Life After: The Void

by Bryan Way

  “Any feedback?”

  “That was probably the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen.” Mel volunteers. “Like… ever.”

  “Anyone else feel that way?”

  For once, the silence indicates that this feeling is universal.

  “Good.” I start.

  “…good?” Jake blurts.

  “Now when we talk about nuclear weapons… you know what we mean.”

  “He’s right…” Rich offers. “If we tell you we’ve got to move… you know exactly why.”

  “Anyone see parallels with where we are now?”

  I watch several faces as they silently connect the dots.

  “When something like this happens… there’s nothing we can do to take it back. We can survive, endure… even thrive… but there’s no going back… we’re left staring into the abyss.”

  “The abyss?” Mel asks.

  “The future.”

  “…I don’t get it.”

  “Before October, you had an idea of what your future was going to be, right? School, work, holidays… now we’re living day to day. Maybe for the rest of our lives.”

  I get the vibe that most of the group is currently in sensory overload and would best be served by taking some time to contemplate what we just saw. When conversation peters out, I take the DVD back to my room and look at the doorway to see that Mel has followed me. She stares at me for a moment, and then turns her gaze toward the doorway, running her fingers along the frame while she cogitates.

  “What do you think happens when we die?” She asks.

  “…why would you ask me that?”

  “C’mon… you just made us watch a movie where, like, everyone dies. You don’t believe in God. So what do you think happens?”

  “…nothing.” I reply firmly.

  “…does that make you feel better?”

  “I… don’t know what you mean…”

  “Better than if you did believe.”

  “…no.”

  Mel’s sigh is fraught with heartache.

  “So… you don’t want to believe it?” She continues.

  “I’m sure it’d be easier, but I… I… can’t idealize death the same way I can’t idealize life.”

  “So it’s all just shit…”

  “Of course not.”

  “How can you… live… thinking that? We die, and just… that’s it… none of it mattered?”

  “Sure it does…” I start. “Look… if you think… if I think that none of it matters in the end… then I have to believe that thinking about it doesn’t matter… right?”

  Mel leans against the doorframe, throwing up her arms and jolting her neck forward to indicate I didn’t make any sense.

  “If I believe my thoughts and actions are meaningless…” I continue. “Then I have to accept that worrying about them is meaningless too.”

  “Then… shit, Jeff, why bother staying alive?”

  “Because I’m here. I didn’t choose to be here, but I am.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “Well, it’s all in what you choose to believe. I’m here now and someday I’ll be gone. So I choose happiness. It’s not an easy goal… especially now… but I want to enjoy what I have while I have it.”

  “And that gets you through the day?” She asks, after a moment.

  “…it does.”

  “Then you’re full of shit.”

  The statement is so blunt it stanches my ability to think. “You mope around here more than anyone else, except Jake maybe… but at least he’s quiet… you’re always bitching about something… and you want me to buy that you’re trying to be happy? Uh-uh… I’m sure you wanna believe that shit…” Rage floods my bloodstream quicker than I could have imagined, and though I can picture a time where I would have just swallowed it, I don’t see the point now.

  “I’m sorry, and you… what… believe the invisible man in the sky is gonna give you harp lessons on a cloud when you croak? I may be cynical and depressed, but I’m not delusional…”

  “More bullshit…”

  “Oh, sing the song of your people… if you disagree with me, then I’m full of shit… if I’m so full of it, stop talking to me!”

  She smiles, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling while sinking her tongue into the bottom of her right cheek.

  “Nothing’s changed.” She mutters.

  “What?”

  “You’re still an asshole.”

  “And you’re an unbelievable bitch.”

  “…at least now you’re being honest.”

  With that, she takes a few steps back, freezes for a moment, and finally turns to walk off. “Son of a bitch…” I mutter, taking a full minute to rub my forehead and my eyes. Before I finish, I unexpectedly let out a few short laughs.

  As I change into my pajamas, ice down my back, and settle into bed, I find myself wondering how the day started, and it takes about five minutes for me to realize that I was woken in a start due to a small cadre of the undead marching across our front lawn. Yesterday was Christmas. Christmas Eve makes it to the list of the top five worst days in my life with a bullet, and that was preceded by yet another nipping at its heels when I met Tracy Dantis.

  I get up to check the door again, which is securely locked, unsurprisingly. I’m fortunate that the doors are so heavy, and that the glass, if broken, would make a horrendous noise tantamount to waking me up. Nevertheless, I again perch my bicep under my chin once I’ve settled into bed.

  It strikes me that I wasn’t wrong when I told the group we were living day to day. The immediate future is shrouded in secrecy, so we can only hope we’ve girded ourselves well enough to survive it. When I think of the future as an undiscovered country, I smile and reflect that my association with that term is due to Star Trek VI rather than the original Shakespeare text. Nevertheless, the concept that tomorrow will remain featureless until I open my eyes is entrancing enough to render me unconscious.

