How to Save the World

by Tam MacNeil

  After a long time he gets out of bed. He’s wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt far too large for him, his bare feet on the warm concrete floor. He goes to the door and looks out from the room.

  It’s an apartment, lit up by the late afternoon sun. A view of the city, all hedged with low white clouds, the mountains close and blue, the water gleaming like glass. He stares. It’s like seeing an old friend, the sight of the city as it goes washing up against the mountains. He’s known it all his life.

  There’s a balcony, and he considers, seriously considers, opening the door and going outside, but he doesn’t dare to touch the handle in case an alarm goes off or the touch of metal breaks this spell. Instead he goes looking around the apartment.

  There are things in here. Two bedrooms, the one he was in and the second one, with a black Canucks bag lying in the middle of the bed, contents spilling out on the rumpled duvet. He goes to it, looks down. A pair of jeans. A pair of boxer shorts. A t-shirt with the word Annex in fading white letters across the chest. A phone. A jacket. He touches the jacket, lifts it, looks at it. Good. Expensive. Annex emblazoned in silver lettering above the heart. Under it, there’s a partially-rolled magazine with a photograph of Jackie Kennedy on the cover under the title. Seems weird. Sean doesn’t read, not really. He touches the magazine, turns it over so that the glossy cover sort of unfurls like a sleeping hand. A slip of paper slides out.

  Cofy

  Is the first thing on the list. The hand is rough, like a child’s writing.

  Soup

  Vodka

  Mint sigs

  Marsbars

  He lifts the magazine up and looks inside the bag. Small, bright things lie tumbled there. A pack of instant coffee. A couple cans of soup and a battered, slightly grubby can opener. Four packages of instant noodles, the expensive ones, the two-dollar ones like they had in Korea. A package of menthol cigarettes still in plastic. A forty of vodka, the red label kind they drank like water when they were in Georgia. Six Mars Bars.

  He is hungry, and he used to like eating those. He opens one and the sugary smell makes his mouth ache. He eats it as fast as he can. It’s cloyingly sweet, but delicious, desperately delicious. He wants another but he knows eating it will make him sick.

  He takes a second one, then covers everything up, folds the magazine back in half, just as he found it. Tucks the slip of paper back in. He takes the candy bar back to the room that is his and sits for a minute, just holding it in his hands. Then he slides down, under the bed, tears a hole in the fabric of the box spring, and secrets the candy and the other wrapper away.

  Then he goes looking again. He finds the bathroom, turns on the light and stares for a long while at his face. He supposes that is him. He knows his own stats. Blond. Blue eyes. Just under six feet.

  The person looking back at him almost meets that description. But his hair is fading fast, not golden any more, threaded with white and with washed-out yellow. And his eyes are mismatched, one blue and one green, and they look set too deep into his head. He opens his mouth and finds all the teeth on one side of his mouth are stained a little brown, and all the others are white. One side of his face is a net of scars. His bottom lip has a dent in it, which he doesn’t remember being there before, and he doesn’t know how it happened.

  Like he doesn’t know what’s wrong with his left hand, why he can’t grip the taps as easily with the left as his right, why it seems slightly heavy and slightly numb. Doesn’t know where all these scars came from, not all of them, but he remembers getting some of them.

  He’s starting to feel sick. Not sure if it’s the candy and the soup or the way he looks, all carved up and put back together, skin greasy, hair greasy. He waits, sitting on the edge of the tub right by the toilet until he pukes a couple times. Then he gets up and runs the taps and drinks from his cupped hand. It helps settle him. He washes his face too, since there’s hot water. He’s just turning the taps off when he hears the rattle at the door, the thump of it closing.

  He does not have time to run for the room he woke up in. He’s so glad he hid the candy bar. He wishes desperately the taps hadn’t been so loud, that there had been some kind of warning.

  “Alex?” Soft and curious. It’s Sean’s voice. Thank god. Some of the terror goes away, but not all of it, because he still doesn’t understand what is going on, what he is and is not to do. He doesn’t know how to be, how much of this is real and how much is in his head. How much is made by his own desperate desire and how much is made by the shinigami.

