simply choosing to remain still. But silence. Silence that sucks me in and swallows me whole and forces me to understand that not a single thing that could make a sound is left in the world to make it. Not a cricket. Not a passing plane. Not a falling tree or burning bush or singing wind. There is just nothing.

  We sit in silence for what could have been a moment or what could have been an eternity. Finally, The Unmaker sighs in exasperation and breaks the neverending nothingness. "Fine. This is the way it always happens. You people always need an explanation." I manage a furtive glance toward the monster, enough to see it has aged, changed, now a shadow of my daughter and a shadow of too many others. Some possibly not human. It is a thing becoming everything and becoming everyone, settling gradually on a pale, shapeless visage shrouded by darkness impossible. Each shadow stops just as another begins, revealing only hints and glimmers of what looks like five feet of skin stretched over seven feet of skeleton. As it speaks, its mouth area twists and splits.

  "You, Martin, are the last to bear witness to part of the eternal process. The Unmaking. The very act of taking down what has been built in order to rebuild anew. What once has come will come again."

  "So, all of creation, everything you made, you built just to destroy?"

  "I never said I made any of this!" the creature shrieks, thrusting its arms out and looking quickly at the dead forest. "I am called The Unmaker, child. What kind of Unmaker would I be if I went around making things?"

  "Then who made this, any of it? Who put you here or me here?" I begin finding something that looked like confidence. As my confusion builds, so does my temper. And as my temper grows, I typically forget to give a shit about being mistaken, judgmental or eviscerated by an omnipotent shadow monster. If I was only here to witness my own undoing, I at least wanted to know why.

  "How should I know who made all of this?" it replies, returning to its insouciance. "These matters are no concern of mine. I arrive when I am called and I do as I must."

  "I'm hearing you say that you're responsible for all of this," I say plainly. No matter how close to the end of the world I came, I couldn't seem to shake the habits of a psychologists reflective listening. If nothing else, it was restoring a modicum of stability to my rapidly unraveling psyche. "The draughts and starvation. Floods and fires. Disease, mutilation, war and destruction. That's your handiwork."

  "Yes," it replies nonchalantly.

  "The disappearances. Broken hearts, broken families, broken lives. My neighbors goddamn melting."

  "I'm actually sort of proud of that last one. Something new I've been working on."

  "You took my Meggie."

  "Yes," The Unmaker says again, as forthright as if it was just asked "do you like it when it rains?"

  "Well, then, you're an asshole," I spit.

  "Pardon?"

  "I said you're an asshole," I repeat, this time much more calmly. "You might be omnipotent, I don't know. Your power might have some limit, but clearly it's enough to take apart everything I knew as existence. But instead of doing it quickly, mercifully, you made each of us experience suffering. Each of us suffered unnecessarily for your sadistic musings. And for that, you are an asshole."

  The shadowy figure did not move. For an instant, I think it might not move forever. Then quicker than I anticipate, it swings a clawed, foot-like appendage toward the fire and topples the burning logs. Fresh embers scatter in each direction before vanishing like the rest of the world.

  "Do you see what I see, child?" the creature hisses.

  I really did not care what he saw or it saw. I stared into the face of my destroyer and spoke ill. The simple fact that I am not currently disintegrated into a million particles following that poorly advised display of chutzpah is a minor victory. Anything that comes next I considered bonus time.

  "All is matter, all is energy," the thing goes on. "None of it can be created, none of it can be destroyed. Your scientists of this iteration at least had that much right. But your Newtons and your Einsteins and your Hawkings all gave up eventually on that line of logic, because I assure you they didn't like how it ended."

  "Nonsense," I demand. "You're destroying an entire world."

  "I never said I was destroying it, my dear. I said I was unmaking it. Think of this fire. These logs made of wood are ablaze, eventually turning to ash and fading away. But in that process, they become heat. They become light. Become energy. They remain in the whole, but their life as wood logs becomes something else entirely."

  "Basic science class from high school, I guess. The Law of Conciliation, or something like that. Honestly, I slept through most of physics. What does that have to do with the rest of the world?

  "Look at how much heat comes from the unmaking of a log. Ask the people of Japan what happens when an atom is unmade. Now think about what happens if you unmake every atom of every thing all at the same time. The process takes time, Martin. I wouldn't want to be reckless."

  "You could have just unmade it then. One part at a time. You didn't need to create pain. You didn't need to prolong our misery. We shouldn't have had our souls crushed first." It is admittedly a bold move, criticizing an ever-powerful force on its execution. I couldn't even keep kudzu out of my garden, for Christ's sake. And here I am, editorializing the end of the world.

  The contorted monstrosity on the front of the creature's head that I assume is a face gives something that looks like a wry smile. "Well, when you enjoy your job," it says, "there's nothing wrong with a little panache."

  Just like I said, I think. Total asshole.

  "Look, Martin," the creature's tone becomes frank. "If it's any consolation, you'll be remade again. Your energy won't go anywhere. It will remain in the whole and come back when The Maker pieces it back together. Don't think of it as death so much as rearranging. I've lost count of how many Unmakings I've done now, but I always know it will be my turn again eventually. I usually keep some piece of the whole around to explain this to, in the way you sometimes feel obligated to explain to your dog why you're making him go outside in the rain so it doesn't piss on your carpet. You know it won't understand, but you go through the charade anyway because it makes you feel a little less barbaric. I guess this time, the explanation found its way to you, although don't think that makes you special. Just the last one in line."

  "Does it ever do any good?" I ask, not really sure what else to say.

  "That's really none of my business. It's not like you could do anything to stop me when the time comes anyway. Sometimes the piece of energy I enlighten reforms to become a prophet
, the Messiah for all mankind. Sometimes it comes back as a rock at the bottom of the ocean. To-may-toe, to-mah-toe.

  "Look, child, I think we're about done here. I have other matters to which I must attend. I will see you again after a spell, I assume. Although I'm sure you won't remember."

  I can feel myself lightening. No, not lightening. Evaporating. At its basest level, my body is letting go. Then it occurs to me. Acceptance was never the end-goal of emotion and loss. You could accept anything really. You could accept that your dog died. You could accept that your house burned down or your wife ran away with her podiatrist or that one day, everyone you know is simply gone. Acceptance actually comes easier than most people ever intend because it is usually right there in front of them and there aren't ever really any other options. No. What comes next is even more important than acceptance but infinitely more impossible. What comes next is letting go.

  I raise my eyes to the empty sky, taking one last look at a dead world. I am the only thing left in this world, really. Gazing out into nothing, I decide that I am the world. And this world draws in its final breath.

  Then I let go.

  The Unmaker looks toward the empty spot that only moments ago held the last stitch of living energy in existence. Its job is done. All that had been built is now taken down.

  A single spider crawls up the creature's arm and onto its bony, white hand. The chitter of its tiny legs against the never-living flesh seemed deafening, as it was the only sound across all eternity. The Unmaker raises its hand to eye level the fire to look crossly at the tiny insect.

  "Well," it speaks after careful inspection, "I guess it's your turn again, old friend."

  And the spider descends down from the sleeve of the monster that unmade. Lowering down slowly with a silken tether, it weaves its complex web.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: N.S. Mariner is an educator and writer of several stories of the fantastic and weird. A Midwestern boy with a Southeastern zip code, he spends the majority of his day wondering why the world around him never seems as wonderful as the one in his head. When there are good friends, he laughs. When there is good beer, he drinks. And when there is good music, he dances. Follow him on Twitter at @TheGoodMariner.