{"id":137513,"date":"2021-09-21T22:53:38","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T22:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=137513"},"modified":"2023-11-04T15:06:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T15:06:23","slug":"zombies-cant-take-the-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=137513","title":{"rendered":"Zombies Can’t Take the Train"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nAutobiographical Case Histories from the Abridged 2055 Multimedia History Project on the Plague Year: Documenting the Rapid Sclerosis Pandemic. Society for Research and Education of the Global Open Forum Recovery Group.\n<\/p>\n

\nCase Contents: Selections from the subject\u2019s journal and an interview with a surviving member of the fire and rescue squad that quarantined the subject.\n<\/p>\n

\nSubject: Steven Smith. North American (Northeast Coastal Ecoregion) male Caucasian. Age 41 at time of infection in the city of New Haven on May 14, 2027.\n<\/p>\n

\nDocument Status: Except for bloodstains, the journal was unaltered when recovered. Society members have added footnotes. This document is a primary source for post-peak studies. A full copy of the journal and the interview auditory file are available at qqq.ccss.GOF.aubiohist for a small contribution to your community labor pool.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 16, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nTwo days ago, I woke up so numb that it was as if I floated over my bed. The morning sun highlighted Cindy\u2019s slender figure and auburn hair as she looked down at me and her lips curled into an I\u2019ve-been-naughty smile. Noticing her blood-speckled cheeks and the chewed-off stump where my left hand used to be, I rolled out of the bed. She laughed as I struggled to stand, unable to feel where my ass ended and the hard floor began. Freakazoiding, I fumbled into my super-sized safari suit and stumbled around the room searching for my boots, unsure when she\u2019d get the Hunger again. I should\u2019ve put her down, but I\u2019d never killed anyone, just written about it. As I edged forward to grab my boots, located just under the bed, her emerald eyes twinkled and she picked up my index finger to suck the gristle off it in a provocative manner. The parasites that had begun to burrow along my neural pathways must have done more than cauterize my injury and numb my body. Although I was terrified, I was not angry. Instead of righteous rage, I felt that considering everything, it was nice of Cindy to remember that I was right-handed.\n<\/p>\n

\nPausing by the bedroom door, I stuffed the boots into the survival pack I\u2019d placed there and turned back towards Cindy. As my eyes roamed over her perfections the last time, I blamed myself. Someone so beautiful and sweet wouldn\u2019t throw themselves at an obese oddball who writes appliance manuals for a living. She tensed for a leap. I wriggled into my pack\u2019s straps, breathed deep, and decided that I didn\u2019t care why she\u2019d given me the two best weeks of my life. It was okay if it wasn\u2019t all the secrets and hopes we\u2019d shared, that it was because parasites had transformed her from a reserved sociology graduate student into an insatiable seeker of sexual delights. Until the hunger for human flesh overcomes you, the disease monorails your desires, creating one maniacal need. For Cindy, I now knew that need was sex; for me, well, I missed my mom.\n<\/p>\n

\nCindy made her move. I slammed the door and yanked a couch in front of it. My asthma kicked in as I leapt down the stairs. While the couch scraped my hardwood floor, I unlocked my security gate and fumbled open the front door. I scurried outside as she pounded down the stairs. The gate clanged shut and the lock clicked into place behind me. Shouted pleas of, \u201cDon\u2019t desert me!\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ll make everything right again,\u201d issued through the gate. From one of my safari suit\u2019s many pockets, I pulled an inhaler and puffed twice. Breathing again and relieved that Cindy was stuck behind security gates and window grills that I had the sole keys for, I rested against an elm tree. I was trying to ignore her pleas and assess my situation when a Golden Doodle dragged a human femur into the condo parking lot and began to bark at me. Afraid the noise would draw more feral frou-frou dogs or worse, I fled. My bare feet found every sharp pebble as I ran across the too-sunny lot and through the Guptas\u2019 open backdoor. I said, \u201cOh\u2026Oh no,\u201d as I shut the door behind me. A bloody smear began on the kitchen floor, where little Sabita\u2019s Cookie Monster doll lay abandoned, and ended at the backdoor.\n<\/p>\n

\nShaking my head, I walked through their glass and chrome living room and went upstairs to Ms. Gupta\u2019s office. Her built-in shelves were stuffed with accounting books and Ganesh statues. I shook my pack off my shoulders, letting it fall onto the red shag carpet, and dropped into her swivel chair. My thoughts starting to race and my heart to pound \u2014 over Sabita and everything else \u2014 I pulled a Valium bottle from a shirt pocket and popped several. As I zoned out, I stared at a dancing Ganesh and wondered what he was so happy about.\n<\/p>\n

\nAn hour later, full consciousness came upon me like a slow-motion landslide. Hoping to avoid being buried by anxiety and despair, I decided to focus on the little things that I could control. My first decision was to stay the night. The numbness would soon wear off and I\u2019d be at my most vulnerable. Anyway, before I traveled, I had to figure out how to lace my boots. Curious about what I would face later, I stood to look out the window. To do so, I leaned on the edge of the desktop with my bad arm. The desktop, a sheet of glass that sat on two chrome sawhorses, tilted. Not at my brightest, I watched everything on it slide onto the floor. As the sheet of glass began to move towards my mid-section, I came to my senses and removed my weight from it. The desktop slammed back down. I stared at it for a moment before blurting, \u201cWhat the what,\u201d as I stood to jerk the blinds open.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy guilt for messing up Ms. Gupta\u2019s office evaporated upon looking outside. Shattered storefront windows lined State Street and a telephone pole topped with ax heads leaned against the wall of Inner Peace and Extreme Survival Studio. It was as if a giant had sucked up mailboxes, trees, signs, cars, and human beings, chewed them up, and spit them back out. Drums, saxophones, and guitars strewn near Dr. Katz\u2019s Animal Clinic stirred memories of the early plague days: endless awful singing by Western civilization\u2019s worst creation, the pop-star wannabe, that was intermittently interrupted by elderly country bands and cheerleader squads. It was like living on the American Idol1 set. Too scared to go out, I kept my crank radio blaring. Intrepid reporters, or Compulsives trying to be reporters, described all-night baseball and midnight gardening, acts of altruism and awfulness, impossible scientific and artistic projects, and entrepreneurs catering to desperate Compulsives. Those Compulsives included computer gamers seeking electricity, shoppers frantic to discover bargains, foodies searching for five-star meals, and what should have been a warning to me, lovers hoping to find their last love. The radio reports all noted the Compulsives\u2019 perseverance, no matter their injuries. However, when enough time passed the parasites changed all the Compulsives into Eaters, just as they had transformed Cindy.\n<\/p>\n

\nA salty taste filled my mouth as I sat back down and pressed my eyes shut. Still numb, I\u2019d bitten my lip to try to block memories of what came next, when the Eaters finished off most of the remaining Compulsives and yet-to-be-infected Cleans. No matter my efforts, memories of those horrific days swarmed into my mind, days in which I\u2019d shut off the radio and tried to imagine that my condo was a pocket universe. It had been impossible. The end of the world made it through the walls of the basement safe-room I huddled in: the sirens, shots, and horrific screams. Later, it smelled like I was stuck in a busted freezer filled with sour milk and rotten meat. A shameful combination of cowardice and selfishness prevented me from helping anyone. The terror and guilt were worse than the discomforts: eating raw pasta and potatoes to save Sterno; creeping around the condo to maintain my rainwater collection system and chemical toilet; being unable to phone, text, or Facebook; not bathing or shaving; wearing dirty clothes; and missing therapist appointments.\n<\/p>\n