  When Sean appears at the bathroom door, he’s smiling. “On your feet?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “There’s towels in there, and Mad dropped off some soap and things.”

  He stops talking and they look at each other for a moment. Sean runs a hand through his hair like he does when he’s flustered.

  “Or, uh, if you’re hungry I brought some stuff to eat.” He turns and goes down the hall, to the bedroom where the black bag is on the bed, and Alex feels a rush of terror because he’s stolen something from the bag and it’s about to be found out.

  Sean is talking as he goes. “I got some noodles and some cans of soup.” He pulls aside the clothes, the carefully repacked magazine. “I kinda feel like the noodles, if you don’t mind. It’s quicker and I’m…” He’s found the missing things. Alex can see him counting them, looking at each one in turn. Then he laughs softly, pretends there’s nothing wrong, just goes on talking. “I’m, uh, I’m hungry. Was just working on the bag with a friend. So,” he pulls a couple packages out of the bag, “if it’s good with you?” he waggles the noodles.

  Then he turns and starts to come back down the hall. Alex gets out of the way and Sean goes by him, goes into the kitchen and he follows, stepping softly. Kettle, tap, plug. Packages torn. Bowls retrieved. A pair of bowls. Two forks clattering onto the stone counter top. Hot water poured. Sean looks over at him. He looks exhausted. Haggard.

  “Don’t drink the vodka, ok?” he says softly. “Not till you put on a bit of weight. Everything else is fine.”

  Alex swallows. Nods. Sean is watching him, staring at him, his eyebrows up where they come together above his nose, his mouth turned down. Not angry, but unhappy. Miserable. He slides a bowl of noodles toward him. He’s so close. It’s so close. It’s almost perfect. But it’s not quite right, and he wants it to be right. He wants it to be Sean, even if it’s only pretend. Whatever is going on, he wants it to keep going. He likes it. But there’s a problem.

  There’s no plate in his mouth, his tongue is his own. The comms go both ways. He licks his lips. “He can’t read,” he says.

  Eyes go wide, mouth drops open.

  “Sean, I mean.”

  Staring.

  “You taught me how to read,” he whispers after a moment. He sets the bowl down, comes forward a pace and he steps back like they’re dancing. “You taught me to read. Remember? In airports and train stations and at ferry terminals. God, I hated it.” He looks like he’s coming undone, empty hands forward, leaning toward him, like the words are heavy and he’s tipping under the weight of them.

  Alex is starting to feel sick again. Maybe he should have stayed in the bathroom. Shouldn’t have eaten all that food. Shouldn’t be talking back. Shouldn’t be talking. Going to get in trouble.

  “Besides, that magazine, it’s for you. I… I don’t know. I thought you’d be bored or something. I didn’t know what this was going to be like, I thought… I just…” he looks around, like he’s lost something.

  Alex thinks of the list. The rough and child-like hand. The terrible spelling. He feels himself frowning, because he thinks maybe he gets it, and it’s not what he thought it was. You went out and bought me everything I ever used to want. Which doesn’t make sense because that’s the sort of thing you do when you care about somebody. The thought of it is like a ratchet turning in his chest. He’s starting to feel real sick now. He’s starting to think the shinigami did it. The old one did what it said it was going
to do. This isn’t a dream, or a hallucination. This is real.

  Sean is looking at him now, and it is Sean. Alive and breathing. He’s afraid he’s going to be sick, and Sean must see it because he comes forward just a bit.

  “Alex,” he says softly. “You feeling ok?”

  “No,” Alex says. He says it because he doesn’t want to throw up. He says it because he doesn’t want it to be true. He says it because the Tank has changed him and he does not fit in the world any more. And for one other reason. “No.” The pressure of it is fracturing something inside of him. “No, Sean’s dead.” Broken arms, broken legs, the Fraser river. Has to be. He suffered for that information. He suffered after for it. He wouldn’t have done what he did for nothing.

