First Person Peculiar (9 page)
Read First Person Peculiar Online
Authors: Mike Resnick
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Anthologies, #Science Fiction, #Short Stories, #Anthologies & Short Stories
“No, not in time to help Gwendolyn.”
* * *
Gradually, over the next few months, she became totally unaware that she even had Alzheimer’s. She no longer read, but she watched the television incessantly. She especially liked children’s shows and cartoons. I would come into the room and hear the 82-year-old woman I loved singing along with the Mickey Mouse Club. I had a feeling that if they still ran test patterns she could watch one for hours on end.
And then came the morning I had known would come: I was fixing her breakfast—some cereal she’d seen advertised on television—and she looked up at me, and I could tell that she no longer knew who I was. Oh, she wasn’t afraid of me, or even curious, but there was absolutely no spark of recognition.
The next day I moved her into a home that specialized in the senile dementias.
* * *
“I’m sorry, Paul,” said Dr. Castleman. “But it really is for the best. She needs professional care. You’ve lost weight, you’re not getting any sleep, and to be blunt, it no longer makes any difference to her who feeds and cleans and medicates her.”
“Well, it makes a difference to
me
,” I said angrily. “They treat her like an infant!”
“That’s what she’s become.”
“She’s been there two weeks, and I haven’t seen them try—really
try
—to communicate with her.”
“She has nothing to say, Paul.”
“It’s there,” I said. “It’s somewhere inside her brain.”
“Her brain isn’t what it once was,” said Castleman. “You have to face up to that.”
“I took her there too soon,” I said. “There
must
be a way to connect with her.”
“You’re an adult, and despite her appearance, she’s a four-year-old child,” said Castleman gently. “You no longer have anything in common.”
“We have a lifetime in common!” I snapped.
I couldn’t listen to any more, so I got up and stalked out of his office.
* * *
I decided that depending on Dr. Castleman was a dead end, and I began visiting other specialists. They all told me pretty much the same thing. One of them even showed me his lab, where they were doing all kinds of chemical experiments on the amyloid beta protein and a number of other things. It was encouraging, but nothing was going to happen fast enough to cure Gwendolyn.
Two or three times each day I picked up that pistol I’d bought and toyed with ending it, but I kept thinking: what if there’s a miracle—medical, religious, whatever kind? What if she becomes Gwendolyn again? She’ll be all alone with a bunch of senile old men and women, and I’ll have deserted her.
So I couldn’t kill myself, and I couldn’t help her, and I couldn’t just stand by and watch her. Somehow, somewhere, there had to be a way to connect with her, to communicate on the same level again. We’d faced some pretty terrible problems together—losing a son, suffering a miscarriage, watching each of our parents die in turn—and as long as we were together we were able to overcome them. This was just one more problem—and every problem is capable of solution.
I found the solution, too. It wasn’t where I expected, and it certainly wasn’t
what
I expected, but she was 82 years old and sinking fast, and I didn’t hesitate.
That’s where things stand this evening. Earlier today I bought this notebook, and this marks the end of my first entry.
* * *
Friday, June 22. I’d heard about the clinic while I was learning everything I could about the disease. The government outlawed it and shut it down, so they moved it lock, stock and barrel to Guatemala. It wasn’t much to look at, but then, I wasn’t expecting much. Just a miracle of a different sort.
They make no bones about what they anticipate if the experiment goes as planned. That’s why they only accept terminal patients—and because they have so few and are so desperate for volunteers, that’s also why they didn’t challenge me when I told them I had a slow-acting cancer. I signed a release that probably wouldn’t hold up in any court of law outside Guatemala; they now have my permission to do just about anything they want to me.
* * *
Saturday, June 23. So it begins. I thought they’d inject it into my spine, but instead they went through the carotid artery in my neck. Makes sense; it’s the conduit between the spine and the brain. If anything’s going to get the protein where it can do its work, that’s the ticket. I thought it would hurt like hell, but it’s just a little sore. Except for that, I don’t feel any different.
* * *
Wednesday, June 27. Fourth day in a row of tedious lectures explaining how some of us will die but a few may be saved and all humanity will benefit, or something like that. Now I have an inkling of how lab rats and guinea pigs feel. They’re not aware that they’re dying; and I guess before too long, we won’t be either.