\nI opened my eyes and spewed bloody spit on Ms. Gupta\u2019s desk. To address my ever-multiplying psychological needs all I could do was to scribble in this journal. Writing fiction was no longer an option since the only thing I\u2019d ever written were stories of post-apocalyptic heroes and I wasn\u2019t being one. Nothing had happened like my survivalist stories, which consisted of macho cleverness and a lack of gun-control laws. Even my self-published masterpieces, Tales of the Rescue of a Techno Maiden and The Parking Garage Pirates of Putnam Street,<\/em> didn\u2019t hint at the traumas and tedious drudgery of actual survival. I thought I wrote the stories because they immersed me in a world in which no one told you what to do and where you were special just because you had survived. Remembering that Cindy had broken through that thin explanation, I used my hand to wipe the blood off my chin and stood to check on her.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith my binoculars, I left the office and walked across the landing and into the master bedroom. Dr. Gupta\u2019s shriveled remains were on an oak four-poster bed; an empty hypodermic needle dangled from his withered arm. While I examined him, I thought about the big Texan \u201chowdy\u201d he always greeted me with and how he loved to grill shitake mushrooms or Tandoori chicken on summer Sunday afternoons. Now I\u2019d never be able to pay him back for the time he drove me to the hospital after diagnosing my hernia. I yanked the blanket, to try to roll him up in it. He fell with an unpleasant thump onto the floor. After several deep breaths, I threw the blanket over him and went to the window, unsure of what I\u2019d do when my sense of smell returned.\n<\/p>\n

\nI peered through the Venetian blinds and saw that Cindy had opened all my drapes. But why? With my binoculars, I saw why, and shouted, \u201cShit soup!\u201d Still undressed, she was emptying my cupboards of their delicacies. Done, she lopped the tops off Apple Jacks, Fruit Loops, and Cap\u2019n Crunch boxes2 with my samurai knife and leaned back to empty one box after another into her mouth. My eyes teared up as Cindy\u2019s curvy figure was outlined in a candy-colored shower of sugary treasure; beautiful blissful bits of sweetness bounced off her and onto the ungrateful kitchen tiles. My stomach lurched each time she slammed an eight pound can of chocolate syrup against a counter edge, only stopping when the priceless chocolate sprayed the kitchen and herself. In silent shock, sweat dripping from under my arms, I watched her lift the huge sharp-edged container to her delicate lips. Her small mouth filled with the life-giving liquid; it flowed down her cheeks and cascaded like a slow-motion velvety waterfall down her neck, chest, and legs, to pool at her feet. The food-massacre went on for what seemed forever \u2014 a bottle of peppermint schnapps tasted and spilled, Slim Jims bitten and discarded, Hostess Cup Cakes sampled, a bag of pork rinds scattered after one bite, a gallon jar of maraschino cherries smashed, creating a blood-red tide that flowed across the kitchen floor. With each wasted calorie, primordial pain flowed through my veins and the temptation to save my darlings increased. She attacked my favorites, yanking the tops off a row of small, colorful boxes and ripping open the shiny packages within to stuff their contents into her face. Prefab pastries of every flavor fragmented and fell, surrounding her with what looked like the remnants of a bombed paint factory. I cried out in disbelief, \u201cThe bitch is eating my Pop-Tarts!\u201d However, I knew she wasn\u2019t enjoying her last lucid moments, that she wanted me to end her suffering. Cindy was past the Compulsive stage, during which one has some normal desires, and was experiencing a hyper-aggressive form of Alzheimer\u2019s. I wanted to retrieve the Glock in my pack. But how do you shoot someone, especially Cindy? When she collapsed to the kitchen floor \u2014 now a sweet swamp with islands of cans, boxes, and bottles \u2014 and sobbed, I decided to do it. I loved her too much to let her suffer and I\u2019d promised her I\u2019d do it.\n<\/p>\n

\nI need to stop writing, even though the sun is up and I haven\u2019t finished telling you about the two worst days of my life. I bet you also want to know how I\u2019ll reach Mom. Don\u2019t worry, I have a plan. But I can\u2019t tell you now. I need to eat my last two packets of freeze-dried ice cream and cry a little. Writing about everything helps, but, can only do so much.\n<\/p>\n


\nMay 17, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nLast night as I tried to sleep, I kept asking myself the same question. Why at the headwaters of the river of causality had I made a decision that resulted in my beaching on such a barren island? Why, after preparing for disasters my whole life did I waste all my efforts in one moment of weakness? Yes, it was weakness, not an inner core of altruism and bravery, as I wrote May 1st. I didn\u2019t rescue Cindy that day. Okay, the real reason: thirty days was too long to be lonely. How else to explain why I didn\u2019t ignore her shouts, like I had so many others, why I put the book down I was reading, He\u2019s My Daughter\/She\u2019s my Son: A Hermaphrodite\u2019s Story, <\/em>and why I turned off my radio, which was blaring out static-filled status reports on safe zones and hot spots. My heart leapt, when I peeked out my window and recognized a not-so-friendly face, Cindy from my writers\u2019 group. A calm person, she was shouting in bullet-like sentences while striding back and forth across my parking lot, her long auburn hair waving behind her. \u201cIs anyone out there that can help me?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m clean.\u201d \u201cCome on look at me.\u201d \u201cNo bite marks. Nothing.\u201d Her hoarse voice suggested a ragged tiredness underlay the confidence her face conveyed.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy decision to open the door was rationalized by a fiery red miniskirt and a ripped black-lace blouse, which revealed a pink polka-dotted bra. It was hard to connect this woman, who resembled the languid femme fatale in The Lethal Enigma,3 <\/em> with the straight-laced woman I met in my writers\u2019 group every other Tuesday. That was a woman who always criticized my work for \u201chaving too high a death toll\u201d and at our last meeting got personal with, \u201cYet another rescue fantasy? Who are you trying to rescue?\u201d I didn\u2019t rescue Cindy, except from an itch. She didn\u2019t cling to me. And I didn\u2019t shoot down six empty-eyed Eaters with the smooth professionalism of a paid assassin as I wrote earlier. Instead, with the unimaginable firing up my imagination, I opened my security gate and front door and pointed the Glock in my trembling hand in her general direction. I now understand that the relief that flashed across her face was that of an addict finding a fix.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe swaggered toward me, sweaty hair half-obscuring her face, and said the wrong thing, \u201cWell hello hello Stevie wonders, wondering, wondrous. Looks like you lost a little weight.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nSilent, I backed up into my shadowy and musty living room and motioned her toward the door with the Glock. I slipped on a stack of Wasteland and Last Scout comic books. As I steadied myself, she disappeared from view. Moments later, she was framed in the bright light of my doorway; one hand held a pink Hello Kitty4 pack, and the other, two Tasers. Shaking hair out of her face she said, \u201cYou must have gotten awfully lonely in there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDon\u2019t like getting to know people too much. They turn out to be strangers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe stuffed the Tasers into her pack and strolled into my condo. I had her shut my door and security gate and waved her toward my lumpy orange couch. My wave was too hard and my grip on the Glock too loose as the gun flew halfway across the room. It landed with a clang among my retro-robots, the ones on my mantelpiece, not those scattered among three bookcases that held science fiction and survivalist magazines or the two Japanese Monster Robots that bracketed my flat screen on its IKEA5 resting place. As I retrieved the gun, she giggled, \u201cWell I guess you already have company.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI sat down on my La-Z-Boy recliner. \u201cGuess I do. So, what happened?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter slipping off her tennis shoes and tube socks, she plopped down at one end of my couch, positioning her long legs in front of her to sit cross-legged. I relaxed into my recliner but kept the Glock pointed at her. Bits of orange panty made sneak appearances as she told a story of hiding out in the social science building\u2019s snack shop with six other sociology grads. Taking a breather, she leaned forward too much for my comfort and picked at her toes. \u201cWe were a great team\u2026even held off a stray political science prof and a raggedy bunch of econ grads with homemade shivs, fire extinguishers, and a projectile weapon made from soda fountain parts. But the soda-syrup, candy bars, and other treats ran dry. We had to forage. It was crazy awful. The airdrops never worked out. Poor Frank and I were the last ones. Only been three days, but it seems so long ago. We\u2019d gone into the pharmacy on Orange Street to get an edge. But it\u2019d already been emptied \u2014 except for one of them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nPressing her lips together, she got a faraway look.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou okay?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cPoor Frank was just too tired, too hungry, too everything.\u201d Her eyes watered and voice trembled. \u201cBrought down by a\u2026an old woman. Her skimpy bunny outfit and walker caused him to let his guard down, even though I\u2014\u201d She pressed her face into her hands and began to cry. \u201cSuch a waste\u2026He would have been\u2026He was beautiful and brilliant\u2026a whole new understanding of social change\u2026\u201d Looking up at me, she pleaded, \u201cWhy him?\u201d and then bawled.\n<\/p>\n