  12-27-04, MONDAY

  I open my eyes at some point after the sun has risen, stirred by some vague perception that something is wrong somewhere. I listen for footsteps, the PA, or excited chatter, but I hear nothing. It only takes a few seconds of indecision for me to settle on going back to sleep.

  It happens again. What I wouldn’t give for two consecutive nights with uninterrupted sleep. I once again get caught between sleeping and waking, powerless against my brain’s refusal to behave logically; I’m rolling from one side to another, believing that facing a new direction will tune the shape of my dreams.

  When I wake up again, I know consciousness is going to stick, so I get up to attend my morning needs. Halfway through brushing my teeth I realize I haven’t showered in a few days and probably stink, so I vow to do that next. While brushing, I peek through the window to the courtyard and discover that it is snowing yet again. It appears as though the ultimate accumulation will amount to little more than an additional dusting. My shower is uneventful, though it does provide me with an improved outlook on the day.

  After a desultory conversation with Rich and Mursak about the lack of undead surrounding the school, I find myself with little to do and begin wandering the halls aimlessly. When I pass the computer lab in the technology wing, I can hear Ally typing away furiously. I walk over, and when she sees me standing in the doorway, she smiles dismissively before returning her attention to the computer. “How’s it going?” I ask of no subject in particular. She holds up a finger before continuing to type, so I have a seat and wait for her to finish.

  “Sorry about that…” She says finally.

  “No problem… what’re you working on?”

  “Thesis.”

  “What for?”

  “…my degree.”

  “I meant what’s it about.” I say, swallowing my irritation.

  “It’s a theoretical dissertation on social dynamics in the age of the internet.”

  “Wow.” I manage. It even sounds like bullshit. “Is that something cl
inical psychologists do?”

  “Well, my approach is better categorized as Humanistic, even if my degree is clinical. I had some tenuous thoughts on the subject when I was first accepted to UPenn… there’s not much research on it, as you can imagine… so I’ve had to do most of the legwork. Thus far the data is… compelling.”

  “What data?”

  “Well… are you aware of the concept of a global village?”

  “Yeah.”

  “…really?”

  “Yeah…” I continue, slightly annoyed. “I took a media culture class and Marshall McLuhan was discussed at length.”

  “Oh, excellent… I was researching the epidemic failure to maintain personal privacy and the corollary global desensitization in regards to confidentiality on the internet.”

  “That’s a mouthful. Mind giving me the Brief History of the Time version?”

  “Sure.” Ally continues with a smile. “If technology allows us to become a global village, the internet can be thought of as the town hall. Theoretically, a piece of information, no matter how minute, is visible to anyone with unrestricted access to the internet. Now… if you were to write a diary that you intended to post on a billboard in your local town hall, you might be careful about revealing personal details right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Putting that same information on the internet from the privacy of a personal computer is a far more intimate exchange… it may not be immediately apparent to the writer that their diary is visible to everyone and could easily be exploited. The text can be copied, pasted, or an entire website could be reproduced elsewhere even if privacy precautions are observed, especially when you consider the ease with which hackers, a term I use loosely, can penetrate those settings… ergo, no information made available on the internet can be considered privileged.”

  “Interesting…”

  “However, because of the author’s conception that these thoughts were conceived and cataloged in an intimate environment, violation of their perceived confidentiality incurs a visceral reaction… they feel their privacy was invaded and seek to paint themselves as victims despite the fact that they took the initiative to make this information public.”

  “Wow…” I manage. “So if I wrote a Xanga journal about, say, losing my virginity…”

  “Right… the internet allows its users the ability to quickly disseminate thoughts and opinions that immediately become open to public opinion and ridicule… and the more prevalent these social networking sites become, the worse it will get.”

  “What do you mean… social networking sites?”

  “Like MySpace.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “You build an online profile, upload pictures, add friends, make comments… it’s like… an interactive business card.”

  “What’s interesting about that?”

  “Inasmuch as the internet is driven by the allocation of content, the exclusive nature of that content gains priority. This is why Facebook is probably going to be a big part of the future.”

  “Never heard of that either. What do you mean by… exclusive nature of content?”

  “What’s more interesting to you…” Ally starts. “A limited conflict in the Middle East, or what a recent ex-girlfriend did last night?”

  “Wow… good point…”

  “And I’m sure that ex-girlfriend would be disgusted if she found out you were checking up on her, but you’d think she’d have thought twice about making her private life public knowledge.”

  “I doubt she’d have that in mind.”

  “It doesn’t matter either way. It’s the town hall… the information is public, and you couldn’t control your own reaction to it. Or, if she’s passive aggressive, she could be revealing information in an attempt to make you envious. And she can still feign outrage if your reaction ends up online.”

  “So… what’s the point?”

  “Of what?”

  “The dissertation?”

