The Man Who Watched The World End

by Dietzel, Chris

  By the time Andrew would have been starting little league, if little league was still around then with children able to swing bats and throw balls, the things that had previously been important—getting the most for your money, electing public officials who weren’t corrupt—took a backseat to more simplistic needs. During the same dinner conversation in which my parents discussed the availability of food, water, and electricity as a growing number of businesses shut their doors, they looked over at me and saw a young face that didn’t understand why these things preoccupied them. They took time away from worrying about the future to tell me what it was like to grow up back when they were ten-year olds. My dad spoke about cartoons on Saturday mornings and about putting baseball cards in the spokes of his bike. My mom talked about trying on makeup with her older sister and selling cookies to raise money for school trips. A year later, in the same breath they used to talk about the government’s plan to build a food processor and generator for every house, my mom and dad talked about what it was like to walk through the aisles of toy stores that were so big parents had to be paged over the intercom to find their children. It sounded like an amazing place to get lost. There were never times when I was growing up that my mom and dad discussed a rise in interest rates or how road construction was causing traffic jams on the way to work. They spoke instead about their neighbors starting to move south, and about the things they would need in order to take care of themselves and to take care of Andrew and me.

  My father asked what else we needed besides food, water, and electricity. We had a house and clothes and a car. My mother frowned. “I don’t know,” she said.

  When it came down to it, people really didn’t need that much to survive in the world. It was the world my parents grew up in that had taught them to feel like they needed more. Bank accounts no longer mattered. Fancy cars didn’t count for anything. I guess if you were a good enough fisherman to catch your dinner, having a nice boat was a bonus, but nobody needed a luxurious yacht when a little kayak did the trick. There weren’t many things that were truly important when you counted down to man no longer inheriting the earth, which I guess is what the Great De-evolution was. Diamonds didn’t do anything for you. Gold became just another metal.

  Growing up in a time when the importance of these things was fading away, a time in which no new cars were designed, in which fancy movie theaters sat empty without new movies to show, in which fashion designers didn’t have anyone who felt like they needed an expensive evening gown, I was given a new set of ideas to store away. Every time my parents mentioned another neighbor heading south, it reinforced the feeling that I needed other people around me. Throughout the years, as generations raced to get better promotions, more riches, nicer homes, people had become a forgotten commodity. I had a lot of friends growing up, but slowly, one by one, they started moving south, and I was le was overflowing. I ignored it aof ft to spend more time each day with Andrew as my only companion. Every time my parents spoke about the things they did as little kids, things that were no longer available to me, I clung to my movies and my books, to the few things I had to keep me occupied throughout the day.

  The priority of continuing bloodlines also trickled away once Blocks made up a hundred percent of the newborns. Baby stores went out of business before any other companies realized what was happening. Expensive fertility clinics became a punch line. Most people around the world willingly stopped having babies once it was confirmed the infant boy or girl would be a Block, but some people insisted on bringing new kids into the world even though they knew this child would have a lifeless existence. It was primarily the irresponsible segment of society, the people who couldn’t support themselves, let alone a baby, the people for whom birth control was a hassle or too expensive, who were still having babies. These people, some addicted to drugs, some too immature to take care of themselves, others just too careless to use condoms, kept bringing countless Blocks into the world. Public outrage sparked new laws to charge these inconsiderate assholes with punishments to fit the crime. Mothers who were already on welfare and had already been charged with neglect of their Blocks, continued getting pregnant every year because they didn’t know how to do anything else. These Blocks were eventually taken into state custody where they made up a large percentage of the population at group homes.

  My parents had Andrew a couple of months after the first Blocks were identified, when well under five percent of babies were Blocks. They loved him as though he were the same as me, but they also got disgusted with one of our neighbors for having a baby after a hundred percent of the newborns were Blocks. Even as a young boy I picked up on my parents suddenly not talking to this one pair of neighbors.

  “It’s just irresponsible,” my father said.

  My mother shook her head in agreement and said to me, “We love your brother and we never regretted having him, but we’ll never try to have another baby until they find a cure for this.”

  Being a kid, not completely understanding the situation, I asked how they made babies. My father ignored my question and chose instead to answer the question I should have asked. “It’s not fair for the people who will have to take care of that baby when it grows up and its parents have passed away, but it’s also not fair for the baby. That kid will never know what it’s like to have friends or have its own children.”

  I wanted to ask more questions, but we had to go inside and check on Andrew. Another time, I asked my dad how long he would have gone before he didn’t try to have my was overflowing. I ignored it aof brother. The rate of regular babies versus Blocks changed completely within a matter of years, so I wanted to know if they would have tried if the rate was twenty-five percent or fifty percent.

  He put his hand on my shoulder and ushered me out of the room; he didn’t want to have to answer in front of Andrew. “I’m not sure,” he said. “We wanted a duplicate of you. We wanted you to have a brother to play baseball with.” He cleared his throat, then excused himself to my parents’ bedroom and closed the door.