  Sean’s coming around the counter toward him and Alex realizes it’s because he’s shaking and gripping the counter with both hands. He’s freaking out. “No,” he says again and Sean stops before he touches him, hands sort of frozen between them. “No, Sean is dead.”

  “No,” Sean looks worried, frightened. “I’m here, babe. Right here.”

  And he is. He knows everything that only Sean could know, does things that only Sean would care enough about to do. And that means he’s been alive this whole time. And he looks good. He’s got a good hair cut, and he’s wearing a pair of jeans that suit him, and he’s been working out, and eating, and alive somewhere while Alex has been pulled apart piece by piece, has been in agony, has been dying and waiting and hoping it will all just go silent for good this time.

  “No,” he says and can’t stop what he’s saying. “No, he would never.” He breathes. It’s not easy. “He would never have just left me there.”

  Colour bleeds out of Sean’s face, even his mouth goes white.

  “Sean would never have left me there.” His voice is getting louder. There’s something crawling up his chest, trying to get out of his mouth, a monster inside of him. He suffered to learn that Sean was dead. He suffered to try to placate Cameron. He suffered to try to protect him. Sean would have done the same for him, he knows it. It’s impossible that Sean could be here unhurt and unchanged. Impossible. “Sean would never have left me in there.”

  “I didn’t know,” Sean’s voice is so quiet Alex can hardly hear it. “I saw you fall. I thought you were dead.”

  “No!” When he breathes in next he makes this noise, an animal noise that he can’t control. “He wouldn’t have! He knew what it was like.” The creature inside of him is getting out. He can hear his voice getting louder, not even making sense any more, just yelling, I can’t do it. And he means the suffering. “I can’t do it any more.”

  “You don’t have to babe, you don’t ever have to again.”

  “I can’t.” The taste in his mouth. He hates the taste. It makes him puke, every time. Endless bathrooms, endless sinks, drains in floors. “I can’t anymore, I can’t. I can’t.”

  “I know.”

  He doesn’t listen to Sean, doesn’t care. “I can’t. No more,” he’s starting to shout now. “No!”

  And now he’s screaming, not to block out the sounds of the shinigami but because it hurts, because Sean is here and perfect and unchanged, and Alex has seen himself and knows what he is now, and even if he could have Sean again, he can’t fight for him any more, he can’t protect him any more. He can’t make himself do what has to be done. Not any more. Everything hurts and he’s breaking apart and he wants it to stop, just stop, fucking stop, and to wake up in the Tank in a chemical haze and run toward the shinigami and let the old one’s voice wash over him.

  Sean’s grabbing onto him, taking him by the shoulders and he's saying things, pointless, stupid things, things he can’t even hear over the sounds that he can’t stop making, the sounds he’s been wanting to make for a year, for more, for his whole life. He’s screaming and it feels good, and damned if he’s ever going to stop.

  Fourteen

  Sean’s holding onto him, arms around Alex’s shoulders while he screams and shakes as if there’s something tearing him open from the inside. He’s pushed Alex’s face into his shoulder, so it muffles the screaming a little and Alex is gripping Sean’s shoulders like he thinks he’ll fall if he doesn’t hang on, and Sean’s afraid of bruising the hungry, hurt frame that’s in his arms.

  Alex is screaming No! And Sean just keeps saying, “It’s ok, babe, you’re ok,” stupidly, over and over again, even though he’s sure Alex can’t hear him, even though the words don’t mean anything, not really, even though it might never be ok again.

  Something moves in the apartment and he looks up. Mad is standing at the open door. He never leaves the door unlocked, she must have jimmied it open, and fast. Her face is paper-white, her eyes huge and round, her mouth hangs open. “I was in the kitchen. I heard screaming,” she whispers. “I was afraid someone was getting hurt. I didn’t mean-”

  She’s so fucking nosy and he’s so glad to see her, never been so glad to see her. “Simone,” he says softly, trying not to say it how he wants to say it, because Alex is shivering like he’s going to shake himself to pieces now, and he is screaming, screaming like an animal and Sean doesn’t know what he did to cause it but wants to make it stop. “I think we need Simone.” Mad nods, she turns and runs down the hall.