\nCindy could have told me that her fairy godmother had rescued her and I would have believed it. She appeared more than clean and I couldn\u2019t survive another day alone. Hoping to provide comfort, I went and hugged her. She rested her head on my shoulder as she held me. When her sobbing stopped, she released me and wiped her face. \u201cThank you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nNot knowing how to respond and wanting to hide the embarrassing physical reaction I was suffering from, I scooted away from her. She reached over and put her hand on mine, the one that still held a gun and giggled, \u201cLet\u2019s make love not war.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd then she unfastened the top button of her blouse.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the button below it.\n<\/p>\n

\nNot until her blouse and bra were on the floor and she was sliding off her underwear did I cry, \u201cStop it. You don\u2019t have to do that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe just smiled and stood on the couch so as to pull her skirt over her smooth hips.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cReally. It\u2019s okay,\u201d I mumbled as her skirt joined her blouse and underwear.\n<\/p>\n

\nStill smiling, she said, \u201cIt will be,\u201d and pushed me down into the couch. Her lips began to playfully nip and nibble mine. I dropped the gun, which clunked on the floor, as her sweet, salty tongue slid into my mouth and all her softness pressed against me. My jeans soon covered the gun and I was gripping the couch. Above me, Cindy moved upward and downward, surging and swaying. As we bobbed and groaned, I attempted to keep up, not to sink under the waves of unbearable pleasure. I was about to scream when she stopped moving and we tensed up. Still in a state of disbelief, I experienced a spasm of release. She pecked my cheek and gasped, \u201cGlad we\u2019re past that,\u201d and zonked out on top of me. As I maneuvered from under her, she muttered, \u201cDon\u2019t go, Frank.\u201d Covering her with my winter jacket, I noticed a nasty scab on her back. However, I shut it out of my mind and went to eat a celebratory Pop-tart (strawberry).\n<\/p>\n

\nIf Cindy was infected, she couldn\u2019t help being post-truth. But was it all a lie? Everything that she said? Did she seek me out, knowing from my stories that I was a survivalist? Had she even dressed like something on the cover of a post-apocalyptic pulp novel because I\u2019d go for that? I\u2019ll never know. I had suspicions that I put aside \u2014 well that I burned, hung, poisoned, ran over, shot, and drowned \u2014 as she fulfilled fantasies that I didn\u2019t even know that I had. No matter why she did so much for me, she made me feel whole for the first time in my life. And she is someone I still can\u2019t stop loving.\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 18, 2027 [Ed note: Dates are the time of journal entry and not of events.]<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nSo, what happened to Cindy? For another hour, I watched her cry while I planned how to end her suffering. When she rubbed a broken bottle\u2019s jagged edges against her wrist, guilt ricocheted inside me like shrapnel, tearing me apart. Moments later, my missing hand tingled and the nauseating smells of my decomposing neighbor overwhelmed me. I dug my nails deep into my surviving palm. \u201cOh Cindy. I\u2019m so sorry,\u201d I said as my missing hand became a disorganized tableau of sensations: kisses, ice water, bee stings, a soothing massage, cigarette burns, cramps, crawling ants, electric shocks, and spilt milk. I fell to the floor and whimpered, \u201cI shouldn\u2019t have waited.\u201d Endless grunts and groans passed my lips. Knowing that the plague was rewiring my stump, desensitizing it, so I\u2019d be a high-functioning disease vector, didn\u2019t help. My clothes soaked with sweat and, the sensory symphony unfinished, it was sweet relief to pass out.\n<\/p>\n

\nI woke sprawled on the bathroom floor, unable to remember how I got there. The medicine cabinet\u2019s contents surrounded me; so, using the light of the setting sun, I applied disinfectant cream and layered gauze over my now desensitized stump. As I worked, I tried to leapfrog the stages of grief, to accept that never again would I nibble a sweet Pop-tart, sink my teeth through the downy rose-orange skin of a ripe peach and into its juicy flesh, or suck out the fatty head meat of a garlic-soaked shrimp. Upon realizing that I\u2019d also never get a creative writing degree, reach the next level of Warlords,6 or attend another meeting of the Vintage Robot Collectors Association, I soon needed the gauze to wipe my tear-coated face.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith much gauze wasted, I returned to the office and found the rum bottle in my pack. After taking a long swig from it, I sat on the floor and grumbled, \u201cOkay, no more bummering. Not about the future, food, or your left hand. Nada.\u201d I also decided not to attempt the stages of grief again. Something would turn up and all that mattered was seeing Mom one last time. Feeling better, but missing Mom, I had an idea. Last week, a Caribbean shortwave station reported that a rescue train would soon come south from Boston, the one Clean city in the northeast. When it stopped in New Haven, I\u2019d pass as a Clean and hop on. Knowing I was going to Wilmington,7 to Mom, I fell into a coma-like sleep on the office floor, an empty bottle in my hand and happiness in my heart.\n<\/p>\n

