Darwin's Bastards

by Zsuzsi Gartner

  I saw Fenrir, the wolf, thrashing his way through the brine. Such a terrifying sight. As huge as the stories had said, and as vicious and drooling and fierce. He turned, gave me a disconcerting once-over, then continued on his way. If I followed, he seemed to be saying, he’d lead me to Ragnarök, the end of the world, where, as the prophecies had told us, he’d wrangle with Odin, kill him dead, and eat him whole. All was not lost! If I followed the wolf, he’d lead me to shore. But whose side would I fight on when I got there? Who’d even have a turncoat like me? I supposed I’d figure that out. Because everything had changed, the world was starting anew, and it wasn’t about alliances anymore, it wasn’t about vision statements or corporate synergies or brand protection—not for me, anyway. It was about standing up, blood-caked and broken, and stumbling into battle.

  PASHA MALLA

  1999

  When I woke up this mornin’

  Coulda sworn it was judgment day

  “I WOULDN’T FUCK if he was the last man on Earth,” Sonya told her friends, drunk and searing with challenge, that New Year’s Eve before the end.

  This was just before midnight, seconds before the world and all that was in it went spinning into the new millennium. Out came the tequila. Then it was “Ten! Nine! Eight!” and at “Happy New Year!” Sonya downed her shot spluttering and snorting, the booze scorching her nostrils, and almost instantly the whole night—the whole century, it seemed—swelled up from somewhere and everything went careening into a great vertiginous swirl of noise and light, and the next thing Sonya knew she was waking alone to the year 2000 and a head full of thunder. And everyone was gone. And the city was empty. And it was the end.

  It was just Sonya. There was no one else left.

  But, wait. That was not entirely true.

  On the radio, on every station, inescapable on either AM or FM, was the artist formerly known as Prince, now known as , beckoning all female survivors to join him at Paisley Park. “Cum 2 me,” he swooned. “All U ladies, cum, let’s start a new human race.” And then he’d play one of his own songs.

  Jesus. What if was the last man on Earth? What a nightmare. And if there were other women out there, scattered around the continent and perhaps even the world, hearing in this message some sort of salvation—well, they had to be stopped. And so Sonya was driving her leased Accord over the border to Minneapolis to intercept these women, to talk some sense into them before they stumbled, naked and duped, into ’s candlelit boudoir—a place Sonya imagined as all chiffon and gossamer and satin, and a heart-shaped bed with that weird bluesy nymph sprawled upon it with a rise in his silk pyjamas and a rose in his—Christ—teeth.

  Holy, Debbie could not wait for to make sweet love to her and to implant in her womb his seed. Oh my god oh my god oh my god, she thought, speeding up through the great icy swath of North Dakota, fists pounding the steering wheel, each inch-long fingernail painted “Devil’s Kiss Red” to match the rouge on her cheeks and the fire in her loins (and, sure, heart). Her bangs were a perfect crusty arc, “Erotic City” wailed from the stolen Corvette’s plastic speakers, and in her lap, like an incubating egg, nestled the grenade. OH. MY. GOD.

  Zipping westward on the her snowmobile, bundled tight head to toe, ’s voice ringing through the headphones in her helmet, Mrs. Mendelbaum tried to imagine who he might be. His voice was somehow. . . humid. Sultry and dripping. The music slinked and humped and awakened in Mrs. Mendelbaum a peculiar tingle she hadn’t felt for decades. But this was no occasion for tingles! In times like these it was important to think rationally. People needed to come together. If people did not believe in God at least they believed in other people. And while Mrs. Men-delbaum had no uterus, she did have a lot of love to give. She would not be much for repopulating the earth but she was a damn fine listener and a purveyor of really great hugs, things she knew mattered as much as the ability to procreate, if not more. For what sort of world was it to bring a child into without love? And Mrs. Mendelbaum tended a great simmering volcano of the stuff in her chest, ready to spew caring and compassion in pure, sizzling geysers of molten hope.

