The Man Who Watched The World End

by Dietzel, Chris

  At least if Andrew were my older brother I’d have the reassurance that he would be the first one to go. Whereas Andrew quietly passing away would be my best-case scenario, me being the one to die first is my worst case. It would leave Andrew by himself, unable to refill his nutrient bag. He would sit alone until he died. What if Andrew is the exception to the Block’s lifespan? What if he has an exceptionally healthy heart and lungs that would let him live another ten years if it wasn’t for me dying and leaving him to wither away? That’s why I should have made the trip to a group community when I had the chance.

  The easy bet for my downfall would have been a heart attack or sickness, maybe being surprised by a pack of wolves. Nothing so simple as a dog bite. I cried out when I finally took the bandages off my hand this morning. In the light, some parts of my hand were white with puss. Other parts were purple where the blood was pooling under the skin. It took all of my might to clean it again and put more antiseptic on it.

  I re-bandaged it as quickly as possible so I didn’t have to keep looking at it. Although there isn’t a single scene from a movie that makes me look away, I have always avoided the pains of real life. My mom and dad would have been reminded of the little boy who refused to play in the backyard for a month so I didn’t have to see the place where Oscar was buried. By the time I did go in the backyard again, the grass had grown back and I didn’t have to know exactly which segment had been given to him.

  It’s all but impossible to make a fist now. Pressing my fingers against the keyboard is excruciating. There is, obviously, no one to blame for all of this but myself. I was the one dumb enough to trust that dog and treat it like a friend. I was stupid to give it water in the first place. How many other animals were drawn to my house because they saw the water dish or noticed one of their own kind coming to my door every day and being treated like a prince?

  Chalk it up to a long line of idiotic mistakes I’ve made, the worst of which was staying in Camelot when everyone else filed out. One by one, the houses emptied as their owners drove past me on their way to a better (at least in their eyes) destination. The entire neighborhood was full at one point. How many evacuating people would it have taken in the neighborhood before I finally changed my mind and joined them? If the neighborhood had two hundred houses instead of one hundred, would it have made any difference? If they had all left at the same time instead of slowly trickling away, would I have packed my bags and loaded Andrew in the car so I could be a member of the caravan? If these same people were evacuating from a building during a fire alarm I would have surely joined them, so why did I sit idly by as they left this neighborhood? I wish I knew the answer—just as I wish I knew how the Johnsons could do what they did.q b do

  The horror replays itself in my head. I wish I could forget it. I wish I had never gone down the street. I wish I had left the neighborhood a long time ago. I wish, I wish, I wish.

  February 15

  With the last of the real wine gone, I had to switch over to the food processor’s version. Something amazing: you can barely tell the difference. The only thing that makes it feel unnatural, I suppose, is that there’s nothing romantic about pouring yourself a glass of wine out of the same humming processor that gives you shrimp pasta and tenderloins, not compared to the splash of pouring from a nice bottle. The Canadian sisters wouldn’t have been so carefree if they had to get up from the picnic table every time they needed a refill from the processor. It was much nicer passing a bottle around the table anytime we wanted more. It was exhilarating sitting with the two of them each time a new cork popped free from its bottle. It meant more talking. More laughter. You didn’t have to leave your friends, even for a second, to get another glass. Each trip to the kitchen would have given an opportunity to feel wobbly, to think about the chores you had to do the next day, to break up any chance of continuous conversation. But for a party of one, which I am these days, I guess it suffices.

  The nice thing for me, the silver lining in my situation, where I drink by myself to let the alcohol dull the pain in my hand, is that I have an endless supply of whatever type of drink I want. Cosmopolitans, martinis, Long Island iced tea—you name it. I can let the food processor start another batch while I’m emptying the first dose. The processor will click shut, beep twice, and then start humming. The creation is finished before I can empty my previous glass; I’ll never be able to drink faster than the machine produces. Imagine if farmers had the same problem! Before they could harvest their crops, the field would be full of fresh, new vegetables. It’s like looking down into a crevice and knowing no matter how long you listen for the rock you dropped to hit bottom, it never will. You keep listening and listening but nothing ever clanks. You keep drinking and drinking but the glass is never empty. It’s an easy way to lose yourself and wake up with a blazing headache. Three of the last four mornings have seen me wake up with a fire alarm going off inside my skull.

  It would be nice if the food processor could create me a batch of aspirin. I guess if I was crafty enough with manipulating the pre-set commands I could get around the built-in settings that prevent medications from being generated. There are probably a hundred different suggestions online for exactly how to hack into theq bon thoughsp food processor’s settings so you can make whatever you want: aspirin, antibiotics, laxatives, heroin.

  I still laugh when I think about the public outcry that took place when it was announced the government issued food processors would be able to recreate alcoholic drinks but not medicine. Heaven forbid we should be able to relax and enjoy a beer while we watched the human population get older and fade away. The same people who found a reason to protest everything the government ever did, every ruling the Supreme Court ever made, every bill proposed by the Senate, found time to hold up signs protesting machines that could get you drunk but couldn’t address your medical needs. The only difference with their protests was that instead of a hundred people demonstrating, it was three or four senior citizens, none of whom looked like they really wanted to be holding a sign in the first place. The other former protestors had grown too old to continue yelling above everyone else, or they had moved south where they worried about their new life rather than the previous, unhappy one that hadn’t worked out so well for them. The few protestors devoted to displaying their discontent held up signs questioning the wisdom of providing booze to the depressed but leaving the sick to fend for themselves. They believed you were letting cancer patients suffer while handing loaded guns to the suicidal masses.

