If Shaun of the Dead is a rom-zom-com, I guess this is a rom-X-com. There's extraterrestrials, apocalypse, comedy and romance. I couldn't tell you how many different story concept got baked into this one. Seriously, I don't remember. There was some very conceptual stuff I came up with after watching Rosencranz & Guildenstern are Dead, I remember that, but I have no idea what it was, and it's probably for the best the only part I left in was their names. That I know of.
I have this pattern of starting stories and forgetting about them for a year or more and rereading them and not unusually having no idea what I wanted them to do but finding inspiration in what's on the page to write some more. This happened twice with this story. I only hope it's not too disjointed. For the record, this is a soft-hearted queer love triangle drama set to the background of space aliens trying to eliminate or at least drastically reduce humanity's breeding capacity, with a surrealist comedic touch of self-aware narration:
CHARLIE KAUFMANN IS NOT DEAD
It's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done. Just like in that movie I hold the boombox over my head, just to get the music a little closer to her. The song talks about how I see the world in her eyes and she completes me which is flattering and true, and somehow the rain is soaking through me and making me look both tough and vulnerable without shorting out the machine. And, heck, this is actually hard, my arms can barely hold the huge thing up and I'm quickly getting cold and miserable. I'm shaking when she finally opens the window, I can barely lift my head to look at her. She looks down on me with one hand pressed to her shoulder, as if she's falling to pieces and has to hold herself together. I look at her and forget the broad, dry wastes inside me. Cia has to fall in love with me now.
No, I don't mean it that way. It's just wishful thinking. I can't narrate what I want her to do. That'd be wrong.
Hi. I'm Charlie Kaufmann. (No relation.) For as long as I can remember I've been Cia's narrator. Cia Allgood. She's the good guy in this story. She is in fact, as far as I can tell (and I know her better than anyone) the most absolute good person in the world. I guess it's not so strange that I fell in love with her almost before either of us could walk straight. And not so strange she has better people to choose from.
'Charlie, we've talked about this', she says, touching my arm. 'Please put the music down and come in out of the rain.'
'A sensitive half-naked comforting scene, cool', I say, as I follow her instructions. Funny, she always gets to tell me what to do and I do it. She leads me up to her apartment without letting go of my wrist, and I don't stare at her butt clinging to the thin, wet robe in front of me. Not really. We've seen each other naked enough times. This attraction, this compulsion I have goes far beyond her amazing body. I want so badly for this to be our story, sometimes I can't stop myself from trying to be part of it.
Which of course is what this is all about.
So Cia helps me with my wet heavy clothes and wraps me in a towel and holds me when I start shaking a lot and crying about how I'm using her good will like this, and she just asks me about my day. I ask if she's seeing Rosencranz or Guildenstern today, and as it turns out she's seeing both.
Rosencranz is tall, pale and handsome; Guildenstern is tall, dark and handsome. Two princes of the world with everything to offer Cia, and they're kind and generous and grown-up enough to be fine with dating her in turns, or both at the same time on occasion. I can't be jealous, of course. If they're not jealous of each other how could I be jealous of either one?
'I'll cancel and we can hang out', says Cia. That's why I really can't be jealous. Really I can't.
'Oh no, I'm going to be fine', I say, wiping my cheeks. 'You should stick to your plans.'
'But who's going to narrate me and my good friend Charlie watching a movie together if you're not there?'
'I'll still narrate, I just have to make up the stuff I'm not there for.'
So she gives me some sleeve notes, and more hugs, and I go home to my empty apartment. I'm wet through again by the time I get inside, and I sit down dripping in my dusty kitchen with a pizza slice in the toaster, my mind elsewhere. A rich, thick, wide umbrella keeps the rain from Cia as Rosencranz walks her to the car, Guildenstern keeping the engine hot.
They ride through the dark-slick afternoon city, listening to rock music and laughing easily as they drive through splashing puddles, at once childlike and sophisticated, refined. Going out of their way to avoid the puddles when they're driving close to people. They go to a quiet little back road restaurant and ingratiate themselves with the staff by ordering everything on the menu, a dreamlike feast of staggering deliciousness. My plain cheese pizza is burnt at the edges, inconceivably hot, and tastes like it's been sitting on the table for two days.
Using Rosencranz' keys they sneak into the closed museum, walking the gloomy unlit halls and studying the relics in quiet awe and contemplation, stealing pastries from the cafeteria and lighting a fire in one of the inner rooms, a replica of a famous old building with bare rock growing out of the wooden walls and floor, and a working drystone fireplace.
I try to look away as they take their clothes off and lie down together on the warm rock by the fire, but that's not how it works. I don't like to see Cia so undignified. I don't like that it turns me on to see her sandwiched between the boys, ground like a piece of meat, screaming in primal joy. I masturbate furiously, matching their pace, fixing her face in my eyes. Her far away, blissful look when she comes drive all thought from my mind.
And I'm too distracted to follow their idle talk afterward, as they lie tangled and still and let the roaring fire's light dance across their perfect skins. It seems to be pointless sweet small talk. I hate pointless talk and I hate how well the three of them do it together and I hate never being a part of it. Instead I shower and go to sleep, exhausted and cold and alone.
And life goes on. For the next week I keep to myself, talking to Cia on the phone once a day, letting my mind wander in incoherent, surrealist narration as I work. I work in storage. Move boxes around, never see any people. It's perfect for me. At one point the light goes out and I keep working in almost complete darkness for an hour without noticing. I see Cia doing rather similar work, hauling bags of clothes off a truck, and then washing them and hanging them up for sale. She does these odd jobs for a local charity. On a day when there's no work, she poses for a camera. It's sort of like modeling, but on the Internet, so she's removing the middle men and reaching her audience directly. I think most of them really come to listen to her talk.
I do see her for our regular Sunday movie night, but I can't really tell you about that. Here, she relaxes, and shows a side of herself that no one else gets to see, and I feel that it is meant just for me. I don't mean to sound like a cock-tease but, well, I'm afraid that's all I can tell you.
We watch a harmless comedy about incredibly stupid men hurting themselves with their incredible stupidity. Hidden about four-fifths into the movie in a small but necessary scene with the hero and his lady sidekick launch into a raw, heartfelt moment of pure humanity, unexpectedly. It feels like a secret treasure just for us.