  December 7It rained all day—a massive hurricane-type rain. For the first three hours, I was able to keep watching movies with Andrew, an occasional break taken to empty the buckets scattered throughout our home. Each one had a steady pitter-patter of water dripping into it. Anytime a major scene ended, I would pause the movie, go around the house to empty buckets, then return to watch more of the DVD with Andrew.

  But as the rain continued in a steady downpour, I found myself unable to keep up with the barrage of buckets strewn throughout the house. By the time I had emptied the first ten buckets, with still another ten to go, the first one would be reaching capacity again. In my younger years I could have kept up the shuttle drills all day. Today, though, with my knees the way they are, with a back that screams after bending over more than two or three times, I quickly became overwhelmed. The bucket in the bathroom was overflowing. I ignored it and focused on the ones in the living room. The bucket in the kitchen was overflowing. I ignored it to focus on the ones in my bedroom.

  One drop at a time, my home was becoming lost to me. I have never wished that my brother could come alive more than I did today during those moments of helplessness as water filled various rooms around our house. His help emptying buckets would have made up for a lifetime of stillness.

  Just when I was done praying that he could help lend a hand, the rain let up. Water continued to make its way through the holes in the roof, but the stream slowed to a trickle. By that time, I was too tired to move, could do nothing but watch helplessly from the sofa as drops of water plopped down all around me. Only hours later did I have the strength to get off the cushions and empty the remaining water from each bucket. When that was done, I began mopping the floors.

  I can already guarantee I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow. My back is going to be angry with a giant brown bear lumberli little spme for weeks.

  And this was just because of some rain. Where would any of the last remaining few be if man act
ually had to hunt and gather food? I’ve never shot an animal, either with a bow and arrow or a gun. I’ve never planted seeds and watched them grow into corn stalks or carrot patches. Without food processors none of us would have made it a week after the grocery stores closed. The Johnsons and I used to talk about our processors as though they were our most prized possessions. It didn’t matter to us that identical units were sitting in every other house up and down the street. Its creators, if they’re still out there somewhere, deserve every award ever handed out for science and technology. It was a shame that most of those award-giving foundations had closed shop by the time the food processor was created.

  Hell, if I had to choose between a food processor and my music collection, I would gladly sit in silence with Andrew while we ate. If I had to choose between my processor and my computer, I wouldn’t think twice about selecting the food machine. Besides writing this journal, the computer is only useful for checking to see how the final colonies across the southern states are doing. I used to enjoy emailing some of my old classmates to see where they were living and what life is like there, but in the past couple of years it has become too discouraging. The amount of responses diminished every year, and I kept adding more checkmarks to the list of kids I graduated high school with who had grown old and died. Yes, I can do without the computer. All it does is remind me of my daily concerns, whereas the ice cream I get from the food processor takes my mind off any worry. The dogs can howl as much as they want, the bears can growl until they’re purple, they can even lumber up to my patio door and snort in frustration—as long as I have my bowl of mint chocolate chip I don’t mind a single bit.

  The food processor’s only rival is our television. If Andrew and I didn’t have it to watch old movies every day, I don’t know what we would do with our time. Sometimes I read books out loud. At least that way Andrew benefits from them too. I often feel silly, though, reading stories to him as if he’s a little child needing to hear fantastic tales before bed, rather than a grown adult the same age my parents were when they passed away.

  Tonight I programmed the processor to make lasagna. Ten minutes later I had a white and red dish that smelled and tasted exactly like it came from Italy. The hardest part of making the meal was going back through the processor’s user guide to find which setting would produce the meal I wanted. I’ve memorized the settings for seasoned steak, crab cakes, and orange chicken, but lasagna hadn’t been selected in a long time. The Johnsons used to come over and recommend new settings I would never think of trying. “#6731 makes a sausage casserole that’s incredible!” or, “We finally tried #2601 last night. Did you know it makes ahi tuna?”

  The only difference between the lasagna I had last night and the real thing, which, by the way, my mom made perfectly when I was a boy, was that it didn’t come out of the machine in l daily struggle. other ayers of pasta, cheese, and sauce. The food processor can recreate tastes and smells, but was never advanced enough to mimic each delicacy’s presentation. It comes out as a bowl of lasagna with the meat interspersed with the cheese and pasta, rather than a square with alternating levels of ingredients. Brownie sundaes come out with the hot brownie mixed in directly with the ice cream rather than having the chocolate treat on the edge to mix in as you like. I’m not complaining though.

  It tasted so good I went back through the user guide to find other food settings I’d forgotten. The variety it offers amazed everyone the first time they saw it. It can make ten different kinds of macaroni and cheese, but each of those recipes can also be modified to be extra cheesy, extra moist, and so on. The settings can also be altered to contain extra calcium, fiber, anything you can think of. Chicken stir-fry will be tomorrow. Halfway through the user guide, I remembered walnut crusted salmon was at #1016. I got so happy that I gave Andrew a low-five (he can’t hold his hand up for a high-five). I forgot all of the other things I was missing out on—evening walks, vacations, neighborhood cookouts—and for one evening was content.