  The rebuttal was that everyone knew their limits for drink. If they chose to exceed those limits, then that was each individual’s personal choice. On the other hand, only doctors knew enough to prescribe the correct amount of each medication to be taken. If you caused additional health problems by overmedicating, the fault lay with the people who provided the drugs. The machine’s maker would never be sued—there were no more practicing lawyers by that time, the last courthouses were hearing gavels bang for the final time—but they didn’t want one final blot on their conscience.

  Giving the everyman a chance to drink away his worries was a lot different from allowing them to create any type of in-house pharmaceutical they wanted. If a man in Seattle or Chicago just happened to be extremely depressed because he didn’t have any kids and would never have the opportunity, well, here was a machine that could give him a beer to dull the hurt. If a woman in New York or St. Louis couldn’t make the journey south with everyone else, she could pour herself a glass of Cabernet and fade away while remembering the good times. There’s no telling how many people chose to stay in their houses while everybody else headed south just because they could relax in front of their fireplace with whatever sweet wine or dark beer they wanted.

  The nights I sit around drinking wine by myself, I imagine what I would do in various situations. If I had the option of either packing all of my things, not knowing where exactly I was going to be living, or staying here in my own home that I’m familiar with, I woul
d choose the latter. Getting to sip on a glass of champagne while I stay here just makes the deal that much sweeter. Not to insinuate that’s why I’m here right now. Until a couple of days ago I could and yelled, “April Fool!”re. other n’t have cared less about drinking away the pain.

  I’m here for Andrew. Everything I’ve ever done has been for him. But still, while I’m affording myself the chance to daydream other lives, I can’t help but imagine getting a chance to see Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower, imagine riding a camel out to the pyramids, imagine seeing the lights pulsate in downtown Tokyo. So many things I never got to see or do. So many parts of the world I’ll never get to know. If that’s not reason enough to go back to the kitchen and have another glass of wine, I don’t know what is.

  February 22These past two weeks haven’t been good to me. The day after going down to the Johnsons’ house I came down with another cold. Andrew has another fever as well. The infection on his forearm hasn’t gotten better. My hand feels like it’s going to fall off. I’ve spent my days sitting on the recliner with three blankets over me, going in and out of sleep like someone struggling to survive an operation. There’s no way to know how much of my fever is caused from the cold and how much is from the infection in my hand. I make sure, though, that Andrew has just as many blankets covering him as I have for myself. My clothes are soaked with sweat each time I wake up.

  My first thought upon opening my eyes is always about the Johnsons’ house. The fact that Andrew also has a cold makes me wonder if I got him sick, he got me sick, or if there is something in the house making us both sick. Probably the mold. The times I’m not under my blankets, I’m cleaning Andrew. I change his diapers and pants whenever I feel good enough to stand and walk around. I don’t feel guilty anymore when I wash him on the sofa instead of taking him to the bathroom. It’s no longer a matter of being lazy or of my back aching. In my weakened state, the more I walk the greater the threat I might stumble over my own feet and hurt myself. A couple of months ago, my ego would have kept me from admitting that.

  I focus on the pain in my hand to block out what happened down the street, but not even my searing, gimpy hand can shut off my mind. I will have those images stuck in my head for the rest of my life.

  February 23I lookedq never spsp e through another of our old photo albums today. The entire book was filled with images of Andrew and me during the first ten years we lived in Camelot. Every single picture was taken somewhere within our neighborhood. There were no pictures of us at the Grand Canyon or the Statue of Liberty. Not a single picture showed us at a baseball game or at a restaurant. Even then I rarely ventured further than a few miles from home. If Andrew was with me I wouldn’t travel further than the Johnsons’ house. Most of the photos were from inside our home or in our backyard. Some were taken at the Johnsons’ house when they hosted cookouts.

  Every couple of pages, equaling a year’s time in the chronology of our lives as represented in pictures, there were photographs of us from Halloween. Halloween was always my favorite holiday, and the pictures of us from that day always make me smile more than any other. I used to take issue with how some Blocks were treated by their relatives; it seemed insulting to parade a Block around the neighborhood with a new haircut or freshly painted fingernails. These things were done to demonstrate how much the Block was supposedly loved by its family, even though the Block had no idea it was being put on display. One guy down the street even got his Block brother’s arms covered in tattoos so they had matching designs. The Block’s brother was nice enough to wear sleeveless shirts so everyone could see their matching ink. The Block had no say in whether or not he wanted his arms permanently covered in dragons and fire. I wonder what he would have thought if he gained consciousness one day and found Asian-themed tattoos covering his arms from shoulder to wrist. Would he look down and say, “Wow, awesome!” or would he get up and walk to his brother’s room, lean his head in, and say, “You stupid dick.”