  Over bridges and through empty states Esme drove her mother’s Audi, the thermometer dropping as she made her way east. She knew what the guy on the radio wanted. And now, why not? It wasn’t that Carlo hadn’t been The One, with his frantic grappling and the salami smell of his neck. Or that since the first occasion she’d allowed it back in October, at every opportunity he thudded his crotch into hers for forty seconds—and then he retreated gasping, like a waiter whisking away a bowl of soup before Esme had even had a taste. Not to mention that maybe three weeks prior there’d been this: “Shit, I think the condom broke”—that same waiter splashing soup into her lap. No, none of that mattered. There was no more Carlo. There was no more anyone. There was nothing left; nothing mattered at all. It was only Esme and the fat grey ribbon of highway, desolate save the few abandoned shells of tractor-trailers at rest stops every few counties—oh, and the voice on the radio, providing directions. Here was a toll, unmanned, and Esme blasted through, the barricade splintering over the hood of the Audi. She cheered and veered across the highway and back. The world was hers: seventeen years old and free. She honked the horn. She cranked the stereo. She stomped on the gas. “Fuck everything!” she screamed, as loud as she could, speedometer fluttering between 80 and 90. But maybe now with snow and ice on the road she should ease up, so Esme did and breathed, and then hesitantly checked the rearview, half in fear and half in hope of seeing another car reflected there, closer than it might appear, following behind.

  “I just wanna let all U women know, each and every special one of U, first off right now that I know how lonely U R feelin’. But B 4 you start to feel like no one’s left, know I can feel U out there. And I know U can feel me 2. And that’s why I’m telling U all right now, all U women left on Planet Earth, that we’re gonna make somethin’ special 2gether again. I want each of U 2 look out at the stars 2nite and know that we’re all lookin’ at the same sky, and I want U 2 pick just one star and imagine that I’m lookin’ at it 2. And wherever U R I want that 2 B U R guidin’ star. I want it 2 B the star that brings us 2gether, that brings U 2 me. And I want U 2 follow that star as long as it takes U, all the way 2 me, cuz I’m waitin’. I’m waitin’ here 4 U, women of Planet Earth. We gotta cum 2gether. Because it’s not over. We’re not thru. Cum 2 me. We can make it. If U believe in me, 2gether we can believe in love, and I believe in U.”

  ? What was supposed to even be, wondered Sonya. She pulled up her jeans and stepped around the puddle of ale-coloured pee she’d left in the middle of the highway, shivering in the icy air. , ugh.

  Back in the car, hangover settling into a dull throb at her temples and a mossy paste in her mouth, Sonya pictured him shimmying about in doilies and fabric cropped from his grandma’s plush sofa. “The Artist Formerly Known as Who the Hell Cares,” Sonya had called him the night before. “It’s not just that his music sucks,” she’d ranted, “or that he’s totally ridiculous. It’s more the hypocrisy that gets me. He’s a raging misogynist, and a homophobe, yet he’ll throw on garters and high heels and prance around like a drag queen. He doesn’t love women, he’s just confused. And ‘Pussy Control’? Come on, that’s just offensive.”

  Now this—this Armageddon, or whatever—and here she was sliding behind back into the driver’s seat of the Accord and continuing south into the United States. The winter was everywhere: thirty-below and the trees lining the highway garlanded with snow, and instead of sky there was a sort of absence above, grey and hanging there, emptily.

  Sonya had always said the thing she craved more than anything was to be alone, mercifully alone, making art in some cabin secreted away in a deep dark wood. She would live on berries and delicious forest creatures roasted on spits; there would be much chopping of wood and a surfeit of profound existential thoughts sublimated into oil paintings and sculptures. And now here was that chance, offering itself up like a free, post-apocalyptic
lunch.

  But she couldn’t exist out there in peace while the planet was being reinhabited by a race of velveteen maniacs with symbols for names, all those toddlers wailing away on sparkling toy guitars, performing cunnilingus in the air, pooping into sequined diapers. And so Sonya would stop it—and only then, knowing she had done right by the world, could she retreat to a life of hermetic bliss, away from everyone and everything, and live out her days in perfect, silent, uninterrupted solitude.