  It makes me wonder how many other things I used to enjoy that I not only no longer do, but that I don’t even remember enjoying in the first place. And once I start doing that for food, it’s inevitable that my mind wanders and I find myself thinking of watching football on Sunday with my dad, playing neighborhood games of two-hand touch, trying capture the other team’s flag in the forest behind our house, even something as simple as running to the grocery store to get milk for dinner. As soon as I think of one thing I used to miss, the dam breaks and I’m flooded with eighty years, a lifetime, of things I’ve enjoyed that are no longer possible.

  During these times, I try to think of the positive things that came to fruition during the Great De-evolution. Every day I find a different reason to be thankful for the Survival Bill. Our presidents and congressmen got a lot of things wrong over the years, but they may never have gotten anything as right as the supplies that provided the last generation of functioning adults with resources to take care of themselves and their Block relatives. The Bill was our government trying to protect its citizens one final time, ensuring people like me would be taken care of when there was no more government, locally or nationally, no grocery stores or farms, no trash trucks or power companies. It gave me the resources I needed to grow old by myself. It also allowed for the population of aging adults to take care of an entire society of people who couldn’t take care of themselves.

  I remember watching the news as a teenager. The naysayers always asked the same question into the camera: “Well, who’s going to pay for all of this?” It showed they still didn’t understand the magnitude of the situation: there weren’t going to be future generations to be stuck with the bill; the people being provisioned for were all that was left.

  There aren’t any grocery stores anymore. Remnants of some farms still exist, but they have long since been abandoned, have become weed-filled fields that haven’t grown healthy crops in twenty years. There’s no need for money at this point, so also no reason for people to have stores or to sell goods. If I had to work the earth for my own food, or carry a rifle into the woods for hunting, I wouldn’t have lasted a single month. I would have died forty years ago. If there is anyone still alive in New England or Canada they have to be a resourceful hunter-gatherer capable of killing animals every time they need something to eat. Only that kind of self-sufficiency, the kind we’ve all forgotten about, could allow a man to live in the abandoned northern regions. Instead of that fate, I have a food generator that produces my meals each day. The same generator allows me to refill Andrew’s nutrient bags.

  The Survival Bill didn’t produce thousands of each machine, but millions. And not just food processors. The incinerator in my backyard ensures I don’t drown in my own trash. A power generator produces all the electricity I’ll ever need. Each house is a self-sustainable unit of civilization; no one has to rely on anyone else. Luckily for me and for Andrew, if any of these items ever breaks, I can go next door, or to any of the other millions of abandoned houses, and begin using their Survival Bill units as if they were my own.

  The Survival Bill’s single-minded success became one of the most impressive feats in American history. The last generation of regular adults were already in their teens when the bill was passed into law, so all of the empty schools were turned into factories. Elementary schools were re-conditioned into incinerator factories. Middle schools were modified to become power generator plants. A couple of years later, all of the high schools were gutted and made into food processor factories. Teachers, no longer required to pass information to America’s youth, were retrained to create the very resources everyone would need once the population got too old and sparse to support itself.

  Someone told me one time that the cost of the Survival Bill, if money was still of consequence at the time the legislation was passed, would have totaled the cost of both World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the war in Iraq if they were combined and then multiplied by a hundred. The amount was supposed to put me in
awe of how much money and how many lives were spent for killing when they could have been ensuring our future, but the numbers were vague to me, so astronomical, beyond anything I had experience with, that the impact was lost. To me, a hundred million is the same as a billion and the same as a trillion. You get to a point where it goes beyond what you know and its importance no longer matters.

  Wave after wave of incinerators was distributed. Trash collectors weren’t needed anymore, so they were trained to work along side the teachers in other Survival Bill factories. A hundred more outdated occupations trickled in as well. As millions of electrical generators were shipped around the country, electricians weren’t needed a matter of time untiledo . These people went to work in factories too. Entire sections of our culture became extinct. Farmer, professor, mathematician—these were all professions that were talked about as though they were fictional jobs made up for Hollywood.

  Scientists were some of the only professionals who continued to the end, mainly because they continued searching for a cure for the Blocks. They kept conducting their tests and research even while the Survival Bill was in full swing, their hope being that the provisions would become unnecessary because humans would once again be able to give birth to fully functioning people able to support themselves.

  A cure was never found, though.

  December 8Every time the furnace kicks on, I think I might hear the Johnsons’ SUV returning to the neighborhood. Each time the refrigerator rumbles awake, I think I hear a truck approaching our community on its way south. My ears perk up. I shuffle toward the front door with the hope of seeing a new neighbor or a familiar face. Unlike me, Andrew never gets excited by the false alarms. It will take a day or two, but I know I will learn to tune out the noises as well. Oh, how I would welcome someone new to the neighborhood, even if they were like Andrew, unable to speak or move.