It's hard, being so close to her. Cia is like the sun in my arms. By the end of the night I'm wiping my eyes every other minute. And she gets that, and I assure her she's worth it. I'm my best when I'm with her, any day I get to spend with her is tied for the best day in my life, and so on. It's true, of course. And she knows that too. But, she tells me, it's good to hear it anyway. I guess everyone can feel like a chore sometimes.
It's a good night. I linger, I know. Forgive me. I just don't want to let this moment go. I'm going to think about it a lot later on.
The next morning, way too early, when I'm walking to work, a bright light comes from the south. I keep walking while bikes and cars swerve and stop ahead and behind me, still mostly asleep, until my phone rings. My mind snaps into place when I see Cia's number.
'Where are you?' she says with no pleasantries whatsoever, which tells me something is very wrong.
'Five minutes away from home', I say, and close my mouth. There is a great number of things I'd like to say, like "Are you okay?" Not saying them takes some willpower, but I do it almost like a reflex, leaving the air open for her to tell me what she must have decided is most important först.
'Okay', she says, 'I'll be there in three. I need you to hurry. Run. We're coming to get you.'
'I'm running', I say, and close the phone and break into a sprint. Glancing around, I see the light in the south has turned into a cloud of fire. It looks close, the way clouds do, but I have a growing suspicion it's very large and very far away. About eight kilometers, maybe. Where the big city used to be.
Maybe that's too paranoid, I try to tell myself. There could be a lot of reasons I'm running down the street as fast as I can with legs that are on fire and a stone that's gotten in the hole in my shoe and stabs into the soft part of my big toe with every step and I bend my toe to hold it in place there just to keep it from stabbing the I-need-that-to-walk-on parts.
But I make it to the door of my building at the same time as Guildenstern's sleek silver Lamborghini stops next to me with a sharp, authoritative little shriek from its tires. A yelp, a tingle, an ephemeral sound so brief one thinks one could have just imagined it, as the car goes from driving fast to a dead stop in a split second. He's such an aggravatingly good driver.
I get in the back seat with Cia and we take off with even less noise. Rosencranz and Guildenstern in the front seem to discuss which way to go in a silent language of nods and shoulder shrugs, as we cruise through the town at blinding speed. Cia pulls me to her in a seat belt-fastening embrace, shuddering, and it occurs to me she's relieved to see me alive.
'It's bad, right?' I say to Cia's shoulder. 'The city?'
'Every city from what we can tell', says Rosencranz. 'At least ninety percent of the world's population has just been fireballed. Figure it's thirty minutes past getting away from human population centers.'
'Yes', I say, blinking rapidly like I've got something in my eye. 'Thank, thanks for the ride. Wait. You, fuck, all of you have family don't you?'
'Couldn't reach them', says Cia, in a tiny voice, grabbing me tighter. 'I sent texts but, but. What could they possibly?'
'Yeah, I mean, you could see it from here', I say, patting her back, trying to offer a comforting hug while she still has my arms pinned, while I try to remember I'm not literally melting from the closeness of her. 'You were, there's nothing you could do for them. Anyone. I'm sorry.'
'Hey, there's you, Kaufmann', says Guildenstern. 'You're someone, it's nice, it's good to be able to help someone.' He pauses to reverse directions away from a car pile-up that seems to cover the street up to the third floor. 'Good to see you again, also. Under the circumstances and all that.'
'You know, right now there's no three people on Earth I'd rather be with.'
How wondrously adaptive creatures we are. In this, our new reality, Timon and Pumbaa still gently guide me through the minefields of social interactions they themselves effortlessly breakdance over. They put Cia at ease with wit and comfort and thoughtful analysis and sheer confidence, and I've never been more grateful to have those boys around. I almost regret putting so many silly nicknames for them in the narrative.
Once we get out of town a motorcycle soars past us and disappear down the road, and then we see nothing else moving for an hour. Guildenstern eases our speed down to merely illegal. Rosencranz looks at his phone and tells us the Internet is going down, and then that it's gone, and then that the phones are gone.
Then, outside a lovely nameless little bump of a village, where I study the moss-covered stone walls and wonder if there's tickets to Zihuatanejo waiting buried in a tin can out there somewhere, a young girl appears, walking in the grass on the side of the road. She's stumbling stiff-legged and looking like a sleepwalker and Guildenstern pulls the car over next to her. She does not appear to notice, but when I open the door she climbs in next to me. Her leg is bleeding, a little, over her blue dress. She's tall enough to be maybe fifteen years old, but her face looks younger.
'Hi', says Cia, as the car begins to move again, slowly. 'You don't seem okay. We're headed far away and we're in a big hurry, but can we give you a ride home or somewhere?'
'Far away would be good', says the girl. 'My daddy shot my mommy and my four little brothers and he was going to shoot me and I guess I ran away.'
'That's awful, but it's only the end of the world', says Rosencranz, twisting around in his seat to shoot her a sympathetic look. He must be thinking of his little sisters. 'Try not to take it personal.'
'No, I get the idea', says the girl. 'I'm probably in deep shock. Don't worry about. Politeness. Basic comfort through physical contact, that's what I need.'
'Huh? Oh, right, me', I say, and let go of Cia's hand to put my arms around the little one. 'Is this okay or do you want to switch over so you're in the middle? Cia here is much better at hugging.'
'It would be good to keep you warm', says Cia. 'We don't have so much as a blanket in here, crap. But Charlie is right, my hugs are the shit.'
This elicits a frightened snort of laughter from the girl, and we proceed to switch places. She climbs over me easily despite the severe lack of room, and the hardest part turns out to be getting our seat belts on. Well, the girl, introducing herself as Kelly, is the hardest. I don't understand how hard she's tensed up until she begins to relax, bit by bit, in Cia's unceasing embrace. Ah, to be young and free to collapse in a shivering, silently weeping nervous breakdown squished between two caring, patient grownups. But it's maybe a good thing that Kelly being there keeps me from dissolving the same way. You have to keep it together for her, I keep telling myself.