\nMorning sunlight poured through the office window. I turned my pounding head away from the light, groaned, \u201cPleasssse, no. Ohhhhhh,\u201d and spewed my liquid dinner. Done, I staggered to the bathroom. There, I wiped debris out of my itchy beard and scooped water out of the toilet tank with a toothbrush mug until I was semi-functional. As I did so, I cursed any surviving University of Wisconsin biomarketing professors. If they\u2019d followed lab-animal protocols I could have avoided this opportunity for personal growth and discovery. I then redressed my wound, hid it in a towel sling, and prepped for going to the train station. All I could think about while I worked was Mom \u2014 how much I missed her, whether she was okay, and how fantastic it would be to see her again.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat afternoon, I stepped into State Street\u2019s pungent air wearing my safari suit, thick glasses, and badly-tied boots. A piercing shriek came from the direction of Whitney Avenue. I tightened the grip on my Glock. The knowledge that I would see Mom if I could make it to the train station steadied me. Swallowing hard, I stumbled towards it through swarms of flies that had gathered to feast on my former neighbors. Their faces and bodies were swollen or caved in by rot and ecosystems of insects clustered in body cavities that shouldn\u2019t have existed. Other neighbors had become dried-up and moldy husks that sun-faded clothing still clung to. My stomach turned and I dry heaved. However, I forced myself to look around. Each block had just five or six corpses, but they seemed countless. The Eaters had also left behind what I hadn\u2019t noticed from the Guptas\u2019 window, scatterings of chewed-over bones. Tiny scraps of clothing, which still blew around, stuck to everything, as if a confetti-filled parade had passed by.\n<\/p>\n

\nEven before I noticed the eyes of several well-fed, feral cats tracking me, my sense of solidity had faded. Except for the Compulsives\u2019 creations, it was like being in every post-apocalyptic movie I\u2019d ever watched. Those creations included a Last Supper mural made from Tupperware on a Catholic church\u2019s doors; a fifteen-foot8 beer-bottle sculpture of a movie zombie holding a red umbrella in front of an insurance agency; a gallows built of books in front of Never Ending Bookstore; and a giant bird nest on top of the Su Casa Realty office.\n<\/p>\n

\nHalfway to the train station, in front of a burned-out animal hospital, I slid to the ground next to a pajama-clad man with missing legs. Overwhelmed by awfulness and fear, I said, \u201cSorry to bother you, dead guy,\u201d and closed my eyes. After several moments of dark despair, I resolved that for Mom, I\u2019d be a real man, like those in my stories. Upon opening my eyes, I turned away from the dead guy so I wouldn\u2019t see his stumps again. A mannequin in a hairdresser\u2019s broken window caught my eye. Its braids reminded me of how Cindy would twist her hair and stare into space after our sensual sessions. My stomach pretzeled into a ball of knots as I recalled what I\u2019d told her a week after she arrived.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe\u2019d finished a breakfast of canned fruit, animal crackers, and turkey-jerky and were in bed planning our day, i.e., reading The Optimistic Sexual Manual: Techniques for Doubtful Lovers. <\/em> I had on boxers and she wore one of my white oxford button-down shirts, which wasn\u2019t much buttoned. She gently pushed the book down and kissed my forehead. \u201cStevie sweetie, I need you to promise me something.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHunh?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cJust promise if I ever get the munchies well you\u2019ll, you\u2019ll\u2026You know\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI took her hand. \u201cDon\u2019t be silly. We\u2019re safe here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNowhere is safe!\u201d She sat up and turned to stare at the wall. \u201cDon\u2019t you understand? We\u2019re never going to be safe.\u201d Tears began to run down her face. It seemed as if all the beauty inside of her was washing out of her swollen eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\nFumbling for something to say, I hugged her as she started to sob. When she gasped for breath, I released her and said, \u201cLook at me. No, look at me!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nQuieted down, she turned in my direction.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHey. Don\u2019t worry. We\u2019re going to be fine. But if anything happens to you, I promise I\u2019ll do it,\u201d I said, thinking it would never be necessary.\n<\/p>\n

\nHer shoulders relaxed and she gave me a shy smile. \u201cAll right, but you have to triple swear on your mom\u2019s life that you\u2019ll\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI told you I\u2019d do it.\u201d Speaking at a rapid clip, I continued, \u201cAnd anyway, she was always like that fish that escapes the pot to land in the frying pan, or fire, or to land\u2014 or whatever. Who knows what hap\u2014 She\u2019s might not even be around anymore to swear on.\u201d After pausing for oxygen, I snapped, \u201cI triple swear though!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nCindy wiped her tear-smeared face and began to giggle. Her mirth built to deep full-bodied laughs that shook her so much she gripped my arm to steady herself.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHey. What\u2019s so funny?\u201d I scooted toward the edge of the bed. \u201cYou going to stop?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nStill laughing, she pulled me back. \u201cDon\u2019t you see, your stories\u2026you always subjected our group to\u201d\u2013she caught her breath\u2013\u201cwere wish-fulfillment fantasies? We kept complaining and you kept rescuing your mom.\u201d Striving to suppress her merriment, she added, \u201cI\u2019m sorry; I shouldn\u2019t laugh. I\u2019m not being nice. So, what happened?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nInstead of answering, I jacked myself out of the bed. As I left the room, she got all sugary. \u201cOh come on Stevie sweetie. We all have our foibles. There\u2019s no fixation that can\u2019t be fixed. I can help.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI slammed the door and went to the kitchen. And soon chilled. Cindy was the first person who had centered their world around me, pampering me in countless ways \u2014 from keeping me well fed to short-circuiting my funks. And the more I considered my stories, the more I knew she was right. When I decided to tell her the thing I did to Mom, what my therapists hadn\u2019t dug out of me, I knew I loved her.\n<\/p>\n