  Alex’s voice is giving out. His screams are broken, ragged things that rise and fall away against his shoulder. He’s gasping in between the screams, like there’s not enough air in his lungs to make the noises he needs to make.

  “You gotta breathe, babe,” he whispers. “You gotta try and breathe.”

  No more, no more, please no more, I can’t do it any more. Alex shudders in his arms and makes a retching noise.

  “Go ahead,” he whispers, “it’s ok. Go ahead.” But Alex doesn’t, just makes the noises and shakes against him so hard that Sean can hear his teeth clattering.

  When Simone comes, she has a small, slim needle that she slips into Alex’s thigh. It doesn’t take long before Alex is starting to fall against him, his grip giving up, like he’s exhausted maybe, like he can’t fight any more. He looks at Sean like he doesn’t understand.

  “It’s ok, babe. Simone’s a doctor. It’s going to be ok.”

  “I think it’s best if you get him into bed,” Simone says softly. “Mad?”

  Mad nods. She pushes open the bedroom door, pulls down the blankets on the bed so all Sean has to do is carry Alex in and set him down. Simone nods. “Mad, stay here for a minute, will you?”

  Mad nods. She’s still utterly white.

  “Sean, come with me.”

  He follows Simone out into the living room.

  “Sit,” she says. He drops onto the nearest chair.

  She goes to the sink and pours a glass of water and passes it to him.

  “Drink.”

  He does, drinks the whole thing, and hands back the glass. When he does, she’s looking at him.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he answers. “We were talking and it was ok, and then he said that…” he pauses, because he is ashamed. “He said that I was dead, Sean was dead, and that Sean would never have left him there. And I told him I was sorry.”

  Simone sighs. “I remind you, perhaps pointlessly, that you don’t have to do this. My colleague Rob, whose care you have been under, is an excellent doctor. Alex will be in good hands. VGH has the correct facilities for people like this.”

  People like this. People like Alex. People who are damaged. People who are hurt, maybe beyond repair. He told himself he’d never beg for anything again, once, a long time ago. It was a promise to himself. He looks at Simone. “I owe him,” he says. She exhales through her nose.

  “Ok,” she says and she doesn’t pretend to be anything other than irritated with him. “But I am going to ask Rob to come up and do an assessment on him." He opens his mouth to protest and then shuts it. Simone wields a frown like a baseball bat sometimes. "This is not about your ability to care for him, although I frankly have my
doubts. This is about keeping him from harming himself or you."

  "Ok," he says, grudgingly.

  “That sedative is going to last about four hours. I'll see if Rob can come at the end of the day. Till then, stay close by. You have my emergency code in your phone right?" He nods. "Then I will see you, with Rob, this evening.”

  “Thanks.”

  She nods. “Go.”

  He gets up. He’s shaking, shaking the way he does when somebody gets behind him and he didn’t notice. He goes into the room where Alex is lying, heavy-eyed, peaceful now.

  “Thanks,” he tells Mad and she nods again, that stiff and jerking nod. “I got it.”

  “Ok,” she says. “Call, ok?”

  He nods.

  They go down together, Simone and Mad, the elevator quiet except for the whirring of the works. At the second floor, it bumps gently to a stop.

  “Mad,” Simone says before the doors open, “It’s not your fault any more than it is Sean’s. You know that, right?”

  Mad looks at her for a moment. Then she slips between the doors and vanishes. When the doors close, Simone sighs and slumps against the wall. She rubs her forehead with one hand and whispers, “You are not equipped for this, Simone Jane Okembe. You are a physician, not a psychiatrist. And you have your own shit to deal with. Do not get involved.”

  She pulls out her phone and texts Rak, Please tell me it's 5 pm on Friday?

  He texts back a happy face. No chance.

  She sighs and rides the rest of the way back down to the laboratory in silence.

  Around six thirty, when Rak’s just about through the mountain of paperwork from the most recent shinigami attack, and his stomach is starting to sound more like a pod of whales than something that belongs to a human being, he grabs his phone and texts Simone.