The Man Who Watched The World End

by Dietzel, Chris

  As the Great De-evolution progressed, some families began to worry about their daily existence and what was best for the remaining regular members in their household. Most of these people reasoned that the health and wellbeing of their Block loved ones couldn’t endure an extended road trip to the South. This excuse didn’t make sense; I can’t think of someone better suited for a road trip than a brother or sister who doesn’t get bored or irritated and isn’t picky about what they eat.

  These inconvenient Blocks, along with the ones who were orphaned by irresponsible parents, combined to form a quiet community at Block group homes. Lines of Blocks stretched to every corner of the transitioned buildings. Once they were taken to the group care centers, you couldn’t tell one Block from another. The neglected Blocks and the bastard Blocks mixed together as a single, unified, quiet society.

  No matter how great their numbers, they would always be a pitiful and defenseless army. It reminded me of a sci-fi movie where a battalion of androids was being created in a factory, their sole purpose to unleash terror on the masses. All they needed was the command to wake up so they could begin their war. Except the activation code for the Blocks had been permanen around the about ve beently lost. They would never lift an arm against another being. You could dress them in military uniforms, you could put rifles in their hands. They would gladly sit through all of the indoctrination videos you could think of. But they would never pull a trigger or obey an order.

  This was one of the reasons the Great De-evolution signaled an end to war. None of the newborn babies would be able to fill the empty ranks or take orders when they grew up. As the last regular adults in the military got to be in their thirties and forties, they had no new recruits to command. These people were still promoted, but the promotions no longer signaled an increased number of men to lead. A general was seen walking the hallways of the Pentagon without a single man to give orders to. An admiral stood on the deck of a destroyer that was still anchored ashore. The giant boat had no one to pilot it.

  The other reason there were no more wars was that the world leaders, even the craziest ones, realized there was no point to invading another country if it meant you were helping nature deplete the last remaining normal people. Democracy no longer needed to spread across the globe to ensure future generations could vote because future generations wouldn’t exist. Communist countries released their grip, letting people say and hear whatever they wanted because, in the end, it didn’t matter what information was controlled if the rulers were already counting down their time. People across the world realized the same fate was in store for everyone else. Borders began to fall. The men who used to carry machine guns took off their uniforms for the last time and became regular citizens who needed to worry about taking care of their families. In America, these former soldiers began assisting with various aspects of the Survival Bill. In other countries, they worked in factories, labored on farms, or just disappeared.

  Congressmen, no longer needed to make new laws, said goodbye to each other and flew back to their home states. Only the President felt a need to keep up appearances by going to a secure bunker with his family and a handful of top aides. For all I know they might still be in that hollowed-out mountain. Or, without seeing the sun for a year, they might have lost their minds or opened the hatch doors and wandered off into the wilderness. I would rather be in Camelot with the bears and dogs than be bunkered inside a mountain for the rest of my life. My roof leaks and a bear could easily break through my patio door, but it’s a better existence than living inside a fortified mountain. I’m better off than the President! Somehow, that fails to make me feel any better.

  December 10It’s difficult to get into new habits. I told myself I would write in this journal of mankind about ve been every day, but after the chores are finished and I sit in front of the TV with Andrew, it’s easier to stay on the sofa and wait for the next day to arrive than it is to get up and go to the computer for the sole purpose of facing the same questions that keep me up at night. It didn’t help that Andrew had a bad night and that the next morning I was also feeling under the weather.

  At the beginning of her diary, Anne Frank said no one is interested in the words of a thirteen year-old girl. Well, no one should be interested in the words of an eighty-two year-old man either. And even if someone would be intrigued by what I had to say, no one is around to read it. The other houses in the neighborhood are dark and silent. As far as our neighborhood is concerned, maybe even the entire state, Andrew and I are the end, the Omega. I don’t know if it’s a matter of being pessimistic or simply being realistic, but a whisper keeps sounding in my head: “You have a limited amount of time left. Why are you spending it this way?”

  The other part of me says there has to be something after us. Even after Andrew and I are dead, life will continue. Life always continues. Every other species has been unaffected by what is happening to humans. Most have thrived because of our departure. Maybe, millions of years from now, the world will find new ways to create complex life, or gorillas and chimps will evolve once again. Maybe their evolution will create a beautiful new race of creatures that somewhat resembles man, shares man’s intellect, but has fewer of our negative traits. They won’t be violent. They won’t be so eager to put each other down or to rule by fear. Cynicism won’t exist. Concepts of slavery and bigotry would seem silly to these complex creatures.

  A paper version of the diary would have crumbled to ashes by then. A copy on my computer would be just as useless. Not that I really believe in aliens, but maybe a spaceship will visit our planet, find what has been written, and ensure what happened to us doesn’t happen to them. Or, maybe writing this will help me grasp exactly what is happening around me. I convince myself that is why I sit in front of my computer while my brother sits quietly on the sofa and the wilderness reclaims the land around my house.