\nSitting back on the bed, I gifted her some high-end biltong that I had retrieved. She accepted it with a smile. Ready to talk but unable to speak, I chewed on the jerky. Chunks of ugly memories that had been decaying in some dark unvisited part of my mind had been knocked loose and were crashing through my head. When they settled down, I teared up. Cindy took hold of my hand and kissed my cheek. \u201cSweetie, whatever it is, you\u2019ll be all right.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nBefore I could change my mind, I told her about the guerrilla war I\u2019d waged against Mom\u2019s love life. That war started with a campaign of passive aggression, a year after Dad took off to Montreal with my elementary school French teacher. It ended when I turned seventeen and retreated to Michigan. When I spit it all out, even how I hadn\u2019t spoken to Mom since I\u2019d run away, I knew I was an idiot. Mom wasn\u2019t the problem. She didn\u2019t need to be saved for being a human being. Grief-ridden by guilt, I tried to puzzle out why I\u2019d warped my life. Rather than come up with answers, I felt like Fuzzy \u2014 our giant Calico cat \u2014 the time I\u2019d cleaned her and by mistake grabbed the bottle of cat repellant instead of shampoo. For the first time, I wanted to apologize to her (Mom, not Fuzzy). However, given the plague, I couldn\u2019t do anything. Cindy held me while I cried without tears. Later, we did things that helped me forget.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs I broke off eye contact with the mannequin and stood, I decided to keep my promise to Cindy. However, I couldn\u2019t turn towards home. The feeling that I might miss the train and not see Mom was too much. My churning thoughts prevented me from noticing a desiccated, bald man \u2014 who wore rainbow tennis shoes and a purple Speedo \u2014 tearing toward me. He locked me in his arms before I could react. I dropped my gun and struggled as he tightened his arms around my too-large torso. He seemed to be deciding whether or not to snack on my neck when he released me and shouted, \u201cTell everyone, Mr. Quigley hugged you.\u201d As I retrieved my gun, he slipped out of sight. Popping a Valium, I clambered into an empty SUV9 that had slammed into a Wok and Roll. After removing my pack, I lay down on the back seat. That my vision was limited to the roof and floor of the car, on which a teddy bear and a Miss Piggy doll embraced, allowed me to imagine that I was in a plague-free world until my back hurt.\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 19, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nUpon ditching the SUV, I shifted to aliens-have-arrived mode: run-like-mad, hide, scan-for-danger, and repeat. Soon all my muscles cramped up and there was more hiding than movement. When I reached the train station the sun was setting and I was drenched in sweat. Seeking shelter and a place to wait for the train, I tried to break into Peter Pan\u2019s Liquorland, across the street from the station. Unsuccessful, I crept into Pete\u2019s Pipes next door and failed to stifle a scream. The headshop was filled with the fetid chaos of what looked like a complex murder-suicide pact. A pack of hipsters, at least one a Compulsive, had used knives, ropes, pulleys, buckets, and two homemade seesaws to implement the pact. With death dancing in my head, I backed out and hobbled a half a block further to a public housing complex.10\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Art Deco building\u2019s doors were unlocked, so I ducked inside and flashed my light around the foyer. It had institution-green walls, gray linoleum floors, and faded message murals about \u201cconflict resolution\u201d and \u201chealthy eating\u201d. Hoping I wouldn\u2019t regret it, I picked some chains off the floor to lock the doors. Doing the task right with one hand was like solving one of those 3D brainteaser puzzles. My brain wasn\u2019t up to the challenge cause every few minutes I thought I heard company. I would grab my gun and as I did so, the flashlight would slip out of my sling. Not able to see anything but the floor, I\u2019d babble, \u201cShit, shit, shit,\u201d drop the gun so as to pick up the flashlight and jam it back into my sling, and then pick the gun up. Things got so tense that I took several spontaneous bathroom breaks.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen I finished locking the doors, I dragged myself up five flights. My steps and groans seemed to echo and a strong odor of a chemical disinfectant irritated my nostrils. At the end of a hallway, I downed three packets of dehydrated chicken soup with stale water from my canteen. The thought that I was closer to Mom eased my mind as I put my gun and glasses within reach. Too exhausted and sore to be scared or care why the place lacked graffiti, trash, and cigarette butts, I sprawled out on the hallway floor and crashed.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe next morning, gun ready, I crept through dim hallways that were only lit by the small windows at their ends. As I did so, I knocked on random doors with my left elbow and shouted, \u201cHello is anyone home?\u201d or \u201cCome on out. It\u2019s safe.\u201d None of the doors I knocked on were unlocked. I was about to give up when on the eighth \u2014 and top \u2014 floor, I came upon King Solomon\u2019s Mines of cleaning supplies. The hallway was a hygienic trail of squeegees, brushes, sponges, brooms, paper towels, mops, dusters, and bottles of detergents. At the trail\u2019s end, there were three shotguns, boxes of shells, a set of master keys, and a scribbled note under a half-empty whiskey bottle. I slumped to the ground and read it.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis divine Buildings is this old ladies only baby. Don\u2019t you dear defiles its hallways else I\u2019m coming backs for you and I\u2019ll kill youse and when your deads I\u2019ll kill youse again worse and all youse descendants. Kept the human vermins and any refugees out with only three shotguns and the helps of those two sweetfellows in 2B. Got a lot easier when the vermins all turns on each others like starving rats. Ain\u2019t no guest hidings here anymore either. Couldn\u2019t risk them messin my baby after I works so hard to get it just right. Took care of that problems even the sweeties with some really strong tea. Only things you needs to do each day is\u2026\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter too short a relationship with the whiskey bottle, I took the keys and found the apartment with the best view of the train station. Nothing else mattered but making sure I was on my way to Mom, not the saggy furniture, the soiled-diaper-and-empty-beer-can-littered floor, or the dirt-streaked white walls decorated with pictures of rustic boats torn from a 2026 Newport11 Rhode Island Services Club calendar. I barricaded the apartment door and sat in front of the dead TV to rest and mourn my plague-killed TV companions. Half an hour later, a horrifying odor overwhelmed the smells of stale smoke, sour laundry, and soiled diapers that permeated the apartment. Through a smudged window, I watched five chem-suited men carry body parts from the train station and toss them on a bonfire in the middle of State Street while ten men armed with machine guns stood guard. When I slid the window open I heard one of the chem-suited men shout, \u201cI always get the screwy jobs!\u201d Many of the other men yelled unintelligible taunts at him. Although the fire and rescue squad would make life difficult, I was happy because their arrival meant the train would soon come.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy days since I found apartment 4E have been wonder-filled \u2014 wondering why I hurt Mom and whether the train would arrive before what happened to Cindy and too many others happened to me. My therapist told me to, \u201cconfront my anxieties in productive ways,\u201d but there\u2019s no useful way to confront that anxiety. When I wasn\u2019t writing in this Clash of Civilizations12 notebook, I did try to tackle my other anxieties though. I scavenged for food, finding eight cans of gourmet cat food (meaty bits in gravy), four cans of chicken soup (alphabet), two boxes of macaroni and cheese (deluxe), a bag of gummy worms (sour), a jar of pickles (half-sour), and minty bathroom bounty. I also constructed early-warning systems in the hallways: precarious piles of hair dryers, cutting boards, fruit bowls, bathroom scales, romance novels, sexual aids, and other necessities of daily living. Now with every noise, adrenaline shoots through my veins and I cower in some corner, trying not to whimper, as I cradle my gun and think what could be my last thoughts.\n<\/p>\n

\nMostly, I\u2019ve been observing the fire and rescue squad, which is more fire than rescue. While they brought back three skeletal survivors, who they half-carried into the fortress-like police station down the street, six times they returned with a mindless Eater. The first time they brought back an Eater, I didn\u2019t put my binoculars down and walk away from the window, like I did every time after. Rather with growing disbelief, I watched them remove the Eaters\u2019 hood to reveal a face twisted into bleak malice. As the Eater struggled, snapped his teeth, and screeched in frustration at being unable to partake of the plentiful food that surrounded him, the squad performed officious and empty bureaucratic rituals. The rituals ended with a medieval treatment, a fiery \u201ccure,\u201d the burning alive of an ill human being. I know he was human in those last moments not because I saw on his face expressions of pain, and even fear, but because only a human can scream in a way that lasts forever in your head.\n<\/p>\n

\nEach sleepless night, their never-extinguished bonfire cackles and the dancing shadows on the walls remind me of my possible fate. However, knowing I\u2019m going to see Mom, that I just need to catch a train, allows me to endure the unendurable. Right now, though, I\u2019m so damn hungry, I could boil out the tanning chemicals in the leather jacket that I grabbed from 7C, eat insects, or set rat traps. I don\u2019t remember all of that survivalist shit though. What am I going to do? I know. I\u2019m going to starve!\n<\/p>\n

