The End of the World Book: A Novel

by Alistair McCartney

  If my eternal fate goes in one ear and out the other, this will make for an extremely awkward situation. I will have to put up my hand, like in primary school, and ask God if he could please repeat where it is he wants me to go. Most likely, he will get so annoyed with me, he will tell me that although he initially wanted me to go with him and the angels, just to teach me a lesson, a very harsh lesson, now I need to go stand on the left side with the dogs and the sorcerers.

  But probably I will be too shy to even raise my hand, and I will just sort of loiter around the middle, in between the wet snouts of the dogs and the quivering wings of the angels, trying to make myself appear inconspicuous.

  WORLD, GLOBES OF THE

  It is said that somewhere in Los Angeles there is a boy locked in a room. The room is in one of the thousands of mini-malls that can be found on street corners here, those small, seemingly identical complexes of shops that give the city a sweet monotony, preparing us for the even deeper monotony of eternity, and behind whose blank facades are housed restaurants, nail salons, liquor stores, Laundromats, and money-exchange centers.

  The only things in this room are the boy, a desk, a chair, and a globe of the world. The boy sits at the desk. His leg is manacled to the metal leg of the chair. The globe is on top of the desk and is a little tattered. Here and there, the paper has ripped, and the plastic of the globe shows through.

  The boy has been given a task and the task is this: with his small, delicate hand, he must keep spinning the globe. He must make sure that the globe never stops spinning, even if his hand gets tired, as boys' hands tend to do. Even if his wrist gets broken from all the spinning, he must continue.

  If he stops to take a rest, the world won't end. Nothing on that scale will happen. But it will be made abundantly clear that the boy has failed his task and measures will be taken accordingly. The boy has been cleared of all his other duties. He now has no other responsibility but to keep the globe of the world spinning. This has made his life simpler, but at the same time infinitely more difficult.

  WORLD, MY MOTHER AT THE END OF THE

  After the world and everything in it is gone, nothing will remain but my mother's red hair. The atmosphere will be sort of suffused with the exact shade of red she used to dye her hair.

  WORLD, THE OTHER

  In preparation for the end of the world, God has already created another world, the sequel to this world, if you will; he has it all ready to go. As soon as this world ends, the other world (as opposed to the next world) will take effect immediately, and it will be twice as difficult to live in, and twice as beautiful, and twice as difficult to get out of.

  WORLD, PHILOSOPHY AT THE END OF THE

  After the world ends, there will be a lot to think about; you will have plenty of thoughts. But, actually, from here on in, there will be no such thing as thoughts per se; all of the things that fill your head will be afterthoughts, explanations and ideas that occur after an event, for example, the end of the world.

  WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA

  They say that when the world ends, the World Book Encyclopedia will remain intact, and that, in fact, its twenty-two gold-edged volumes will replace the world.

  WRESTLING

  Currently, the most promising epidemic here in Los Angeles is one that primarily affects college wrestlers. It is a staph infection that is resistant to everything and spreading quickly. Before wrestling, the boys lather themselves in a special wrestling foam that prevents skin infections and then mop the purple wrestling mats with a special mop and disinfectant while the coach looks on. Despite their best efforts, many young men have been exposed, their smooth skin covered in dark, oozing sores like blueberry jam stains and red flush scabs like Chinese wax seals. What would the Scottish surgeon Alexander Ogston, who in the late nineteenth century discovered this bacterium, make of these wrestlers? Perhaps he already had them in mind when he named his infection Staphylococcus aureus, the latter of which is Latin for golden.

  WRISTS

  There should be a sign on the wrists flashing EXIT in red neon letters. Anyone who has slit his wrists knows that these joints between the hand and the forearm are the most private part of the body and somehow obscene, like genitals. In a wrist-slitter's universe, the wrists would only be displayed to one's lover or in centerfolds in hardcore pornography. Otherwise, one would always wear long sleeves to conceal one's wrists, out of modesty, or maybe a wristwatch on either wrist. However, some argue that wrists are not so much the nearest emergency exit when the world is on fire, but an entry into eternity. The wrist is a way out. The wrist is important.

  WRITING

  Although sometimes I feel a bit sad for Proust, and wish that, while out walking in the vicinity of Roussainville, instead of longing for the forests of that region to send him a peasant girl, he was honest with himself, and admitted, in writing, that what he really desired was one of the region's sturdy peasant boys, I'm actually glad that he wasn't honest, because he might have been virtually inundated with offers; not only would his longing have been met, but it also would have been destroyed, and writing, above all, needs longing. He would have been so preoccupied with peasant boys, peasant-boy crazy, as it were, he wouldn't have had the time or the inclination to write anything at all.

  Even worse, what if when Proust was still a small boy he had met some sinister aristocratic sadist in a sweeping, black crepe cloak, who had promised to take him to the opera but instead had taken Proust to his mansion where he proceeded to do unspeakable things to him, things equally refined yet debased, and then did away with him, leaving his remains in a forest on the outskirts of Paris?