And then we're backing up to the house. Rosencranz's summer house, way up in the mountains. I've heard about it from Cia, but I'm not prepared for how disgustingly pretty it is. The mountainside sweeping the edge of forever in a perfect curved arc covered in twisted knee-high junipers, framing an almost perfectly circular lake. And there's nothing here, not a single thing out of place but the little two-storey log cabin at the end of the dirt road, at the edge of the water. (And even that is pretty well integrated, built and painted to blend in.) I can see the seduction Cia has talked about, how easy it is to look upon this extraordinary place so far removed from everyone and everything and feel like you own it. Feel like you're above it all. Feel like the queen of the world.
But all I'm feeling right now is relief. Because there's no people here. Because there's no danger.
With unbowed heads, we walk up to the door and inside. Within ten minutes we each have a room picked, Kelly's leg has got a bandage and there's food on the stove and shower water heating up. The place is self-sufficient, Rosencranz tells us. He had thought he maybe went overboard back when he had the solar cells installed and especially the crate of imperishable rations 'supposed to keep a family of four alive for a year', maybe getting paranoid, but we all agree it doesn't seem very silly now.
'We', says Kelly, raising her hand reluctantly. 'Um, there's five of us, I hope I'm not ruining your plans.'
'Not at all, Kelly', says Guildenstern. 'No way are we going to stay here for a year, don't you worry.'
'I want to take this opportunity', says Rosencranz, 'to say welcome. We're not, okay, I guess we are kind of a family, but whatever it is, you're part of it. You make yourself at home, feel free to eat or wear whatever you find, no place, no topic is off limits. We're all in a bad place here, obviously, the world is fucked and I doubt there's any coming back from it, but you're still the smallest of us, Kelly. You need adults looking out for you and we're going to look out for you. That's all there's to it.'
He says all this carefully weighing each word, with a look on his face that says he knows how corny it is but he has to say it anyway and he knows how it's easier said than done, he knows the four of us aren't really up for it, but we're going to try anyway. Halfway through Kelly hugs him, reaching barely up to his ribs but seeming to make his knees buckle anyway, and we all step in to support them and as if by accident we have a big gooey group hug.
'So', says Cia, eventually. 'Who wants to go for a dip? Those beans have to simmer for a couple of hours, I'm sure we're all too terrified to feel hungry anyway, so it might be good to work up an appetite.'
So we go jump in the water in our underwear. It's impossibly cold, colder than I could have imagined anything to be on a day this hot, and very clear and very deep.
'It's so good', adds Kelly, shouting as her head pops up. 'It tastes like, did you put crack in it or something? Is this special rich people water that you keep secret from the proles?'
'A little bit', says Rosencranz, laughing. 'I mean, there's no secret, just really clean water. It's so pure, got a certificate somewhere, you could pee in it and it'd still be fifty times cleaner than the law says tapwater has to be. Don't, though, this is actually what's going into our taps.'
Without thinking, I swim away and down, getting some distance. Cia and the boys play with the child, carefree and beautiful suspended in the water, so clear it looks like they're flying, and I don't have any words. For a moment I forget all the people are dying and the world has changed beyond all fathom and not for the better. For a moment I even forget to narrate.
Abbot and Costello both retire when Cia asks if one of them would go and get a fire started, and then it's just Cia and Kelly and me splashing around for a while. We float on our backs, arms linked, head to head to head, and lose ourselves in the blazing blue sky. Hot sun on our bellies and cool water on our backs. The fire of Cia seems to dim to the bearable when it's all mixed together like this, and with other people here too. I wish there was at least a cloud or two to watch but this monotony gets tiresome and after what feels like less than five minutes we climb up on the little wooden deck and go inside. Where it turns out we've been gone over forty minutes. Weird.
And the roaring fireplace and hot tea and blankets the boys have whipped up makes time melt away even more and before I know it we've gone through a dull but filling meal of rice and beans and the sun is going down and we're playing old rock music on an old record player – 'I'm afraid we don't have the latest hits on Youtube anymore' – and sipping on whiskey. 'Like the firewood, we've only a limited supply. But today is surely a special occasion.'
'Can I have some?' says Kelly.
'Well it is the end of the world and all', says Cia, a little red around the nose. 'But I feel like – how old are you?'
'Seventeen.'
'You could have said fifteen, I might have believed that.'
'Okay I'm fourteen. But just cause I'm young doesn't mean I have any less shit I have to work on not thinking about than anyone else here right now. And, I'm aware of the risks of addiction for a developing brain but it's not like I'm going to be able to become an alcoholic when all the booze is gone in a year or two.'
'I give it more like a week', says Guildenstern, raising his glass.
'That's fair', says Cia, filling the glass Kelly holds out. 'Alright, just this once, I guess. Make yourself comfortably numb. As it were.'
Kelly takes a sip and her face twists into a lopsided tear-eyed grimace, sinews in her neck popping out as she fights to stay still. 'It has a very. Special. Taste', she says, coughing, and I fail to hold back a giggle.
'Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, it's just this stereotypical thing, booze tastes terrible.'
'Yeah, it checks out. I've this theory, okay, I just heard it from some kids on the Internet, all grown-ups just pretend to like beer and stuff cause they want to fit in and they want to be drunk.' In a split second, Kelly gulps down the contents of the glass.
'That's a five thousand oh who cares', says Rosencranz, going from incredulity to wry chuckling mid-sentence, instantly.
'Thank you Mister R', says Kelly, in a hoarse voice, wiping tears from her cheeks. 'But I figured it was best to just skip ahead ah ha ha is this what it feels like?'
'Like the room is spinning, eh?' says Cia, sipping her own glass very slightly. 'I'm getting there. I'm actually enjoying the taste, thanks Rosencranz. It could be that it tastes awful but adults are awful so it works for us.'
'A propensible proposal. Propobo. Likely. Theory.'
And the night goes long, and the mourning of our lost world gets less burdensome with the spirits and the recorded voices of the dead to comfort us. I'm unclear about how but suddenly I'm in bed and woken up by a tapping sound followed by a creaking door.
'Hey?' I say, to the dark.
'Hey, can I stay with you? I think the others are all having sex and I don't want to be alone.' Kelly's voice, working to sound sensible and precise though drunkenly stumbling here and there.
'Sure, Kells', I say, scooting away from the sound, trying to find walls somewhere to orient myself. But the bed is enormous and I'm lost in a sea of blankets and fake furs. 'Of course. I don't think any of us should be alone.'