  Oh, here was a “funky” song, thought Mrs. Mendelbaum in her snowsuit. She’d even heard it before, maybe, and turned the volume up just a touch—riding on the highway now, the snowmobile sliding along, ever mindful of black ice. What were they saying, though? Something about the future. “Something something the future will B. . .” Will be what? Was there a future? Wishing someone would tell her, Mrs. Mendelbaum shivered and looked out through her visor at the world. She was so close to Minneapolis—close to everyone, close to the future! But looking up the sky did not look like the sky of the future. It struck her instead as still and lifeless, a great pale corpse slumped over the world. How depressing; it was enough to make her want to take a break. Also she had to pee.

  Esme passed a Taco Bell, Carlo’s favourite restaurant. Carlo, lurching Carlo: all chicken soft tacos and pico de gallo and that clumsy slug of a tongue. But, aw, so sweet—he’d made a piñata for her, after all, for her birthday (though he’d filled it with condoms, and when they’d tumbled forth she could have sheared him for wool, his grin was so sheepish). Was it only last night that he’d worked at her button-fly—for, what, ever?—before Esme, like a prisoner unlocking her own cell for a cute but hapless warden, snapped it open: here you go!

  She’d wanted so badly for it to be good with Carlo, and when it wasn’t she could only trust it would get better, later. She could wait; she loved him. But here was later, Esme thought, gazing through the windshield. Later was nothing at all.

  was singing again: “Until the end of time, I’ll be there 4 U.” She vaguely remembered what the guy looked like from the jacket of an LP that might have belonged to one of her mom’s boyfriends—Tom or Roger or Luis-Enrique, Esme wasn’t sure. And despite what appearances might suggest, apparently wasn’t gay. Just sort of elfin and a little purpler than Esme was used to (Carlo wore mainly camouflage and black denim).

  Maybe a guy like would be good—tender, experienced. She’d lose herself to it and him and afterward he’d hold her whispering, stroking, whispering. And if they had a kid, what would it look like? She tried picturing it, but all that came to mind was a little Carlo nestled in her arms, swaddled and cooing, gazing up at her with wide, astonished eyes.

  Esme slid her foot off the accelerator, pulled her hands from the steering wheel, and closed her eyes. Slowly the car decelerated and began to list to the right, toward the shoulder, and blind to the world Esme thought about how she was old enough to do almost everything adults do: she could drive and almost even vote, though now—typical!—there was no one to vote for. There was only . And not even him, just a voice and a promise.

  At the crunch of gravel and ice Esme’s eyes snapped open and her hands grabbed the wheel. She jerked the car back onto the road, sweat squelching in her palms. Breathing, now, breathing, with the car locked tightly into the lane and her foot steadying the gas. In the rearview, a little black blip emerged from the point where the grey of the road vanished into the endless snow—not a car, something smaller. A motorcycle, maybe.

  Esme stared, unsure whether to speed up or brake. She was reminded of when she was eight years old during Christmas shopping season and her mom had disappeared at Sears. In that split-second of abandonment the world had expanded, reeling outward from her, infinite and unknown. Here was that again, but now, also, not just the threat of space, but a stranger in that space, and her alone, defenceless.

  Seeing a service station ahead, Esme pulled in. She shut the engine off and the radio died with it, silencing mid-line: “Until the end of time, until the end of—” Immediately the cold began to creep into the car. Esme shivered, wrapping her arms around her shoulders, wishing she’d worn more than a sweatshirt.

  The only sound came from the road: whoever was out there was buzzing closer. It became a drone that lulled Esme’s thoughts back to herself, and there she found the pulse of a different kind of imminence—something within her, awakening, changing: the end of one thing and the terrifying, glorious beginning of something else. And then, flinging the door open, she leaned out of the car and barfed into the snow.

  How many times had she dreamed of it, Debbie wondered, reapplying mascara in the rearview, steadying the wheel with her knees. Would they kiss and kiss? Would take her face in his hands and hold her like that just stare into her eyes—would he sing? But they had all the time in the world, didn’t they? There would be time for everything . . . Debbie started to scream at this, at the endless boundless future; from deep in her guts roared great primal yowlings of happiness and potential and everything, everything, her face tingling through the mask of foundation and mascara and lipstick and eyeliner and blush. Dreams really did come true and no one could tell her to shut up or try to stop her, she thought, patting the grenade in her lap—but hold the phone, a sign from the radio! Debbie cranked it, wailing along as the sky deepened into night: “None of them got what it takes / 2 B a future baby mama.”