  “That private life is a relic of the past in the internet age. Furthermore, the slow desensitization to this fact, as social networking sites grow, will create behavior that is more outlandish and reactions to it commonplace. In the future, anything anyone has ever done will be readily accessible on the internet… irrelevant thoughts could perpetuate on social networking sites, and as a result, people will frivolously air their dirty laundry in a manner that befits a psychological profile… just by reading a few posts on the internet, you’ll be able to tell if someone’s passive aggressive, egomaniacal, or desperate for attention. Even if you second guess and remove potentially inflammatory content, the possibility that someone else saw it precludes your ability to erase it. Affirmation will become instantaneous… people will be obsessive in their desire to instantly share trivial bits of news, and even more fanatical when it comes to sharing their opinion about it.”

  “I’m guessing you’re not a fan of this happening.” I offer, after a reasonable pause.

  “It baffles me. Sharing personal information at the expense of others to a waiting horde of junkies desperate to eat up the illicit details of other people’s lives…”

  “You really see that happening?”

  “I’m no expert on information technology, but I think it already is. I’m not entirely against the proliferation of data, however. If the outbreak had happened a few years from now when the greater population’s tech savvy matched the capabilities of modern social networking , you would have seen much better containment.”

  “It’s a shame you’re not getting much out of this now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her question is the only thing that makes me realize the implications of my statement. Clearly, she still feels as though the world will just pick up where it left off at some point and that the work she’s doing is still somehow pertinent, but I have a feeling even vaguely suggesting that is tantamount to destruction. However, when it comes to dodging in a conversation this close-quartered, I have no recourse.

  “Well, just… the way things are, you’re gonna be hard pressed to get something like that published… by the way, uh… totally unrelated… Jake tell you about his song project?”

  “Oh yes, I love it…” She says, reaching next to the computer tower to produce a CD. “Great distraction.”

  “Where’d you get that?” I ask, wondering if the ‘distraction’ comment was addressing the project or my tap dance around confronting her sheltered worldview.

  “I was listening to it a lot a few months ago… ever heard of Denali?”

  “Can’t say I have…”

  She puts the CD in the computer tray and plays the first track, a slowly building, haunting, but heavy guitar-laden track with an ethereal female vocalist. It’s outside my wheelhouse, but I enjoy it.

  “French Mistake.”

  “That’s the song?” I ask.

  “Yeah… they broke up this year… but I think they’ll get back together…”

  She returns to typing immediately, buffering the space that might have offered me an opportunity to respond. As my eyes linger, I wonder what’s going to happen when she realizes this isn’t going to end. Her defenses must be failing a bit more each day. With this in mind, I try to exit the room as casually as I can.

  As I walk past the doors to the stairwell annexing the breezeway, Mel jogs down the steps and pops into the hall behind me. “Jeff…” I turn back, looking at her as though she were speaking to someone else. “Oh come on…” She sounds buoyant, almost jovial, so I stop.

  “What?” I ask.

  “… what? Did I stutter?”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong… but aren’t we… fighting?”

  “That was yesterday.” She spouts breathlessly.

  “…and now…?”

  “We’re cool… unless you’re not…?”

  “I…”

  “Don’t be such a girl… you never learned how to fight?”

  “I… I’m so confused I’m star
ting to wonder what language you’re speaking.”

  She removes the buds from her ears.

  “Look, we had a fight…”

  “Yeah.” I agree.

  “And now it’s over. You still pissed at me?”

  “I… don’t even know.”

  “Probably not then.” Mel responds. “We’re cool. Let it go. See ya.”

  She playfully punches my shoulder as she continues off down the hall. Rather than try to rationalize this exchange, I retire to my room and have a go at my keyboard. That gets boring enough to fill me with ennui after roughly an hour, so I repair to the cafeteria and find Mursak enjoying a meal. We exchange a few thoughts on Rob and again realize the limitations of our investigative abilities. Barring one iota of physical evidence, our case against him is circumstantial, and though we need not convince a judge that he might be dangerous, we still have no idea what to do with him even if we do convince everyone of his guilt.

  After the meal, I get some more naproxen and ice my back again, during which the effects of a weird and largely useless day weigh heavy on my mind. In a rare feat of foresight, I realize the best way to erase my mood is to go to sleep early, so I do, even if paranoia again sees me worried about the vulnerability of my throat.

  12-28-04, TUESDAY

  Dizziness greets me when I wake up, and a brief eye rub reveals the sensation of my eyes having been sucked into the back of my head; I can believe I’ve finally caught up on sleep when I catch a whiff of cigarettes on the other pillow, confirming that Mel slept in the bed last night. After breakfast, I take care of my morning bathroom needs and decide to take an unannounced walk out on the front yard, something that is generally frowned upon.

  The snow from the previous day remains, but the lumpy intrusions of red point out the landing spots of corpses underneath the settled precipitation. Gazing into the suburban home fronts invites a feeling of desperation. I once lamented that my own house didn’t feel like my home anymore, and though I’ve had a sterling opportunity to make do in the high school, I’m not sure I’ll ever have that feeling again. How can people allow themselves the illusion of security when it’s tied to a shattered convention of safety? And how had I never considered that Helen has to look at her house every day she sits in the security office? Is that why she does it?