'Wh-where are you? Charlie?' says Kelly. There's sounds of rustling blankets but I can't tell where she is at all. Both flailing around, we eventually find each others' hands and pull close. I hazard to guess she wants to be held, and she doesn't protest when I embrace her.
'This may be a stupid question', she says. 'But are those three like, a couple?'
'Yeah. Well, they call it a "V" but, you get the idea.'
'Oh. I, it's not that complicated I guess. But where's you, are you someone's sister or? I just want to figure out this family structure.'
'Ah. No, none of us are related. I'm just a poor schmuck who's been in love with Cia for as long as I remember. She's all I ever had.'
'Oh. Ooh, wait, you're gay? I'm, I have known I'm gay since I was six but I've never met a real live gay person.'
'And now you may never meet another one. That was terrible. Let me try again. Nice to make your acquaintance. I can, anything you want to know, I'd be happy to talk, in the morning.'
'You're weird. I like you.'
'That's. Single. Nicest thing. Said. Me.'
I haven't even thought about Cia for several minutes, it occurs to me, as I drift deeper into the black.
I wake up unable to breathe. The girl has some serious farmer muscles and she's squeezing my chest as hard as she can, choking out tiny breathless shrieks from her own throat. I try to stay calm and grab her with one free arm and stroke her back, thinking of a frightened cat I had once. She lets go with a deep shuddering sigh and rolls away, before I pass out. I'm pretty light-headed but probably it's mostly because I'm still drunk.
'Sorry', says Kelly. 'I have nightmares. Had nightmares. I don't know if it's still happening.'
'It's fine. It's over. You're safe.'
'Cause I can still see it. If my eyes are open or closed. My, Colin, my littlest brother. My favorite. He shoots mommy with one barrel of the shotgun and puts it down and says he's saving the other for himself and he takes the moose rifle and shoots Colin. He shoots him in the side of the head and it makes just a little hole and I look in his eyes when he turns into meat and I have to be insane because I'm alive in a world where daddies can do something like that.'
I can't keep my sobbing quiet anymore, and she stops talking and crawls over and cradles my leaking head in her spindly bosom. 'What's the world come to?' she says, with a gentle, quavering voice. 'Adults shouldn't cry.'
'I'm sorry', I say, somewhat embarrassed that being comforted by a traumatized child is actually making me feel better. 'It's, it's just terrible. I can't imagine how hard it must be.'
'It hurts. Are you better now? I really want you to hold me instead.'
I can't say no to that, of course. It's not like I need this, it's just nice. But Kelly does. She clings to me like she's only barely restraining herself from crushing the life out of me and her heart slows down and she tells me her eyes hurt from all the crying and it has to stop and I wish I knew what to say.
'This may be stupid', I say. 'But do you have some happy memories of them you'd maybe like to share?'
'Hm. I remember. Last year. I was just walking over the front lawn, Colin was climbing the apple tree and he fell on his ass. Not far, I don't think it hurt much but he was just startled. Started bawling. I picked him up and he just held on to me with everything he had. It struck me. He trusts me. Just completely, implicitly, unreasonably trusts me. I was scared of the, responsibility I guess. Being so important. Being able to, probably unable to not fuck it up in some way, hurt him, scar him for life. It was terrifying. I don't know why it felt so good.'
'I understand familial love is like that.'
'Love. Yeah. I knew it had to be that. I just never dared to think the word. I never told them I loved them.'
Kelly cries until she passes out, I think. I'm still stroking her neck and back and feeling useless when the sky pales outside the window.
And she keeps getting worse. After three days, despite a large bird we've managed to snare that adds a great deal of pleasure to our supper, neither the expert diversions of the Salt and Pepper duo nor Cia's bottomless compassion and angelic hugs stop her from crying anymore. In the morning I find her floating face down in the lake. My body uses the clever trick of going entirely numb to shut down any panic, and I shout as loud as I can, sure I wake them up back in the cabin, and race out to her and drag her back to shore with a speed that distantly frightens me, but it's no good. Simon and Garfunkel come running nude and wade out to knee depth, and take her from my hands as soon as I reach them, and start a vigorous heart massage without an instant's hesitation or embarrassment, and they go on without a moment's pause, with Cia and me feeding them water and emergency chocolate and wiping their sweat with wet towels, until neither of them have strength to stand anymore and the sun has begun to set, but it's no good.
We drag the boys away, and Cia wraps Kelly in a fine white silk sheet. I touch her cheek before Cia covers it up, and it's cold. So unbelievably cold. Colder even than the lake. It must be an illusion created by the expectation that a child should be warm, I know, but it feels completely real. My fingers hurt from the cold.
'We've overused the "end of the world" line', I say. I can't remember the last time anyone said anything. It feels like a crime to break the silence, but I'm scared if nobody does it we won't ever speak again. 'But no joke, it's like the world's ended a second time.'
'Yeah', says Cia. Her voice is unsteady and I hug her without thinking and I cry when she cries. 'It's, is this how it's going to be now? Now it's my turn to cry forever?'
'This is not any "look on the bright side" bullshit', says Guildenstern, on his back, covered in a towel. 'I'm just going to submit a motion based on practical concerns: We don't have to worry about drinking too much, and if we get falling down drunk the tears will taste less bitter.'
'That is a science fact', says Rosencranz, at his side, in a calm and steady voice despite weeping freely.
We resolve to put off the burial until everyone's strong enough to hold a shovel – aside from the lads, my entire body is still sore from the swim – and Cia carries the pitiful little bundle back to its room while the rest of us walk leaning on each other. Well, they let me lean on them while they lean mostly on each other. Gentlemen to their bones. And we fill our bellies with greasy, fresh grilled flat bread with leftover bird – Rosencranz tells us he's thought about it and thinks it may be a loom, for whatever that's worth, not that he could say with any certainty – and get to the business of getting drunk on some of the world's finest spirits while listening to hilariously obscure (but very good) blues.
Rosencranz drinks with a little more determination than the rest of us, confessing he's not cried in front of people since he was ten and he's not brave enough to do it yet. When he finally does, late in the hot dark night, we all hug him and Guildenstern kisses him on the mouth. To me it's so unexpected I jump a little, but he just leans into it. They kiss deeply and of course they make it look so good I feel a twinge of curiosity about kissing someone with a beard.