\nOkay, I feel better after a Valium and buffering my stomach acids with a chapter of Lost Towns and Cities: Climate Change\u2019s Canaries in a Coal Mine. <\/em> It wasn\u2019t a good book. I\u2019ll figure out something else to eat. No matter how disgusting, dangerous, or unsanitary, I\u2019ll eat it, if it means being with Mom. Oh man, how I need to see her. Except for food, it\u2019s all I want. Enough scribbling. The squad went hunting, so I\u2019m going out as well.\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 20, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nYesterday, I stepped onto an outside stairwell and surveyed the neighborhood. My mind was like a mob in a burning theater, a disorganized collection of panicky thoughts seeking an exit. I clutched a railing and stared at the train station, willing a train to appear. When that didn\u2019t work and I couldn\u2019t remember anything from the online \u201cEdible Weeds\u201d course I\u2019d taken, I huffed my way down State Street away from the police station and toward a string of brightly-colored fast-food restaurants.13 Too hungry to care about what might lurk behind the smashed-up cars and storefronts along the silent street, I paused to read a poster on a bus stop. Its large title read, \u201cVaccinations for Cleans and a Cure for Compulsives.\u201d Reassuring words filled it and someone had scribbled the fire and rescue squad\u2019s address on its corner in red ink. When I rushed on, I wondered why they\u2019d try such an obvious technique for catching and killing Compulsives before they became Eaters.\n<\/p>\n

\nMy hopes for empty calories burst upon seeing the shattered windows, pockmarked walls, and the spent shell casings of every size that littered the ground like autumn leaves from an alien foliage. The way the countless decaying bodies of the National Guard troops and New Haven\u2019s finest were arrayed suggested the restaurants kept changing hands till there were no more delicacies to fight over. I considered turning myself in to the squad. Maybe they\u2019d let me call Mom before they grilled me. However, I wanted to see and hold her. So, with memories of the savory tastes of KFC\u2019s fried chicken stirring my stomach, I checked for other customers and stepped over shattered glass.\n<\/p>\n

\nFor three hours, I searched the restaurants\u2019 remains, in constant fear that Eaters or armed men would appear. All I found was a brick of green cheese and several squashed tater tots. Feeling sorry for myself, I stretched out on the cool kitchen floor of Thai Tanic. A yellow glint caught my eye and my hopes soared. I reached under a deep fryer to tap the huge, sunny pineapple can. My mouth watering, I shouted, \u201cAt last!\u201d After finding an electric can opener, I dizzily smashed the can open with it and fingered the golden treasures into my mouth. An acid reflux attack interrupted my meal. Seeking water to cool my burning throat, I collided with a cash-stuffed grocery sack as I tore outside. Hundred-dollar bills scattered across the floor.\n<\/p>\n

\nNear Dunkin Donuts, I found a water-filled pothole besides a battered Ford truck with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on its bed. While drinking from the pothole, I again had thoughts of giving up. They were interrupted by a distant shout of, \u201cHey kids, pick up the pace!\u201d Struggling into the truck\u2019s bed, I slipped off the bumper and tried to grab something with my missing hand. My chin hit the truck\u2019s tailgate and my glasses flew. Pain shot through my jaw and everything was a fuzzy morass as I scraped my back stuffing myself under the truck with frog-like leg thrusts. Blurry men moved toward me and the smell of gasoline and burnt rubber filled my nose. I reached for my gun but my arm couldn\u2019t reach to a Thai Tanic countertop \u2014 so I played dead. It\u2019s easier in concept than execution as I\u2019m not good at hiding from armed men in tight spaces. My cheeks twitched and I hyperventilated as I resisted fishing in my pockets for a Valium.\n<\/p>\n

\nTwo white blobs trailed the rest of the men. One droned, \u201c\u2026best that I can do. You try walking in this wacked get up. I\u2019m wiped. Can\u2019t we break? I need a drink. I feel like a\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nA khaki haze interrupted, \u201cHey Joey it wouldn\u2019t be such a bitch if you stopped bitchin.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAlthough they paused only feet away, I strained to see the hooded figure between the blobs \u2014 who jerked around like a puppet. I begged the gods that it wasn\u2019t Cindy. Seeing her would send me on a guilt-powered-jetpack ride to the realm of madness. The spot of purple in the middle of a pale pink blur suggested the Eater was Mr. Quigley. Relief filled me, but it was hard to process that a man who\u2019d hugged me, no matter how oddly, would soon be cured.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Joey-blob\u2019s shouted response, \u201cScrew you!\u201d brought me back to the present. \u201cNo, Really, Screw you! I want to barbeque this Zombie now! He won\u2019t be as hard to handle. Fuck, yeah!\u201d Legs moved in all sorts of confusing ways.\n<\/p>\n

\nA scout-master voice yelled, \u201cThat\u2019s enough! Take a break Joey. Relax. The rest of you lay off him.\u201d After a pause, he continued, \u201cJust sit down; it\u2019s going to be fine. Could someone tase our friend before he gets lost?\u201d There was loud clicking and Mr. Quigley fell several feet away. \u201cJoey, maybe you want to holster that gun.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhy? It all sucks. Today. Every Day!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYep. But you\u2019re still squawking, screwing, eating, and shitting so count yourself lucky. Sit down.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut it\u2019s not fair.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNothing is. Just sit the hell down and we\u2019ll talk about it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnd your gun, Joey.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOh yeah.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThat\u2019s good, very good. No one is trying to break your balls. It\u2019s just your crap luck to be a doughboy when there\u2019s a do-the-tests-while-they\u2019re-still-biting reg. The regs \u2014 health regs, test regs, clean-up regs, even the sittin-on-the-can regs \u2014 they\u2019re what keeps us civilized. And if that don\u2019t make you stand up and salute, if we disobey them regs, CO will put all our asses in a decoy squad so fast you won\u2019t even have time to give your sweetie a goodbye flyby.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe only sound was the wind blowing debris down the street. Then, the rest of the squad began to murmur. The Joey-blob stood and hit the truck I was hidden under \u2014 three times. While it silenced them, I had to give it my all to suppress a shriek. My heart pounded in my ears like a Banger band as the Joey-blob moved away, kicking something that clattered. With a sinking feeling, I realized that that something was my glasses.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOkay, Joey, you got your shit together?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYeah, I guess.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDo you? Cause, if you don\u2019t you\u2019ll be walking your ass home. So, do you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThere was a half-hearted, \u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOkay, he\u2019s a new man. Enough lollygagging everyone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAnger almost beat out fear as the squad left. I wanted to shout, \u201cThey\u2019re sick people, not monsters!\u201d Instead, I stayed stone silent, wondering how I had even considered asking them for help.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen I tried to writhe from under the truck, it felt like its weight was crushing me and I remembered a news story I\u2019d read. It was about thieves trapped in chimneys. They all suffocated because their lungs couldn\u2019t expand. After a panic attack, I figured a way to wedge out of my predicament. As my shoulders cleared the truck, something rubbed against my leg. I cried out, \u201cHelp me! Please. Anyone.\u201d I twisted to see an orange cat-blob. Ignoring it and my road rash, I finished my escape and sat on the street, leaning against the truck. When the cat-blob jumped onto my lap, I read its tag. My new friend\u2019s name was Sprite and she came from the burbs. I scratched the furball and like an idiot dozed off as if I was at home.\n<\/p>\n