* * *
Wednesday, July 3. After a week of having me play with the most idiotic puzzles, they tell me that I’ve lost six percent of my cognitive functions and that the condition is accelerating. It seems to please them no end. I’m not convinced; I think if they’d give me a little more time I’d do better on these damned tests. I mean, it’s been a long time since I was in school. I’m out of practice.
* * *
Sunday, July 7. You know, I think it’s working. I was reading down in the lounge, and for the longest time I couldn’t remember where my room was. Good. The faster it works, the better. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
* * *
Tuesday, July 16. Today we got another talking-to. They say the shots are stronger and the symptoms are appearing even faster than they’d hoped, and it’s almost time to try the anecdote. Anecdote. Is that the right word?
* * *
Friday, July 26. Boy am I lucky. At the last minute I remembered why I went there in the furst place. I wated until it was dark and snuck out. When I got to the airport I didnt have any money, but they asked to see my wallet and took out this plastic card and did something with it and said it was OK and gave me a ticket.
* * *
Saturday, july 27. I wrote down my address so I wouldnt forget, and boy am i lucky I did, because when I got a cab at the airporte I coudlnt’ remember what to tell him. We drove and we drove and finally I remembered I had wrote it down, but when we got home i didnt’ have a key. i started pounding on the door, but no one was there to let me in, and finally they came with a loud siren and took me somewere else. i cant stay long. I have to find gwendolyn before it is too late, but i cant remember what it wood be too late for.
* * *
Mundy, august. He says his name is Doctr Kasleman and that i know him, and he kept saying o paul why did you do this to yourself, and i told him i didn’t remember but i know I had a reason and it had something to do with gwendolyn. do you remember her he said. of course i do i said, she is my love and my life. I askt when can i see her & he said soon.
* * *
wensday. they gave me my own room, but i dont want my own room i want to be with gwendolyn. finaly they let me see her and she was as beutiful as ever and i wanted to hug her and kiss her but wen i walked up to her she started krying and the nurse took her away
* * *
it has been 8 daz since i rote here. or maybe 9. i keep forgeting to. today i saw a prety littl girl in the hall, with prety white hair. she reminds me of someone but i dont know who. tomorrow if i remember i will bring her a prezent
* * *
i saw the pretti gurl again today. i took a flower from a pot and gave it to her and she smiled and said thank you and we talkt alot and she said i am so glad we met & i am finaly happy. i said so am i. i think we are going to be great friends becauz we like each other and have so mucch in commmon. i askt her name and she couldnt remember, so i will call her gwendolyn. i think i nu someone called gwendolyn once a long time ago and it is a very pretti name for a very pretti new frend.
***
When I delivered a collection to Beth Meacham, my editor at Tor, she didn’t like any of the story titles as a title for the book, so I came up with this one. She replied that she liked it and that she’d use it, but that of course I now had to write a story with that title for inclusion in the book. So I did.
Will the Last Person to
Leave the Planet
Please Shut Off the Sun?
It started with the Jews.
One day they announced that they were emigrating to the world of New Jerusalem. Just like that. Not even so much as a by-your-leave.
“We are tired of being under-appreciated and over-persecuted,” said their statement. “We gave you the Old Testament and the Ten Commandments, relativity and quantum mechanics, the polio vaccine and interstellar travel, Hollywood and Miami Beach and Sandy Koufax, the 6-Day War of 1967 and the 23-Minute War of 2041, and frankly, we’ve had it with you guys. Live long and prosper and don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
And the next day they were gone, every last one of them.
It was June 21, 2063. I still remember my friend Burt passing out
Earth: Love It Or Leave It
t-shirts to all the guys at work, and saying that we were well rid of them and that
now
things were going to get better in a hell of a hurry.
Then, three months later, Odingo Nkomo announced that the Kikuyu were leaving for Beta Piscium IV, and then Joshua Galawanda took the Zulus to Isandhwana II, and almost before you could turn around, Africa was empty except for a few Arabs in the north and a handful of Indians who quickly booked passage back to Bombay.
Well, this didn’t bother anyone very much, because nobody really cared about Africa anyway, and suddenly there were two billion less mouths to feed and some of the game parks started showing signs of life. But then Moses Smith demanded that the U.S. government supply transportation to all American blacks who wanted to leave, and Earl Mingus (“the Pride of Mississippi”), who had just succeeded to the presidency, agreed on the spot, and suddenly we had an all-white nation.