  Then there would have been no way that In Search of Lost Time could have ever been written, because, having suffered at the hands of the creep, Proust would have been spared all the adult suffering that fed his writing, and writing, above all, needs suffering; instead of the six volumes there'd just be this hole in the world of exactly the same dimensions as the six volumes combined, and through this hole a steady draft would be coming through, and we'd have to plug up the draft with that octopus blue crushed velvet suit Proust wears in a famous childhood photo, the one with the big lace collar.

  But who knows. Maybe Proust not only got the work done but was also sexually active—Proust as slut—as promiscuous with men as he was with memory, and whenever he got sick of remembering, he'd go out cruising, pick up sailors, and take them back to his rooms, up to three at a time, where two of them would double-dick him, and another would fuck his mouth—altogether an unusual sensation—and he'd feel all glowing, like a pomegranate splitting, and he'd try to relax, and as he did, he would be taken back to that day in the carriage when he glimpsed the twin steeples of Martinville and the steeple of Vieuxvicq, the latter spire somehow seeming very close to the former pair, though in reality, it was considerably far away, and then he'd send the sailors off, clean up, and get back to writing.

  X

  X

  If, after countless painful and unnecessarily invasive procedures, on doctor's orders I was told to evacuate language, I suppose I would do so, though I think I would still take one letter with me (assuming that there would be room in my luggage), even if the doctors warned me that just one letter could kill me.

  As to which letter I would take, I am still undecided. I know for certain I would not take the I—such a brutal letter.

  At the moment I am strongly leaning toward the letter X. I like that X is used in science to indicate an unknown quantity, and I like many of the words X appears in, words such as anxious and luxurious; finding myself deprived of the alphabet's other letters, X would surely invoke these words. Besides, it seems the most practical choice. With X, I would never lose you again. Whenever I misplaced you, I'd know where to find you. Standing in for a kiss, it is surely the most romantic letter, and despite everything, I am still first and foremost a romantic.

  X-RAYS

  Although I dislike and want to destroy most inventions, I do make some exceptio
ns, and not only for the Viewmaster! I also make an exception for the X-ray machine, which is my favorite invention. I love X-rays as much as I love sunrays and stingrays!

  The highpoint of my childhood was when I broke my left arm and was taken directly to the Fremantle hospital to be x-rayed. The X-ray operator, with his receding hairline and his thick, horn-rimmed spectacles, was so nice. His hands were big and warm, in stark contrast to the cold metal plate I was pressed up against. I had to remain very still so they could locate the exact nature of the fracture. I liked how solemn it all felt, and I appreciated the green, papery gown he made me put on and take off and put back on.

  The X-ray operator made me feel so special, like I was the only one, like he was interested in my bones and no one else's bones. He looked right through me, as if my body were an article of scanty, sexy, see-through lingerie. The resulting picture of my shattered bones was clear and sharp. If only the rest of childhood were so vivid!

  It was so much fun, like having one's picture taken, but deeper. In fact, I had never liked being photographed, but that afternoon I discovered that I felt extremely comfortable being x-rayed. I still think I look better in X-rays than in photographs, and I wish X-rays would replace photographs as the dominant medium of human representation. To this day, I can't think of anything that is more enjoyable; there is no better way I like to spend my free time than being x-rayed, to see if I am diseased.

  Speaking of discoveries, X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a man with a bushy beard. Apparently, Röntgen was very unlucky in love, always chasing after boys whose hearts were like lead-lined rooms. He tried to come up with an X-ray method that could penetrate beyond the soft parts of boys, past the tissue and muscles and fat that wrapped and draped around their bones like fox furs or mink stoles, an X-ray that could penetrate beyond bones and peer directly into the heart of a boy, taking inventory of the contents of the boy's heart, but he did not come up with this method and had to make do with taking snapshots of boys' skeletons.

  When the world ends, while we are all waiting to be judged by God, who will see right through us like an X-ray machine, in fact, much better than an X-ray machine, Röntgen will be the first person I will look for. I will go to the line of people who died in 1923, the year he died, and walk along that line until I find him. It will be a long line I'm sure, but not the longest. Perhaps I will cut out the little picture I have of him from the World Book Encyclopedia and will carry it with me, to make sure I remember how he looks. As soon as I find him, I will shake his hand—or, who knows, what with all the emotion accompanying Judgment Day, maybe I will even hug him—before thanking him personally for his invention.

  X-RAY OPERATORS

  I'm not an X-ray operator working at the Walter Reed Army Hospital, but I might as well be an X-ray operator; I should have listened to my mother and become an X-ray operator.

  On second thought, I am an X-ray operator, ruled by rays of an unknown nature. I must somehow make peace with these rays that cannot be seen.

  XANTHIPPE

  Poor Xanthippe! History has not been kind to the wife of Socrates. In an encyclopedia's entry on the philosopher, she is usually compressed into one or two sentences. Within those sentences, she is invariably described in less-than-flattering terms, as a nag, a harridan, a hag, of bitter tongue and poor disposition, and, perhaps most famously, the unbearable shrew that made philosophy a necessity. It is said that the philosopher married her merely as an act of self-discipline and self-measure.