\nSprite leapt off me, jerking me out of one of my vivid visiting-with-Mom dreams. I shook my head hard to snap out of my fugue and looked at Sprite. \u201cThanks for saving me little one.\u201d As I stood to search for my glasses I added, \u201cIt\u2019s not safe here. Gotta go, and fast.\u201d Sprite lay down and licked her paws while I began to scour the ground. The further I got from the truck, the higher my anxiety. Sprite didn\u2019t help. She followed me around and at random moments would press against my legs and arch her back. Instead of giving into her desire for a scratch, I\u2019d swear under my breath and step over her, hoping I wouldn\u2019t land on my glasses. She\u2019d issue loud plaintive meows and forgetting that I couldn\u2019t see, I\u2019d jerk my head around to see if we\u2019d attracted anyone or anything.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter an eternal fifteen minutes, I found my glasses. They were under a street lamp plastered with a faded drug-study flyer, headlined, \u201cDO YOU EXPERIENCE EXCESSIVE WORRY.\u201d I went back to Thai Tanic where I stuck the Glock in my waistband and pressed the half-empty pineapple can tight against my stomach.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs I crept between hiding places on my return to the public housing complex, Sprite sashayed after me, ignoring my pleas of \u201cGo away\u201d and \u201cFind someone else.\u201d Exasperated, halfway back I stopped between an overturned firetruck and a burned-out pharmacy. Looking in her eyes, I said, \u201cDon\u2019t have any cat food left or anything for that matter to eat. And the place, it\u2019s a true mess. Really, it won\u2019t be up to your middle-class standards.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe responded with a \u201cMeow,\u201d some leg rubbing, and an arching of her back that I finally knelt down to scratch \u2014 or tried to \u2014 with my stump. \u201cWhat am I doing,\u201d I said and stood to finish my trip.\n<\/p>\n

\nI paused at the complex\u2019s door, unsure if I should let Sprite in. She decided for me, clawing up my body so fast there wasn\u2019t time to scream. With her snuggled around my neck, I entered the building. When I crashed on my couch, she climbed down to sit next to me. For twenty minutes, I sat, scratched, and starved.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt was only when Sprite jumped off the couch and pitter-pattered into the hallway that I noticed the apartment door was still open. Instead of getting up and giving chase I watched several flies flutter around my face. Just as I worked up enough energy to brush them away, the sounds of dishes and glasses shattering came from the hallway. The breakage continued as I stood and peered out the door. In the fading daylight that fell through open apartment doorways, I watched Sprite bounce like a pinball between my precarious sculptures. I ambled after her. Whenever I was close enough to whisper calming words, she dashed away, destabilizing another sculpture. The whole city probably heard us.\n<\/p>\n

\nAt the end of the hallway, Sprite shot past me and I slumped to the ground, grumbling. She sauntered back and climbed onto my diminished stomach to give me love bites on my cheeks. \u201cAll is forgiven little one. Everyone misbehaves sometimes,\u201d I said and scratched her until she went to mew by the outside door. Nothing I did stopped the noise, but I didn\u2019t release her until the song, \u201cIf you love someone, set them free,\u201d played in my head. As soon as the door clicked shut and I slouched back to the floor there was whiny mewing from outside. I had to get off the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go-emotional-roller-coaster ride and I was so very hungry. And the mewing was so very unbearable. Mewing! Mewing! Endless Mewing! The noise endangered us. I had to end it, to save us. Bawling, I pulled a cuckoo clock from one of my collapsed sculptures and Never Mind.\n<\/p>\n

\nHow could I have eaten something with a name? Until you\u2019re starving, you can\u2019t understand what a primal force hunger is, the degenerate and degrading things it\u2019ll make you do. Every self-proclaimed saint during plentiful times is a day away from sinning in a famine.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen I woke today at sunrise, sleep-deprived but with a sated stomach, I sat in the room\u2019s shadows and stared out the window. I couldn\u2019t figure out how someone could be so off as to write in ten-foot-purple-precise-Times-Roman typeface on the train station wall, \u201cMom I\u2019m Drunk!\u201d Why bring their mom into it? Did they want to say, \u201cHey, Mom, look at me, you can\u2019t control me,\u201d or did they need to see their mom, like me? Maybe they were even trying to apologize to her. Why hadn\u2019t I done that, or even tried to contact her? It would have been so simple to pick up a phone; a few minutes and both our lives would\u2019ve been so much better. Was it habit? Inertia? I don\u2019t know. But the regret churns my insides as if I swallowed a power saw.\n<\/p>\n

\nDuring one of our last sensual sessions, Cindy had made me face why I\u2019d been so horrible to Mom. It is a session that I remember too well. Our bedroom was filled with the smell of our sweat, mixed with the sticky-sweet scent of the orange blossom honey we\u2019d drizzled on each other. When her emerald eyes weren\u2019t locked on mine, but staring at the ceiling, her blood would pulse up and down her arched neck, unable to cool her. She\u2019d bite her lip until it bled, and gasping, chant something indecipherable. I\u2019d admire her delicate features and slender figure, the way her flesh glowed with sexual heat, and think about how she was more beautiful than any woman I\u2019d ever seen on the internet. Finished with her ritual of self-denial, her focus would return to me. A look of determination mixed with desperation would flash across her face and she\u2019d again lock her eyes with mine and settle into another temporary truce with her body, to start the cycle over again.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter more than an hour of tantric teasing, her hips shifted and her face trembled. I moaned and pleaded for release with my eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe turned her gaze upward, and pausing between each word, grunted, \u201cHow \u2013 Come \u2013 You \u2013 Never \u2013 Called \u2013 Your \u2013 Mom?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI couldn\u2019t answer; lightning flashes of painful pleasure were exploding throughout my body. All my effort was devoted to not moving, to not giving in to what every fiber of my being demanded: sweet release from the joyful torment. I tried to think about specifications in the appliance manuals I\u2019d written. It didn\u2019t help. Clenching the bed, I moaned as my mind filled with images of dish and clothes washers, fridges and furnaces, boilers and hot water heaters fusing with one another; metal and plastic intertwining in impossible ways as engines overheated, wires sparked, and hot liquids pumped too fast through pipes and tubes to shoot into the air.\n<\/p>\n

\nCindy slapped my cheek and gasped, \u201cYouWereJealous\u2026ofYourMom\u2019sBoyfriends!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nMy moans stopped their transformation into screams. \u201cWhat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe took a deep breath and grinned. \u201cYour stories were about revenge, not rescue.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nStunned, a sad silence filled me as a drop of honey fell from one of her soft curves onto my forehead. Cindy licked off the honey and huskily whispered in my ear, \u201cRescue of the blah. Rescue from the blah. Rescue in the blah.\u201d Straightening up and stretching \u2014 beautiful movements that usually distracted me \u2014 she continued, \u201cBut your stories were really kill, kill, kill. Stoic robots, dashing pirates, devious reptilians, or aliens with too many tentacles, they were all men. Men disgust you more than any\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI placed my hand over her mouth. Taking hold of it, Cindy said, \u201cOh Stevie, I\u2019m so very very sorry.\u201d Almost knocking her off the bed, I turned over and stewed. Silent, she held me. I was almost more embarrassed that she knew me too well than depressed that I\u2019d never faced why I was so terrible to Mom.\n<\/p>\n

\nA day of emotional turmoil followed. Cindy devoted herself to helping me to get past it all \u2014 to forgive myself. Her cravings must have been unbearable as we talked and talked and she read me the sexual love poetry that she\u2019d taken up writing. That evening we used some battery juice to watch Groundhog Day. Although we were once again able to enjoy our constrained life I still had moods during which it was hard to be in my skin.\n<\/p>\n