Well,
almost
all-white. Actually, it took another year for Harvey Running Horse to convince all his fellow Amerinds to accompany him to Alphard III, which he had renamed Little Big Horn.
“Now,” said Burt, popping open a beer, “if we could just get rid of the Hispanics, and maybe the Catholics …”
The Hispanics headed off for Madrid III two months later, and Burt threw a big party to celebrate. “I’m finally proud to be an Amurrican agin!” he announced, and hung a huge flag outside his front door.
Of course, it wasn’t just the blacks and Jews and Hispanics who were emigrating, and it wasn’t just America and Africa that were getting emptier. The Chinese left the next year, followed by the Turks, the Bulgarians, the Indians, the Australians, and the French Polynesians. It didn’t even make headlines when the Cook County Democratic Machine went off to Daleyworld, which figured to be the only planet that was ever turned into a smoke-filled back room.
“Great!” proclaimed Burt. “We finally got room to breathe and stretch our legs.”
Things kind of settled down for a couple of years then, and life got pretty easy, and we hardly noticed that the Brits, the Germans, the Russians, the Albanians, the Sunis and the Shiites had all gone.
“Wonderful!” said Burt on the day the Greeks and the Pakistanis left. “So maybe we still wear gas masks because of the pollution, and the water still ain’t safe to drink, and we ain’t quite gotten over our little problem with Eight Mile Island”—that was the problem that turned it into thirty-two Quarter Mile Islands—“but, by God, what’s a little inconvenience compared to a world run by and for 100% pure Amurricans?”
I suppose we should have seen the handwriting on the wall when the NFL moved the Alaska Timberwolves and the Louisiana Gamblers, the last two franchises still on Earth, to the Quinellus Cluster. There were other little hints, too, like using downtown Boston to test out the new J-Bomb, or the day the Great Lakes finally turned solid with sludge.
That was when the
real
emigration started, right in our back yard, so to speak. Nevada, Michigan, and Florida were the first to go; then New Hampshire and Delaware, then Texas, and then it was Katie-bar-the-door. For the longest time I really thought California would stick around, but they finally located a world with a 9,000-mile beach and a native populace that specialized in making sandals and cheap gold jewelry, and suddenly the United States of America began at St. Louis and ended about 60 miles west of Council Bluffs.
“Let ‘em go,” counseled Burt. “We never needed ‘em anyway. And there’s just that much more for the rest of us, right?”
Except that things kept happening. The ice cap slipped south all the way to Minneapolis, Mount Kilimanjaro started pouring lava down onto the Serengeti Plains, the Mediterranean boiled away, the National Hockey League went bankrupt, and people kept leaving.
That was almost ten years ago.
There are only eight of us left now. Burt was pressed into duty as World President this week, because Arnie Jenkins hurt his wrist and can’t sign any documents, and Sybil Miller, who was supposed to succeed Arnie, has her period and says she doesn’t feel like it.
We haven’t gotten any mail or supplies in close to a year now. They say that Earth is too polluted and dangerous to land on any more, so Burt figured it was his Presidential duty to take one of our two remaining ships to Mars Base and pick up the mail, and bring Arnie back his yearly supply of cigarettes.
I stopped by his office this morning to return a socket wrench I had borrowed, and I saw a letter addressed to me sitting on his desk, so I opened it and read it.
I been mulling it over, and I decided that I was all wrong
about this after all. I mean, being World President is all well
and good, but not when your only duties are taking out the garbage
and picking up the mail. A World President needs a army and navy
to keep the peace, and lots of people paying taxes, and stuff like
that. I hate to leave now that we’re finally down to nothing but
100% pure and loyal Americans, but the fact of the matter is that
there ain’t no point to being President every eighth week without
no perks and no fringes, so I’m off to the big wide galaxy to see
if anyone out there wants a guy with Presidential experience. I’ll
be happy to take over the reins of any government what wants me,
so long as it’s white and Christian and mostly American and has a
football team. In fact, I don’t even have to be President; I got
no serious objections to hiring on as King
Do me a favor and post this one last official message for me.
And there was a printed sign saying, WILL THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE THE PLANET PLEASE SHUT OFF THE SUN?
I can’t tell you how relieved the rest of us are. Burt was okay for a Baptist, but you know what they say about Baptists.
Now if we can just find a way to get rid of Myrtle Bremmer and that Presbyterian claptrap she’s always spouting, we’ll finally have an America that
I’m
proud to be a part of.
***
