The Man Who Watched the World End (3 page)

“Because he’s my son. Because he’s your brother.”

“But he doesn’t know he’s going to the beach. He doesn’t even know what a beach is. He doesn’t even know we’re here.”

My mo
m paused as she looked for the right words. “I can’t argue with any of that,” she said.

“So why are you making him go, then?” I said it as though Andrew w
ere being forced against his will, even though nothing could have been further from the truth. In the years since, I realized I said it that way because I wanted to get all of the attention. It wasn’t fair that someone who didn’t talk or do chores or hit the game-winning homerun could still get as much attention as I did. At the time, I had wanted to ask what the point was of me doing the dishes after dinner or making my bed in the morning if Andrew never di abandoned homes. other d any of those things but was loved as though he did do them. Luckily, for once in my childhood, I didn’t say the stupid thing I could have said and instead remained silent.

My mo
m said again, “Because he’s my son. Because he’s your brother.” This time when she said it, she put her hand on my cheek and smiled.

Then, as if her answer should satisfy
a seven year-old, she stood up and began preparing for the vacation again. But of course what she had said didn’t make sense to me. I tugged on her sleeve as she tried to walk away to pack more luggage.

“Are you going to put him in the ocean?”

“I don’t know. I guess maybe if your father wants to.”

“But why?”

She paused for a moment, frowned, then started again. “Because he’s—”

“Mom.”

She knelt down in front of me so we were the same height. I remember being only inches apart from her, her sweet breath on my face. She took my cheeks in her hands the way she would if I had scraped my knee and needed to be soothed.

“Because I love him. It doesn’t matter if he won’t understand that we’re going on a vacation or that he won’t know he’s at the ocean instead of his bed. I love him so much I want him with me wherever I am. That’s the way mothers are.” She smiled and hugged me. “And don’t you forget, buster, that your father and I took you on vacations before you were old enough to understand where you were. You were just a little baby when we went
to the beach with you for the first time. How would you have felt if we left you at home?”

I didn’t say anything else. She knew me well enough to know I would stay quiet.

Still eye to eye, her hands on my shoulders, she said, “He’s the only brother you have. He can’t play catch with you or play hide-and-go-seek but he’s…” She paused, tried to smile, but even as a seven year-old I knew she was faking her happiness. She cleared her throat. “One day your father and I will get older and we might not be around anymore. If that happens, Andrew will be the last family you have. That’s why you should want him with us on our vacations. He’s your family, and family is the moLooking back,edo st important thing.”

The words didn’t really make sense to me at the time. I knew what each word meant, but not the significance they held when strung together. But even without understanding them
, they somehow convinced me.

On our second day
at the beach I took a picture of my dad holding Andrew in his arms as a wave crashed over them. He was laughing enough for himself and for Andrew. I continue looking at that photograph even to this day. It sits on our mantle in a frame lined with little seashells. A funny thing happened as I got older: I began to appreciate what my mom had been trying to say about the importance of having Andrew with me, even if he couldn’t tell me to shut up when my stories were stupid or when my jokes weren’t funny.

We were
taught that evolution was a step forward, a step to further the ability of a species. This was said about the Blocks so they would be looked at as something unique and special, something greater than what we had been before. But if this really was an evolution, something positive, and not a case of a disease that was afflicting everyone we knew, then it was doing the exact opposite of what it had done the previous million years. No one could understand how a species could change itself in a way that prevented its own survival. It defied nature.

By the end of that first year,
fifteen percent of babies were Blocks. Within two years, the syndrome was affecting forty percent of all babies. After five years, it was up to ninety percent. A year later, a hundred percent of babies were born healthy in every way except they couldn’t do anything for themselves. This new generation was the end of our civilization.

That’
s how the world (at least as man sees it) will end. Not with armies conquering other nations, not with race wars or religious wars, but with people who can’t love or wish, people who can’t give you a hug when you need it, can’t offer advice when called upon. These silent masses will continue to age until the last generation of regular adults gets too old to take care of them, and then everyone will just fade away.

There have been other times when people were afraid for their futures. My parents told me what it was like to grow up during the Cold War, never knowing if a mushroom cloud would blossom on the horizon and blot out the sun. Their grandparents lived through World War II and talked about what is was like to see the entire world fighting itself as though life wasn’t the most valuable thing, but the most expendable. They agree
d with me, though, that the signs of extinction have never been this concrete.

As I type this
Andrew is sitting by himself on the sofa. I check him periodically to see if he needs anything. I refill his nutrient bag. I turn on a movie or some music. I talk to him so he can hear my voice. He never acknowledges any of this.

It would be funny to see his reaction if he woke up one day as a normal adult. What would he do if he woke up on the sofa with a weird old man sitting a couple
of feet away from him? Would he believe me if I said I was his brother, that I had taken care of him his entire life, or would he think I was the crazy one and wonder what had happened to his memory?

His
blinking eyes don’t signal a need or a desire. They signal nothing. They signal that he can’t take care of himself, that he is living in a healthy body but is otherwise dead to the world.

I go and check on him anyway. I always do.

I keep waiting for the Johnsons to reappear, to knock on my door like old times.
In a neighborhood built to hold a hundred families, there’s a surprising difference between ninety-eight houses being vacant and ninety-nine. Without them here, a collection of movies, books, and music keeps Andrew and I occupied. I love Andrew dearly, but he never tells me which movies he likes, which actors could never play a believable character no matter how hard they try, which books he wouldn’t waste his time with, which authors were telling great truths. Water, food, and electricity are, thankfully, provided for me, but the one thing I treasured—people—has been taken away. My parents are long gone. The neighborhood slowly trickled away. The Johnsons are gone.