  All I can do is tell what has happened and how we responded to it. It is neither an indictment nor a justification of anything that has happened, especially when it comes to my own decisions over the years. And maybe, with it, I can figure out what to do next. But do I write about those things? Of course not. I decided to write about fake lasagna and wet kitchen floors. If an advanced alien species found my diary a hundred years from now, they would either think my journal to be a joke, or they would think I was the world’s stupidest person. What other kind of man would write about pasta instead of the end of mankind?

  Each night I wonder what will happen to Andrew if I have a sudden heart attack and die before him. He would hav, staring blankly at the wall do e a day or two before his nutrient bag was depleted. After that he would slowly go hungry and become dehydrated until he withered away to nothing. He would never cry out for help or drag himself across the floor to the kitchen; he would simply stay in his seat from one day to the next and starve until his organs shut down. Even if he could yell out, who would help him? Now that the Johnsons are gone, our closest neighbors are probably a hundred miles away—much too far to hear if there was an emergency. One of the greatest luxuries my parents had was the ability to pick up the phone, dial 9-1-1, and have ambulances or fire trucks show up within five minutes.

  If only every day could be as good as today. The chores were done by early afternoon, so the rest of the day Andrew and I watched movies. The selections didn’t consist of anything too serious, just a bunch of old action movies where the hero always ends up killing a bunch of bad guys before getting his family back or saving the city. I ate popcorn and drank soda until I was jittery from all the sugar. All in all, it was a good day.

  Sometimes a scary scene comes on when we’re watching movies and I say something like, “I hope you don’t have problems falling asleep tonight,” or, “I hope that doesn’t give you nightmares.” Andrew doesn’t respond, however, and I know I say these things just to hear what it sounds like to listen to a living person, even if it’s just my own voice. Andrew never laughs at the funny parts of the movies or cries at the sad
parts. He doesn’t get upset when the stubborn hero refuses to change his ways, nor does he cheer when that same hero finally earns his vindication. I cheer enough for both of us.

  December 11Andrew has a slight fever again. He can never tell me if he isn’t feeling well—hell, I don’t even know if he can feel well or not well—it was only by chance that I noticed his warm forehead this morning. Nothing has changed just because the Johnsons are gone, I tell myself. But no matter how many times I say it, it never sounds convincing. If they were here, I would ask them for advice, ask if they notice their sisters getting sick more often as they get older too. Without them, I do my best to take care of a life that can’t take care of itself.

  After my parents were gone and I inherited sole responsibility of taking care of him, a slew of new habits formed: I checked his diaper for messes, his gums and teeth for infection, his back and legs for bed sores. I do these things partly because he ca a nice, quiet neighborhood2HWlln’t tell me if he has a problem, but the other reason is that it became an easy way to make myself feel like I was taking care of him the way I should, the way that would make my parents proud. It looks like I’ll be adding ‘touching his forehead every morning’ to that list.

  For his current fever I put a small dose of cold medicine in his nutrient bag. If that doesn’t do the trick, I’m not sure what else I can do. The days of going to the doctor are long gone. The last hospitals shut down more than a decade ago. The last doctors did what everyone else did: fended for themselves or went south to join one of the group communities. Everyone panicked the day, years ago, it was announced the county hospital was finally closing its doors. No one thought they would be able to care for their loved ones without professional doctors and nurses around. But not much really changed after the hospital staff quit. People found ways to care for the ones they loved. That’s what people do. I probably would have gone to the hospital to have my ankle x-rayed, almost twelve years ago, after missing a step on the way down to the basement. The shooting pain near my foot made me sure something was broken. Instead, I simply iced it and took aspirin. It was back to normal two weeks later. And I probably would have taken Andrew to see a doctor a few years back when I accidently dropped him while moving him from his wheelchair to the sofa. There was never a sign of a bruise, though, so I think Andrew was most likely fine as well. I didn’t even know what kind of test I would have asked the doctor to give my brother. It’s not like they would have randomly performed x-rays on each part of his body until I was satisfied with the results.

  Dropping Andrew that time and not seeing him flinch was a reminder of the tests I used to give him to see if I could elicit a response. There were times growing up, and again after my parents passed away, when I would think of little things to do to see if Andrew could understand something I said or did. During the first years of the Great De-evolution, a small percentage of the new-born children were partial Blocks, a state that left them with normal minds trapped inside useless bodies. They couldn’t move or talk, couldn’t even blink on command, but a battery of tests revealed they had fairly normal brain activity. These were the bourgeoisie of the Blocks, still motionless, but superior to those with little or no brain activity. Some of these children had microchips inserted into their brains so a small computer could translate their thoughts into words and phrases. Everyone in those days held hope that if their child was going to be a Block, at least it might be a Block with an active mind. They were grasping at straws, but I guess it gave parents the hope they needed to get through difficult times. A lot of parents in those days just wanted to feel like their baby was a continuation of them, not a mannequin with a healthy heart and lungs.

