The Man Who Watched the World End (5 page)

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 A hundred more outdated occupations trickled in as well.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 peo
ple able to support themselves.

A cure was never found, though.

Every 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.

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.

It’
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 yea
rs. 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.

Andrew 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 habi
ts 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.