'I'm just going to put this out there', says Cia, with a neat little cough as she gulps down a glass of vodka. 'I want to fuck, but I'm not leaving any one of you for even a minute. Can we talk about a four-way?'
'We can talk about it, in my opinion, yes', I say, while my whole face suddenly tingles like it's asleep. The kings of Bornegascar and Madagao just glance at each other and shrug their shoulders.
'So, Charlie. It would be a sort of nontrivial thing for you, I know', says Cia. 'To be frank I probably know better than you how huge it would be.'
'Yes. Yes, you do. I mean what do I know about sex, or, well, boys.'
'So when I bring this up, you know I have thought through the possible outcomes for you, with your best interests in mind, knowing how you trust me, trust my prior knowledge. Um. I lost control of this sentence at some point.'
'Oh, I think I follow. Yeah, I put a lot of trust in you and you know that. And if you think this is good for me, I believe you. So what say you gentlemen?'
'Well, you know, anything for my ladies', says Rosencranz, throwing a cocky smile to all three ladies and gentlemen.
'But', says Guildenstern, filling in Rosencranz' sentence almost like they were speaking with one voice. 'We should be talking about what exactly "this" is we'd be doing. It could go in many directions. We'd be going to be taking your lead, of course, Charlie.'
'You want to watch? Be watched? Or something in between?' continues Rosencranz, again with hardly a pause. 'It would be my very great pleasure to help you on the beginning of your sexual journey, Charlie, if that is your wish.'
He really says these things out loud. I try to process this fact, as well as their words, while controlling my blushing and at least sounding like I'm thinking through my answer. 'Umm', I say, pouring more whiskey into me. 'Hang on a minute, this is a lot to think about. Thanks anyway, both of you, for being so, I don't know, graceful?'
'Graceful is a good word for it', says Cia, resting her chin in her hand with a cheerful look that seems to say "what I have started?" 'They do bend over backwards to make everything easier for you. And I do mean that the way it sounds.'
We have a few laughs about sex, and we forget to be sad for a while. We talk a lot about Cia and me having sex while the boys keep a discreet distance, almost like my dreams. But in the end I don't want that. Maybe I'm just scared of making it real. I don't really know, and nobody pushes me to explain. I keep my clothes on and watch as Cia climbs over Bill and Ted, on the rug by the fireplace, in the middle of the living room. I watch close, and I hold her hand at the end, because she wants me to.
'This doesn't feel right', I say, dozing safe in Cia's arms, just a little warm. 'It shouldn't be possible the happiest moment of my life happens today.'
'It's okay', says Cia, stroking the back of my neck, softly pulling me closer, making me shiver. 'We can be happy and sad at the same time. We're allowed.'
'I'm glad it was so good for you', says Rosencranz, or if it's Guildenstern. I would have guessed I was going to be able to tell their voices apart without aid, but apparently not. It's just a low whiskey-rough rumble. 'But, if you don't mind, how?'
'Cause I have a naked, post-orgasmic Cia wrapped around me.' I slide a hand up her side, and sigh, and place a light kiss on the base of her neck, and I'm rewarded with lips pressed to my forehead. 'And, um, it was good to see this. See you. All of the love you all have for each other.'
'I liked having you there', says Cia. 'Your, you're a part of it, don't think you didn't make it better, that your love isn't included.'
'Okay, okay. You're right, I am feeling hella loved.' I try to hug her ever closer, try to make her feel how much I love how she helps me fight my insecurities. I can only say, 'thanks.'
It takes over three weeks for Rosencranz' liquor stores to run out, not one, but then, we manage to not get drunk all day every day. We work with a sloppy theory that numbing ourselves most of the time spaces out the trauma and the grief into more manageable chunks, but then, though it's unspoken I feel like we have an understanding that mourning both the world and the child we have lost is more than a lifetime's work.
Even figuring out how to mourn the whole world will take longer than that, I think.
I try to share this thought with Cia one rainy day by the lake, how nothing in our life, or in the life of our species, has prepared us for this, how we're being forced to live in a way that there's no template, no manual for. Mystifying to me, she answers to this by remarking she has missed my narration. It was more comforting than she ever realized, she tells me. Made her life feel structured, predictable, satisfying, like a story. I had not even realized I have almost stopped narrating her, even in my thoughts. It could be I was just able to do that as long as her life was so structured, I submit. I always felt like I knew exactly what she was doing, even if I didn't talk to her all week.
And here we are, already pretty much given up on wearing clothes, days floating together in a soft mist of sex, snuggling, alcohol, crying, bathing, playing music, walking the mountain, subsisting on kidney beans and vitamin pills, alcohol and sex. Mister Croup and Mister Vandemar are relaxing their aggressively cheery servile manners and spending more time with each other. Cia and I touch each other more and more, gradually more intimately, as if trying to dissolve the boundaries between having sex and not having sex. We're reinventing our relationship, reinventing human life itself, and I guess I'm reinventing my narration too. I tell her this and she smiles when it becomes clear my monologue itself is this new narration.
And we lie down halfway in the water, warm in the rain, a little drunk, a little horny, and lazily massage each others' breasts and shoulders a little while, before drifting into something like sleep.
Our one thread of consistency in this life is dinner. Every day we try to get something together at sundown, and usually it's not bad, although being half sloshed as well as expert preparation and seasoning does a lot to improve the taste of the brown rice and kidney beans, or the lentil soup with preserved vegetables and hard bread, or the macaroni with a handful of tiny dry juniper berries, or the two or three variations of the above that we can come up with. And on the day when the alcohol runs out another one of the large birds dies to one of our snares, which provides a little variation to our meals for the next four days while we all sit around feeling like crap. Sobering up makes a powerful reminder of one's mortality.
And the day after that we collectively realize we're actually going for real crazy without Internet, phones, TV or even radio, and we go for a drive. Guildenstern drives very carefully, far more than just someone out of practice. We all turn our heads every which way, trying to see everywhere around us. Traversing the utterly empty mountain roads all together in a beautiful steel machine somehow promises far more danger than traipsing down the valley in your bare skin alone. Just the illusion of being safe at home, I imagine.