For the previous two years, the Johnsons
’ house has been the only other occupied home on my street, the other people all either having died of old age (slang for cancer, heart attacks, the usual causes) or leaving to join the group communities. Every person I’ve known, from the time I was born to today, is gone. My brother is the only exception.

How did
it happen that I’m left here with the things I need to survive, but without the one thing that actually keeps me going? Sure, I thought about the end while the Johnsons were still here, but it never seemed imminent because I was talking about the end
with
the Johnsons. Now, I can’t help but feel like i taken care ofspspjot’s only a matter of time until the last light on the street goes out and the animals forget what it was like having an old man for a neighbor. Like a widower losing a spouse, I could have gone on indefinitely as long as I had someone to go on with. My grandmother passed away three months after my grandfather; what’s the average lifespan of a widower? I’ll need to look that up.

By
writing about a golf community surrounded with forest, you would think I live in a nice, quiet neighborhood, but that’s not true. I live in the remnants of what used to be a nice, quiet neighborhood.

Weeds
cover everything, spread everywhere. I used to have a nice cherry blossom on the side of my house. Its withered limbs are still there, but it’s been years since they bloomed pretty buds. The weeds blot everything out. If I kill one, a new breed will take its spot a week later. Nature, it seems, is very serious about reclaiming everything man took from it.

The last time I ventured to the end of the street, where the community ends and the rest of the world begins, the brick sign welcoming everyone to
Camelot was hidden behind thick weeds. At one time it served as a marker that people from this area used after long days at work to know they were finally home, could finally relax. Each metal letter was bolted into the brick wall in the fashionable style from decades ago. Over the years, the letters became hidden in the brush so that only the tops could be seen over the uncut grass. When I pulled back the weeds, the letters, once shiny metal, had become orange with rust. Each letter was caked with layer upon layer of dirt that told how many seasons had passed since someone cared enough to greet visitors. There was a time when people would see that sign and smile because they knew a fabulous round of golf awaited. The course was hidden amongst the trees in a way that let you feel like you were always near people, but without always having to see them.

The earth sh
ows hints of grey where the road used to be. Underneath thriving weeds now, it used to be kept in pristine condition; anything on the street besides the two speed bumps caused uproars at community meetings. That was when I first moved here with Andrew. The speed bumps are gone now, I assume, just because the rest of the pavement has deteriorated so much. It resembles a gravel road now, full of over-sized rocks, more than it does the main path to a golf community.

Even when three or four other families were here, I could have driven my car through all of the lawns, done donuts to my heart’s content, and no one would have cared.
With the shutters on each house having fallen years ago, the gutters clogged and overflowing, there is no longer any pride in property. There is no one to look outside and feel jealous of how nice their neighbor’s shrubbery looks compared to their own, no one to wish they had as nice a privacy fence as the family down the street. a giant brown bear lumber watchen

The curtains are pulled aside in each house
, not a single ray of sunlight prevented from entering the abandoned homes. The final owners probably liked feeling as though there was nothing to be gloomy about, even though the rest of the neighborhood was slowly becoming vacant. And why not leave the blinds open? There was barely anyone left to see a man walk around in his house naked, and the few who did remain were all old enough that their eyesight was hazy. With the Johnsons gone, I could play eighteen holes naked, go for a walk naked, take a stroll through the community center naked, and not a single person would know. I say these things as though there are advantages to my situ1%; text-indent:3.0em; text-alignation, which is not the case.

W
hen I walked into the living room today and saw Andrew there, motionless, I was sure he was dead. His head had fallen to the side. His mouth was open. His eyes, vacant as always, stared up at the ceiling the way I see in horror movies. This is nothing new, but a sureness came over me that today would be different, that his end might finally have come.

I rushed over to him. “Andrew, are you okay?” My ear went to his mouth. There could have been feint
breaths, but I couldn’t be sure.

Lord, please don’t let him be gone. I don’t want to be alone.

“Andrew?”

His eyes didn’t offer random blinks. His chest may have expanded slightly, but the movement was so miniscule I couldn’t tell.

“Andrew, please.”

My hand went to his chest. A heartbeat gave gentle patters against
my palm. He was still with me.

“Jesus Christ, you scared me.”

I put in a movie and tried to forget the momentary scare, but it took a while to get over the fright of thinking he might have been gone. The rest of the day pass a giant brown bear lumber for theWlled without incident. I did, though, find myself checking his pulse every ten minutes just to be safe.

By the time Andrew would have been starting little league, if little league was still around then with children able to swing bats and throw balls, the things that had previously been important—getting the most for your money
, electing public officials who weren’t corrupt—took a backseat to more simplistic needs. During the same dinner conversation in which my parents discussed the availability of food, water, and electricity as a growing number of businesses shut their doors, they looked over at me and saw a young face that didn’t understand why these things preoccupied them. They took time away from worrying about the future to tell me what it was like to grow up back when they were ten-year olds. My dad spoke about cartoons on Saturday mornings and about putting baseball cards in the spokes of his bike. My mom talked about trying on makeup with her older sister and selling cookies to raise money for school trips. A year later, in the same breath they used to talk about the government’s plan to build a food processor and generator for every house, my mom and dad talked about what it was like to walk through the aisles of toy stores that were so big parents had to be paged over the intercom to find their children. It sounded like an amazing place to get lost. There were never times when I was growing up that my mom and dad discussed a rise in interest rates or how road construction was causing traffic jams on the way to work. They spoke instead about their neighbors starting to move south, and about the things they would need in order to take care of themselves and to take care of Andrew and me.