  Halloween was the one time I didn’t worry about whether or not Andrew would feel silly if he could see what I was doing or, more importantly, what he was being dressed as. One year I was Abe Lincoln and he was George Washington. Another year, I was Chewbacca and he was Han Solo. One time we even dressed as Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. The Johnsons were one of the only other families in Camelot who bothered acknowledging Halloween once the world’s population started plummeting. Most of the world was eager to forget the pseudo-holiday as soon as there were no more children around to go trick-or-treating. The six of us—Andrew and me, Mike and Mindy, and their two Block sisters—had costume parties a few years, but more often than not I would dress Andrew in a fancy costume, get into one myself, and then we would watch a movie as though it were just another night. Mr. Lee came over one time to ask if our incinerator was acting up the same way his was, but when I opened the door dressed as Captain America, with Andrew at the end of the hall dressed as Spiderman, he stuttered and walked away without saying anything else. The Johnsons told me he went down to their house for help after thinking better of asking me. He didn’t fare any different there: they were all dressed as dwarves. Mr. Lee never did get his incinerator fixed. He turned back for home without getting anyone’s advice on how to dispose of his trash. A week later he left the neighborhood.

  As soon as our costumes were finished, I would get the camera out and take a series of pictures with us acting out our new identities. When I was Larry Bird and h a nice, quiet neighborhoode . other e was Michael Jordan, I filled our old basketball with air and took pictures of Andrew shooting over top of me. It was difficult to prop his arms against the table to keep them in a realistic position. And of course he was sitting down in his wheel chair while I was crouched on the floor to make it look like he was able to jump over me. Needless to say, that year’s pictures didn’t turn out very well. When I was Hulk Hogan and he was Ric Flair, however, we had pictures of him giving me a cheap eye gouge followed by a picture of me dropping a giant leg on him as he lay in the middle of the living room floor. If he had his own opinions, Andrew might think this behavior was silly, and I’m usually conscious of not pushing my appetites on him, but I prefer to think that on this one day of the year he would love dressing up with his brother and acting like we were famous movie characters or historical figures.

  The thing I noticed this afternoon when looking at these pictures was that I wasn’t laughing uncontrollably like I normally do when I pull this particular album off the shelf. Instead, I was doing my best not to cry. I excused myself from the sofa where Andrew was sitting, went to my bedroom, and cried for a good ten minutes. I’m not even sure why I was crying, let alone why I was crying then and not any other time in the past twenty years. Lord knows I’ve had plenty of reasons to do so. Every day I’m given a new excuse to cry if I ever needed one. I could have cried when the Canadian sisters left or when the Johnsons snuck away in the night. I could have broken down after the dog showed its true colors or when a rat ate holes in my birth certificate. Who would have guessed that it would be a photo album of Andrew and me wearing hilarious costumes that would finally break my spirit.

  February 25Time hasn’t done anything to make my hand feel better, nor have the few medicines I still have lying around the house. The spreading purple skin convinces me I’m not just being pessimistic. The pain keeps my fingers from moving. I clank away at the keyboard like an ogre. The days of my precision typing, as taught to me by Mrs. Jenkins in high school, are long past. One hand performs with the fingers dashing around half the keyboard. The other hand makes giant lurching movements. One hand belongs to Jekyll. The other belongs to Hyde.

  Compared to the energetic and capable man I used to be, I’m only a partial human being. Before, I had sore knees and a bad back, but I could still take the trash out and put my clothes on like a normal person. With a worthless hand, I struggle to do anything. I’m one-fourth the person who used to host neighborhood cookouts and take Andrew outside to watch the sun set. I’m one-e
ighth the person who used to carry a bag of golf clubs from one hole to another in the blazing sun. How much more of myself can I lose before I‘m incapable of 'inon thoughsptaking care of myself and my brother? What will I do when that day arrives?

  There have been more noises than usual coming from my patio ever since the door shattered. I was crazy to think a dining room table would keep the wilderness out. A bear comes to the other side of the wooden table and growls at the smell of forbidden food. I can’t tell if it’s the same bear every day or different bears all sensing the same delicious treasure. Yesterday, two bears fought over the right to sit outside my broken dining room door. The loser went back into the woods to take care of his wounds. The victor remained on my deck until he eventually lost interest and sauntered off. At other times, when the bears aren’t here, wolves make their approach, checking for gaps in our defenses, then let out howls. The animals have always known Andrew and I are here, but now they can smell us at night, and might even be able to hear me snore.

  The table won’t keep a bear out of our house. Not if it gets frustrated and rams its full weight against the barrier. It would stumble over the table before approaching Andrew. It might not recognize him as food if he doesn’t move or cry out. It might get confused and look for something more entertaining. Knowing Andrew was out there, defenseless, I would have to yell and draw the bear’s attention. It would see me as the moving and frightened target it wants. It would probably leave Andrew alone after it was satisfied with me in its belly, but the wolves and dogs wouldn’t have the same hesitation. They wouldn’t give two thoughts about whether or not he was food just because he wasn’t screaming. And just like that, our house, the final occupied house in the neighborhood, the last house in Camelot, would be empty too.