We are about halfway back to the city and chewing on bread for lunch when we meet the people. There's about ten of them, walking in the middle of the road in our direction. Guildenstern slows down even more, below walking speed. The group looks skittish, debating with itself whether to run away, but they only step to the side of the road and stand still, watching us, easing their weapons from their shoulders. I realize only now they're all carrying rifles, but at least they don't seem ready to gun us down. They just want us to see they could.
'Well, this isn't going to work if we run from the first people we see', says Rosencranz. Guildenstern stops the car some twenty five meters away from the strangers and Rosencranz gets out. He makes it look so easy and reasonable except when he takes Guildenstern's hand and holds it for just a second before standing up. A loud swallowing noise comes from my throat, all by itself. Nobody else says anything.
And Rosencranz raises his hands and one of the women, a lot of the strangers are women, raises her gun, but then she puts it down, and he walks toward them, one step at a time, saying, 'none of us are armed. We've got a little food in the car if anyone needs it, not much else. You ladies aren't crazy mutant cannibals or anything, are you?'
They're all women, I guess. Leave it to the gentlemen to notice something like that. And get a group of armed people to chuckle with a line like that.
'No', chuckles the woman closest to us, hanging her rifle back on her shoulder, as most of them do. 'No, I don't suppose we are.'
'I think there's no reason we can't all be friends', says Guildenstern as he joins Rosencranz on the ground. Cia and I only roll our eyes a little before we follow them.
We find out this group are survivors from around the city who are staying together for safety, going around to look for food, shelter and more survivors. And there have been spaceships flying around shooting death beams at people, mainly men. They have divided opinions about Rosencranz and Guildenstern – some think having the boys around is likely to get them all killed, some think they should try to keep them around for possible preservation of humanity purposes, and some even think the penis-havers just can't be trusted. To the last, Guildenstern proposes simply if either him or Rosencranz put their hands on a gun the ladies may shoot both of them. One of them looks down on her gun and tells us it's probably not going to have to go that far.
And in the end we need them as much as they need us. Particularly an old lady, Olga, who's got a fever. She and seven more women are camped in the woods, just past the ridge at the side of the road, and Rosencranz immediately proposes Guildenstern drives her and two or three more back to the house who wants to go. 'Might be fairer and safer to split the two of us up anyway', he says, although he gives Guildenstern a short look when he says it, and I think there's some kind of pain in it.
But perhaps the universe wants Rosencranz and Guildenstern to stay side by side. Two of the women – Susan and Natalia, I'm pretty sure – decide they'll be able to fit in the back seat with Olga and look after her, and so they drive off together with Bert and Ernie.
Later, I'm going to regret many of the nicknames I narrated for them. I'll probably feel guilty for the rest of my life as I look back on all the things I thought sounded clever and find so much insensitivity.
But for now, I'm preoccupied with trying to remember what to do around people I haven't known for decades. There's so many of them, and of course they want to know all about what Cia and I have been doing with two whole men all this time. Cia handles it well, of course, while I can't seem to stop falling into myself in some vague existential dread as I try to process the enormity of what's happened to these women. Is it the end of the world for the third time, or is it just the first one continuing? I distantly note we've started walking, a long chain of people following the road. I suppose we're all going back to the house – I can't imagine it would be any less perfect to hide twenty-some people than five – and making the numerous car rides we're going to need a little bit shorter is something to do. Someone hands me a cucumber, of all things, and we eat as we walk. I can feel, and Cia shares the sentiment, life sprouting in me as I snack on fresh produce, while our new friends have nothing but praise for the hard bread we hand out. The trouble with living on nothing but imperishables and the trouble with living off the land both illustrated perfectly, I suppose.
I start telling Cia about an emergent thought I have about pooling our resources and starting a farm. Kelly could have been the most help here, I guess. (And it doesn't even entirely break my heart to mention her.) But as I draw the nearest women into a conversation about how we could actually be able to support ourselves with food, clothes and shelter, suddenly surging with hope for the future – I can almost see it moving through the crowd, a slow wave of optimism – then comes a metallic roar from the sky.
Everyone's throwing themselves on the asphalt so hard and fast I copy them without even thinking about it, and then I crane my head to see a strange object streaking past us from behind. It's like a folding fan made up of long, thin prisms, glassy rods glaring with flashes of rainbow colors. It spreads out wider when it's past and the rumbling noise trailing it grows deeper, separating its component rods in a way my brain feebly tries to associate with something of this planet and only coming up with bird wings and spider legs, and it changes direction and dives and disappears behind the hills. There's an explosion in the distance, a flat echoing bang followed by a staccato rattle of something machine-like. I'm running, with no memory of getting to my feet, not caring about the spacecraft turning back in the other direction, transforming back into a narrow cone and picking up speed.
It's stupid. It's way too far to run, and it won't change anything anyway. But I have to do something. Just to act. Cia gets it. She catches up with me fast. We leave the others behind as they only sedately begin to stand up. I don't blame them. I realize they have all been here before. It's just for Cia and me this is the first time.
And I feel more and more stupid with every step burning up my thighs, and I keep running anyway, with Cia at my side. Every six steps, like clockwork, we touch our hands together, just a light touch, brushing fingertips, not breaking our stride, not taking our eyes off the road. Trying to outrun an airstrike, trying to outrun death.
How long has it been? How fast can the Lamborghini go, when they want to push it? It takes way too long before we see the smoke stack climbing up between the peaks, like a signal fire. We slow down then, giving up. It takes maybe half an hour after that to reach the wreckage, limping, panting, stopping to hold each other and cry a little bit.
And surprising no one, there is nothing left. Just a smoking crater with twisted metal. I think I see something red, but I don't want to look. I look at Cia instead, who's standing still and looking like she might fall over. I put my arm around her shoulders and lead her to the side of the road and sit her down on the inclined ground, in the thick dry grass. It's uncomfortable, but I don't think Cia notices. She has an exhausted, far away look on her face, looking in front of her, not talking. She must be so sad.
I cry for her, hanging on her shoulder, and I can't stop it. She pulls me into her arms, I give in and I end up lying down with my head in her lap. I say sorry and she wipes my tears and says it's okay, though her voice sounds more unsteady than mine.