  “Ladies, ladies. Each one of U—keep keepin’ on. I’m here. I’m waitin’. Each one of U is special. This is the future. We’re the future. All of us, 2gether. We’re gonna B 2gether. If U R hearin’ these words it means it’s meant 2 B. I want all U women, every one of U, 2 know each of U is special. I want U 2 think of me and us 2gether and how it’s gonna B: champagne and candlelight. I’m runnin’ a bubble bath. If I were in your arms 2nite—”

  Sonya clicked the radio off. The planet didn’t need this lacy goofball’s sperm!

  Soon enough it would be over, she told herself. No one would show up to ’s lair and the world, such as it was, would go on without him. Alone in her cabin in the woods Sonya could exist and paint, undisturbed and happy. But as she imagined this life, saw herself puttering through the trees, she began to wonder. Would it be worthwhile if there was no one to see her doing it, or to even tell? What would she paint in such a place? Owls? Who would even know and how would anything matter to her, alone, in some loggy cabin?

  Head pulsing, Sonya found herself lulled by the steady growl of the Accord’s cruise control, the sweep of the road under the car. But slowly this became something more sinister. With her foot off the gas it didn’t feel as though she were driving at all; the highway seemed more like a conveyor belt, hauling her through an abandoned world of ice—toward Minneapolis, toward Paisley Park, reined in by .

  Wow, thought Mrs. Mendelbaum, finally, a service station—just in time! But, wait: was that a person sitting there in the parking lot, behind the wheel of a silver coupe?

  “Imagine U could rid the Earth,” Debbie sang along to the radio, easing her thumb in and out of the metal loop of the grenade’s detonator, “of anyone U choose. Which ones would U need the most? And which ones would U lose?”

  People. Two women. Just outside Minneapolis, leaning on the hood of a silver Audi in the parking lot of an ESSO, there they were: one big and one small. At first Sonya barely thought anything of it. But then her brain caught up: People!

  The Accord hit a patch of black ice, fishtailing as Sonya cranked the wheel this way and that, now spinning across the highway, now turned all the way around and facing north, toward Canada, now Mexico, now the Pacific Ocean, now the Atlantic—and finally, slowing, the car slid back across the highway and bumped up against a snowbank, and rested there, and was still. After a quick check—she was fine—leaving the engine idling and the car half in the ditch, Sonya plunged into the world and staggered toward the women.

  They turned toward her, faces open. “My,” said the older, fat one, her look of worry mirrored on the face of the other o
ne, a teenager in a hooded sweatshirt. They were eating Snickers bars and drinking Gatorade. Where should Sonya start? With her standard anti- rant?

  But it would have to wait: the matriarch was coming at her, arms out, hauling Sonya into her great duvet of a body. It actually felt sort of good there against and between and within her breasts; nothing said, nothing to say. And then she was released.

  “I’m so happy you’re okay. That looked very dangerous.” The big woman stroked Sonya’s arm. “My name is Mrs. Mendel-baum. This is Esme. We’ve just met.”

  The girl held up a Snickers and said, “Snickers?”

  Had anything ever tasted so sweet and fake and good? And here was a Gatorade, that phosphorescent potion of synthetic magic. Sonya gulped down half the bottle. Who were these people? Hangover angels? She raised her eyebrows at Esme, who was clutching a little cardboard packet she’d clearly pilfered along with the candy bars—Tylenol, maybe, or something stronger.

  The store in the service station appeared to have been looted, the door splintered as though body-slammed until it gave. Beside the pumps rested a snowmobile with the bumper sticker Live to Sled, Sled to Live.

  “That was my ride,” said Mrs. Mendelbaum. “We’ll carpool.”

  “So it’s only us left?”

  “Not sure, my dear. I expect anyone else is on their way to meet the gentleman on the radio. Won’t it be wonderful, all those people?”

  “Yeah,” began Sonya, finishing off the Gatorade, “about that.”

  “Yes, love?”

  Sonya looked into the woman’s eyes, wide with hope; beside her Esme traced a semi-circle in the dirt, back and forth, with her toe, sneaking glances at Sonya and then at the ground, clutching the stolen meds in her hands as though they were the antidote to whatever had happened to the world.