  Sick to death of his wife's poor temper, it was in fact Socrates who invented both the concept of evidence and the accompanying concept of posterity. The only way in which married life was tolerable was the thought that future generations would talk ill of her, the certainty that a long streak of poor opinion would follow her. He began to leave clues about her ill will around the house; in his talks he provided sound proof of her bitterness. Alert to this, Xanthippe would feed the clues to the local dogs, but, constant thinker that he was, her husband always provided more.

  Perhaps Xanthippe simply had one bad mood, one sour turn, which now stretches on into eternity. I hope posterity will be kinder to me. Yet surely the very concept of posterity is caustic and unkind in that it not only implies but also requires our absence. One considers Xanthippe's fate and sees that perhaps it would be better to be erased, joyfully and thoroughly.

  Y

  YACHTS

  I have never been interested in yachts; in fact, I have always felt a certain hostility—at times a hatred—toward those relatively small vessels used mainly for pleasure, along with a hatred for the men who sail them, and a deep dislike for anything even vaguely associated with yachting, for example, navy blue double-breasted blazers with gold buttons. Most likely, this phobia can be traced back to the yachts on my childhood pajamas.

  But recently I happened to be passing on my bicycle through the Marina del Rey district of Los Angeles, that bland nightmare of anonymous highrise apartment buildings, sort of like communism, but luxurious, all of the apartments housing horny heterosexual singles and sexless heterosexual seniors nostalgic for lost horniness. It was an extremely windy day and I happened to be very sleepy, a state that is surely the best way to be in the twenty-first century.

  In the wind, the rigging of the yachts was making a clanking sound, like a milk bottle symphony; it was as if all the milk bottles from my childhood had been stored somewhere by the conductor of an orchestra especially for that purpose, and the conductor was finally ready. I stopped my bicycle, right in the middle of the bike path, and was so taken by the sound I was oblivious to the fact that I was endangering not only my own life but also that of the cyclists behind me in their hideous, skintight Lycra cycling gear. Perhaps, I thought, waking up a little, continuing to listen, I need to reconsider my hatred of yachts.

  YARD WORK

  Any time my dad asked me to do yard work, I wanted to murder him; my small hand would grip the handle of the rake; as I raked up the red leaves they crunched beneath my feet like my father's bones.

  Today, I continue to be disinclined toward yard work, except for sweeping up the tree fungus water that pools at the base of our driveway every morning like poisonous soul slime. This work requires a sturdy broom. As I sweep up the last stagnant drops, I am already anticipating and looking forward to the water's inevitable return.

  YAWNING

  Whenever I am around, the abyss yawns. Although I try not to take it personally—after all, surely this is what abysses do: they open wide, they gape—I still end up feeling hurt. It is horrible to realize that the abyss is growing bored with you.

  YEARNING

  Humans yearn: the object they yearn for is of no importance; what matters is the act of yearning. Sometimes when I am falling asleep or still waking up, I mean to say yearning but instead say destruction. There is a form of yearning—or so I have heard—the intensity of which buries alive the yearner in a kind of lava. What do volcanoes yearn for? What role did yearning play in the eruption of Krakatao? Yearning often causes humans to suddenly appear and disappear. When one yearns over an extended period of time, the yearning ties itself around one's neck like a noose, the feeling turns into something else, something wholly unrelated to yearning, something harsher and deeper.

  YEARS

  Dear clinically depressed reader, sexually addicted reader, desperately lonely (albeit hot) reader, politically-despondent-with-the-potential-to-be-violent reader, low, low and beyond low self-esteemed reader, occasionally suicidal reader, and ultimately, far-too-gentle-for-this-world reader, I hear you asking, well, when is the world going to end? And how?

  So immersed were you in your own troubles, and so anxiously were you awaiting the end, biting your fingernails until the polished wooden floors of your house were covered in the little torn-off bits, like the torn-off stubs of movie tickets, you failed to notice that the world had already ended.

  I tell you, there's no longer any need to worry. The
se things we call days are just shards; the years, rubble. That weird, dappled light you are reading this book by comes from the embers, the soft and steady afterglow.

  Z

  ZERO, PATIENT

  When I think of Gaëtan Dugas, the French-Canadian flight attendant who paid his first known visit to a New York City bathhouse on October 31, 1980, the man to whom all the city's initial cases of AIDS would be traced back—hence the moniker he was given: patient zero—I start off thinking about big things, like fate, the fate that is assigned to us, and the fate of the time and place in which we are born, for surely there are good times to be born, and there are not-so-good times, and just before things got really bad, those men in the bathhouses must have believed they were living in the most wondrous of times; they must have felt sublime, like bodies that had escaped the clutches of history.

  But, inevitably, my mind caves in beneath these thoughts and I ponder small things, like Dugas's mustache, which was wild and Nietzschean. Finally, I return to the question of towels. I think about the white towel Dugas would have worn at the bathhouse and about the style in which he wore it (specifically the knot). I wonder how many towels he used. Did he go back more than once to the counter to get fresh towels? Is there a museum where one can view, behind a glass case, one of these towels?