'I'm okay', I say, righting myself, feeling drained, empty, but stable. I'm scared to meet Cia's eye, but I do it anyway. She looks knowing, concerned, clear-headed. 'We can take turns falling apart. You go now.'
'Maybe later', Cia says, with a smile that says she knows she's going to Hell for smiling but chooses to do it anyway. 'Fuck, I want a drink. That's probably bad right.'
'All we've got left is each other', I say, and I don't realize how that sounds like she's my drug before she pulls me close with her arm around my neck and kisses me.
'I need you', she says, and now there's pain in her face. A raw hurt, despair, surrender. 'Oh, I hope you're ready to go all the way, Charlie. Oh, I wish we didn't have two dozen guests on the way.'
'We've got to be able to get privacy somehow. We should just ask how they do it. A group that big, sure some of them have to fuck.'
'Don't say that in such a sad voice, you'll make me laugh and then I'll feel bad. And also I think I hear them.'
Three women come jogging around the bend in the road and we have an only slightly awkward exchange of condolences, and then Cia and I go on while they wait there to tell the rest the way to the house when they catch up, 'if they want to come.' And also to spread the group out to smaller targets. I can see the reasonableness of this precaution, but I can't bring myself to care. Can't make myself worry about death from the skies. It seems absurd, like being afraid of lightning out of the clear blue sky. Even after seeing it happen to most of my friends.
Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but with the boys gone I feel like they'll leave us alone.
And Cia and I walk hard, well into the night, hoping to get some more distance from the group, until we reach one of the odd farm homes on the road. After honking the horn and waiting a while in their driveway and smelling the cows decomposing in the field on the drive down we're pretty sure it's abandoned, but we still make loud greetings all the way to the front door, vividly imagining cabin-fevered farmers lurking with shotguns in the dark.
The door opens with a piercing creak, but all else is quiet. The smell of rotting meat is weaker inside, thankfully. We brave the mixed odors leaking from the refrigerator in the kitchen to find a wealth of condiments in between spoiled meat and fruit, everything from jam to mustard, to spread on some not completely stale bread. There are cupboards entirely full of cookies and a horizontal freezer full of bags of perfectly good buns and cakes, and we have to fight hard to escape this paradise before our stomachs rupture.
The tap water works fine and we get a fire going in the furnace and make love in the shower, by candlelight. It's so strange and thrilling and I'm sure it's wrong on terribly many levels and that makes it even better. I am clay in Cia's hands, listening, learning, taking shape and shaping, growing. We come closer and closer, but not all the way. It's so good, pulling back just in time. It feels like fair punishment and it feels like the night before Christmas and it feels like being in control and being free.
Later, probably too late for anyone who may have decided to press on through the night, we find what looks like a storm lantern with a thick candle in it and put that down at the end of the driveway where nobody who walks by can miss it, and go to bed. There is one room with a double bed that takes up almost all of it and it looks like the most comfortable, but we opt for a bed that probably no one has had sex in, in what looks like a teenager's room. I find it hard to not think about where these people may be now, as I lie down with Cia and the stillness of the night comes close.
And Cia starts crying, now, when the work is done. Slowly, like she's scared of hurting herself. She stiffens before each sob, braces herself against me, and wrenches it out of herself like a rusty nail, with a thin breathless scream of pain. I try to squeeze her, softly, so she'll run out of breath and hurt less, but I think she notices because she bear hugs me back until my head spins and I let go.
'I'm sorry. I can't breathe', says Cia. She sounds confused and for a moment I doubt which one of us I am. 'Are you still with us?'
I guess I'm gasping for air too hard to speak. But I brush my hand against her cheek. It feels soft. Her hard body goes soft too, collapsing against me in a shuddering sigh.
'I love you so much', she says. 'I'm so scared. Please don't leave me.'
'Are you joking?' I say, without a thought. 'I'll never make it without you. In fact I need you to promise me you'll never die.'
I can feel the incredulity on her face, and the moment she realizes I'm quoting one of the dumbest scenes we ever saw in a movie. Cia starts laughing, helplessly, and light and life comes back to the world, a little bit.
We decide it's hopeless to resist the large, nearly full bottle of dark rum from under the sink, and relight some candles and sit down in the living room couch with a couple of glasses. If there's a Heaven I'm sure the people who lived here look down with big smiles at the mistake of the foolish upper class burglars, accustomed (so recently, so powerfully accustomed) to the finest liquors ever made chugging down their cheap, nasty rum and coughing most of it up on themselves. For a moment all the fear and pain and grief and confusion goes away and all I'm aware of is the blazing fire in my throat.
But we pour another and we lick the eye watering fluid from each others' bodies, and soon we settle into the now familiar rush that brings the tears closer and makes the hurt matter less. And brings up the libido. We take it slow, sloppy but gentle. A game of constant, low grade stimulation, fighting down the orgasm like fighting the rising sun. When it comes I imagine the sun up close. Unimaginably huge. Nuclear fire exploding forever. So big and so hot it bends time. Light running over our bodies like water. Cia comes for a long, long time, and I come with her. Its me and her, alone, just like I always wanted, and I hate myself so much and I want to stop being happy about it and I guess my guilt sort of works like it should because I start thinking how I really want Rosencranz and Guildenstern to not be dead and I go back to crying, cradling Cia's head in my arms and trying to say how I love her and I love what we did, how I'm just crying for the dead, and she talks about a nice memory she has of them, and I drift off to a hazy image of perfect gentlemen.
And suddenly it's the middle of the day and I wake up on the floor with Cia on top of me and an upside down person looking down on me from above with an uncertain expression. I'm not at all sure if she's one of the women from yesterday. 'Hello', I say, with a cracking voice, waving my hand that's not trapped under Cia's. 'Er. Blanket, please?'
'Right', says the stranger, stepping around us to the couch and throwing down a blanket to cover us up. 'I didn't realize I was intruding, sorry.'
'No, it's our fault. We had a lot of grieving to do, got carried away.'
'And we were expecting someone would stop by and everything', says Cia, somehow gracefully rolling off me while keeping the blanket in place. 'Wanted you to, even. This place is full of treasures. Just found out last night. Uh, Jane, was it?'