  Those partial Blocks only appeared in the first couple of months, and only sporadically, before quickly giving way to a hundred percent of the children being completely Blocked. My parents got irritated with me for holding out hope that Andrew could be one of the lucky few who might be able to understand the world around him. The doctors had already given him the entire range of tests to check for relevant brain activity. He failed every o raging teenage hormones in the other ne. But there I would be, sitting on the living room floor, saying something to elicit a response from my baby brother.

  One of my earliest experiments was simply yelling in front of him when his eyes were closed. Of course his eyes never gave the slightest flicker of recognition. Sometimes, just to see if he would smile, I held a bowl of ice cream in front of his face or, and I’m not proud of this, told him that doctors found a cure for being a Block. My parents would walk to the edge of the living room and tell me to leave him alone. If I was still conducting my immature experiments the next time they walked past the room, I was given more chores to do.

  My father would come in my room on those nights and tell me why the tests weren’t important. “Your mom and I love your brother for who he is. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t talk or move. He’s still our son. It doesn’t even matter if he thinks or doesn’t think. He’s still the same person to us.”

  “But he can’t even blink a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’” I said, as though that were a factor in how much or how little someone should be loved. My father took the type of deep breath that let me know I was lucky he didn’t spank me. In place of stinging my ass cheeks, he walked away without saying anything.

  The last time I spoke to my mother, before she went to sleep and didn’t wake up, she told me that Andrew was a part of me and should be respected as such. She told me it didn’t matter if my brother couldn’t laugh at my stupid jokes (she didn’t use the word stupid, I added that in) or play soccer with me in the backyard, he was to be cherished just the same. He was my parents’ child. He was my brother. As the population got smaller and smaller and the other people I knew from my childhood passed away or moved to the final communities, Andrew was the one person who stayed with me.

  My tests with Andrew didn’t stop, though, just because my parents told me to leave him alone. They also didn’t stop just because I got older, or because I appreciated him as my flesh and blood brother, which I do.

  They usually started as part of the boredom that ensued during the one-sided conversations I had with him. Even something as simple as talking becomes a forgotten skill if you have no one to talk to. Sometimes, when I ask Andrew a question, the only noise that comes out of my throat is a slight croak. It sounds like I’m gagging on food before the words are formed. The idea of forgetting how to carry on a conversation or tell stories terrifies me. So I do all of these things with Andrew even though he doesn’t understand my words, simply stares off into the distance. His gaze never moves from one spot on the wall to another unless I readjust his head. I like to think he appreciates having different things to , she shook her head and do look at, but of course he doesn’t care.

  The easiest of my tests with him was to ask a question and tell him to blink once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no.’ Needless to say, the doctors’ tests were much more complicated and reliable. I always held out hope, though, that their tests were wrong. Maybe the same disease that came over him when he was still in the womb would release its grip as he got older. That was what I tried to convince myself of, although I had no reason to think that would be the case. I’m sure the majority of families held the same hopes for their Blocks. The casual tests on Andrew stopped about thirty years ago when a hopeful breakthrough turned into humiliation and heartbreak.

  The night of my final test with Andrew, I asked if he was doing okay. It was the question I asked him more than any other. I never expected a response; it was just something to say before I started rambling. But on this night he blinked when I asked the question. I barely noticed it because I was so used to non-responses or to blinks that didn’t mean anything.

  “Andrew?”

  He blinked.

  “Can you hear me?”

  He blinked.

  “Say yes.”

  He blinked.

  “Say no.”

  He blinked twice. />
  I must have screamed and jumped. Miracles were possible! I was out of breath and gasping. Andrew still couldn’t move his arms or legs or open his mouth, but he could talk to me with his eyes! He could answer my questions. He could give me someone to spend quality time with. Suddenly, I was presented with someone who could offer advice. He blinked again. Eager to know what he was saying, I asked what he wanted. An inkling of doubt crept into my head, and I found myself holding my breath until I gave the next command and got the next response.

  “Say ‘yes.’”

  There was no quickly became overwhelmed aof response.

  “Andrew, say ‘yes.’”

  He blinked twice, then three times.

  And that was it. A moment later he blinked one more time, then shut his eyes for an hour. There had been no rhyme or reason to any of his blinks. It was dumb luck, or, not really luck at all, but me engaging in dumb behavior that eventually mimicked progress. In the end, it was no different than if I had given him a deck of cards and kept guessing which card would be next until, by sheer coincidence, I managed to get three in a row correct.

  I always tried as much as possible to keep from being upset in front of my brother. Any time I got mad or frustrated, I went back to my room, shut the door, and turned on music so he wouldn’t be able to hear me curse. I knew he couldn’t hear me anyway, that turning on music wouldn’t make a difference. That night, though, I cried right in front of him. I cried and cried, realizing that the momentary flicker of hope not only made me feel foolish, but reminded me how ashamed my parents would have been of the test in the first place.

  After that episode, I stopped sheltering Andrew from my outbursts. The next time I got mad, probably from bumping into a doorframe or dropping a jar in the kitchen, I screamed curses as loud as my old voice would let me. I said every four letter word I could think of in every random order I could think of. There was no apology following my outburst, either. Instead, I walked straight past him to my bedroom and slammed my door.