'Janet. Yeah, I went last in the line, the girls must have all passed by here, I didn't expect I'd be the first to check it out. This is awkward. Why don't I just give you two a little privacy.'
We have only embarrassed laughs to say to this, and Janet leaves us to get dressed. Soon we get back on the road, all three, with backpacks full of baked goods and ketchup and water bottles full of water and rum. Janet tells us she's not old enough to drink (and I fight a sickening feeling of deja vu), and Cia tells her it just might be very handy to have around, for treating tiredness, insomnia, coldness and shock, as disinfectant or even currency if not social lubricant. I'm sure neither she nor I have the tiniest desire to get drunk just now.
And we walk through the day, trying to find the a balanced middle in between getting to know each other talk and ripping directly into our traumas talk. Janet is clearly in trouble, unable to talk about anything but the horrors she has seen since the attack. She nibbles on a piece of sponge cake and says she doesn't like meat anymore, and we stop to hug her for a while.
'I will take some of that shock medicine', she says, pointing at my other water bottle. 'If it's okay.' She doesn't seem to be aware she's crying.
Cia says, 'we've got to be careful about this corruption of the youth thing we have going on. Okay, we're going to tell you about Kelly and you're going to have to promise me you're not going to kill yourself, but it's probably good. Your brain's stuck on this track, a strong drink can sort of reboot it.'
So Janet has a drink to calm down and I tell her about or poor past record as surrogate parents, while we cover more road.
'Well, I'm sure someone in this group of ours knows what they're doing', says Cia. 'Maybe they'll throw Charlie and me out for having sex in front of you and getting you drunk. That seems like something good parents would do.'
'But I'll still see you every other weekend, right?'
'That's right. And we'll take you fishing and feed you nothing but sugar so when you get back you're both hyper and bored out of your mind. Just to terrorize your moms. Cause we still love them and we don't have a healthy way to deal with that.'
'And when you turn eighteen', I add, 'we'll let you take the Lamborghini for a ride and you'll wreck it but you won't get a scratch. Oh no, wait.'
We continue laughing, somehow, while I fall to my knees, feeling the absence of the boys in my bones. Cia tries to pull me up but instead joins me in a moment of quiet heartbreak. And we go forward and Cia and I try to talk about Rosencranz and Guildenstern, just to fill Janet in. Theirs and Cia's relationship comes easy, but I find it hard to explain just what they meant to me. It's enough that they meant the world to Cia, of course. It's enough they were the nicest men I ever met or heard of, of course. It's enough they were human beings, really.
We do seem to be running low on us. We pass two more farms and a summer home on the road and we check them all for signs of life, finding nothing. And we haven't seen anyone else when we stop for the night, by a sheltering cliff at the side of the road. The house can't be more than one or two hours away, we estimate, but we're beaten and the night is mild, and with a campfire and some crunchy tangy plants Janet finds to supplement our meal of pastries and just a drop of rum we are more than comfortable. There are lots of reasons our guests who have to have reached there earlier today aren't rushing back to look where their hosts might have been lost along the way, but we don't talk about them. I make myself go to sleep, with Cia's hand in mine, just so I don't have to think about anything.
And the next day we find no trace of people in the house. The tin can of grain I left outside the door for any travelers on the road is untouched.
'What the fuck?' I say.
'What the fuck?' says Cia.
'It's my fault, you should get away from me', says Janet, with a blank look, backing away on stiff legs until she falls on her rear. Cia moves to comfort her while I'm just standing still and trying to think, but she crawls backward and talks in a thin bright voice, 'I heard they hunt down trans people, women and men both, maybe they don't know, how it works, but they just make sure, they kill all men, and they don't care, how many women, are, standing next to them, and I was scared, I couldn't tell anyone, and they killed everyone.'
'Hang on', says Cia, in a soft voice, wrapping her arms around Janet, holding her still. 'Listen, baby. You're saying the aliens strafed down everyone on the road? But we didn't see or hear anything? There are no marks, no bullet holes, no bodies, nothing? This is something else, don't you see?'
'And, you know', I say, kneeling in front of them, putting a hand on Janet's arm. 'If it was you they wanted dead I'd have to say they are a bit crap, for a global killing gang of ray gun nuts.'
Janet keeps hyperventilating, but she blinks and nods and stops fighting Cia.
'So I guess I outed myself for no reason', she says, after some time.
'Oh, it was still brave of you', says Cia. 'Bold and fair. I'm proud of you.'
'And you, you're not scared I'm going to get you killed?'
'My friend, if you think we'd leave you to either get killed by aliens or die of exposure and then still have anything to live for', says Cia. 'Then we, um.'
'I tell you this, Janet', I say. 'If we die and you make it, you're not allowed to blame yourself. Not, not with my permission.'
'Double standard', laughs Janet, while she's crying, and pulling me into the group hug. 'You totally blame yourselves for the ones who went in the car, and I can't?'
'It's their own fault', says Cia. 'They should have specified it if they didn't want us to blame ourselves. But it's too late for you, you heard her.'
'It's the rules', I say.
'Well then you can't blame yourselves if I run off and get eaten by bears', says Janet.
'Sorry, the rules are different for kids', I say. 'You have to make it to twenty five before you get to die.'
'This sucks', says Janet. 'You all are too wholesome. It's ruining my pathos. Can't you be a little transphobic at least?'
'No but seriously', says Cia. 'If the aliens get you, okay, but if you self-destruct in any way Charlie and I will never get over it.'
'You'll ruin our lives.'
'In this scenario where you two are already dead and I feel guilt about it?'
'Yes', I say, slowly. 'I'm glad you're paying attention.'
'Okay, just so you know, you may be the fun parents, but you're not nearly as funny as you think.'
'That's okay. We still love you.'
'Thanks for being honest.'
We go on pretending to be a family in the cheesiest way until it doesn't feel fake anymore, until Janet can't cry anymore, until I believe she's really ready to trust us.
And then we go inside.
To plan our day, to decide the order of business: Where to search, what to loot, how to transport it, if we're going to stay here with electricity and delicious water or move to a farm set up to work the earth, or keep moving, look for survivors. How to rebuild our life, how to go on living. We have a lot to talk about.
So we go inside. To wipe our tears. And make breakfast.
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