\nCindy had been more than right about my jealousy, but not in a way she could have imagined or understood. A little while ago, as I took a baby-wipe bath, the memory of the long-ago day I left Mom clawed itself out of the casket of forgetfulness I\u2019d locked it in. Even after several Valiums and inhaler puffs, I\u2019m still gasping and my head feels like it is going to explode with the horrific knowledge. I need to drag the memory from my mind, cut it into small, safe words, and mount those words on paper, even if it means going to the basement so no one spots my candlelight.\n<\/p>\n

\nFor two hours, I\u2019ve sweated in this clammy spider-filled basement, unable to write or ignore the smells from the washing machines, which the former super filled with dismembered bodies and antibiotic soap.\n<\/p>\n

\nOkay. Why Not? I\u2019ll tell you.\n<\/p>\n

\nSoon after my seventeenth birthday, Mom held one of her introduce-the-potential-stepdad nights. She sat across from me at our chipped kitchen table, somber but gorgeous. Her shiny blond hair was permed into her \u201cwild lioness\u201d look \u2014 a haircut for someone in her twenties, not mid-thirties \u2014 and her regal face wasn\u2019t yet desecrated by make-up. She sighed; the inhalation caused her angora sweater to tighten across her chest. In rapid succession, I ate several of the baby carrots she always laid out for me.\n<\/p>\n

\nAll I wanted was a long afterschool hug, but Mom leaned hard on the table and began her, \u201cBEHAVE,<\/em> because he\u2019s special,\u201d speech. Whenever she reached the relationship stage that necessitated introducing me to the Man in her life she gave me the speech as if it was a vaccination for misbehavior. That time, mixed in with the standard, \u201cPlease be your best tonight,\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll try won\u2019t you,\u201d and, \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019ll like him,\u201d there was also: \u201cI love you, but try not to be a jerk,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t embarrass me again,\u201d and even, \u201cDon\u2019t make me choose; we\u2019ll both regret it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter I repeated, \u201cYes, Mom,\u201d \u201cI certainly will,\u201d and \u201cNo problemo,\u201d several times, the uncertainty faded from her eyes. When she stood and left, I watched her pale thin ankles, which slipped into view with each step she took up the stairs. She paused to yell, \u201cIf it goes well\u2026we\u2019ll talk about getting you a digitized outfit\u2026including the hat.\u201d My mouth held the remaining baby carrots, but I gave her a toothy smile.\n<\/p>\n

\nLater, when the doorbell rang, she ran down the stairs in a frilly white dress that didn\u2019t even reach to her knees. \u201cAren\u2019t you going to get up?\u201d She fidgeted behind me while I opened the door to find a fit- and young-looking Asian guy in a dark blue suit. If not for the pink tie and wine bottle, he could have been mistaken for a Mormon missionary. \u201cDon\u2019t stand there Stevie, invite Alex in.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI said, \u201cOh, sorry,\u201d and opened the screen door, letting pass that Mom called me Stevie in front of him. After I coughed up a, \u201cNice to meet you,\u201d as he crushed my hand, we chatted about the extreme weather. The happy tears forming at the edges of Mom\u2019s eyes were about to wreck her pancaked makeup, when, to my relief, she excused me. They went to the kitchen. I plopped myself down at the dining room table with my homework and pretended to ignore them.\n<\/p>\n

\nUnlike the other guys, Alex didn\u2019t stand around ogling Mom, he checked the turkey, removed it from the oven, and placed it on a counter. After he shooed away Fuzzy, he and Mom chatted as they worked, often laughing. He chopped veggies with the speed of a professional chef while she languidly stirred the mushroom soup.\n<\/p>\n

\nEverything was wonderbar. I was even progressing through my algebra when I glanced up to see his hand run through Mom\u2019s shimmering hair and twirl a few golden strands. Putting my pen down, so I wouldn\u2019t bite off the top, I watched his hand slide down her back, stop, and squeeze. Instead of slapping him, Mom pecked his cheek.\n<\/p>\n

\nI strolled into the kitchen and found my Pop-tarts. Mom recognizing the crinkly unwrapping sound turned around to say, \u201cYou don\u2019t want to wreck your appetite.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDon\u2019t worry. It\u2019s plenty big, like yours,\u201d I growled, and took a large bite of the sugary treat.\n<\/p>\n

\nHer spoon clattered on the stovetop and she stared hard at me, her lower lip trembling. Putting her hands on her hips, she blinked several times. \u201cStop acting like\u2026Never mind. Do you remember your promise?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nIf she\u2019d stayed silent I would have done anything for her, for those beautiful pleading eyes; but how could she have treated me \u2014 someone who loved her in every way \u2014 like a brat when she was the one misbehaving with yet another man and who didn\u2019t care about what I saw and felt?\n<\/p>\n

\nA concerned look appeared on Alex\u2019s face.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter what seemed forever, her pleading eyes reached me and pulled my heart out of the black hole that had caught it. I barked, \u201cFine. Fine. I\u2019ll wait,\u201d and spun around to stuff the Pop-tart back into its box. My elbow hit the turkey hard. For the first time that bird flew. It landed in the middle of the kitchen floor and rolled in what seemed like slow motion. Even before it rocked to a stop and Fuzzy approached it, I knew I\u2019d messed up again. Alex put his hand on Mom\u2019s shoulder and said, \u201cWe can clean it. I don\u2019t even like skin. Or we can order pizza. Sandy, let\u2019s not ruin the evening. We can still\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDon\u2019t call Pie High,\u201d I blurted. \u201cTheir delivery guy still likes you. He always\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou son of a bitch!\u201d my mother screamed, the first time she\u2019d sworn at me. Unable to look at her because something primitive and violent had woken in her face, I turned toward Alex. He was smiling, which I now realize was due to her inept swearing. I fled to my room and sat on my comic-book-covered bed finishing the Pop-tart. A black thought filled my head. If she wanted to ruin herself with dirty worthless men, who just wanted the one thing men always want from women and who couldn\u2019t love her the way I did, I wouldn\u2019t be able to save her \u2014 to stop her from throwing herself at them or them at her. Knowing that I couldn\u2019t watch any more collisions and that she\u2019d choose Alex, or the next one, or the next one after that, over me, I chose for her. I climbed out the window with my duffel bag and babysitting savings, ran across the front yard, and kept running until I landed at Charley\u2019s Appliances and Furnishings in Detroit. I worked there five years \u2014 until Charley discovered me in the storage room on a Double-Bliss-Deluxe Electric Massage Chair, burying myself in the plentiful bosom of his matronly-shaped wife, who always smelled of freshly laundered clothes and the pastries she made for me.\n<\/p>\n

\nI should stay in this decrepit basement since I\u2019ll never be able to sleep again. Putting the thing down on paper didn\u2019t help. The memories of the day I left Mom keep steamrolling through my head. But maybe they\u2019re false memories? Yes, they have to be. Why didn\u2019t I remember earlier what happened that tragic day? Why are the memories so vivid? And why won\u2019t they stop? The plague-related obsessions and neuron-eating parasites are messing with me; that\u2019s the only logical answer. I couldn\u2019t have been so twisted. Mom must know. I have to talk to her. The one thing that will quiet my memories is to tell her I\u2019m sorry for the whole stew of stupidity, ugliness, and craziness and to receive her forgiveness, to hear from her that I wasn\u2019t a monster. All I need is a few minutes with Mom. How much longer do I have to wait? Why won\u2019t the train come?\n<\/p>\n

\nOh man, why didn\u2019t I ever call her?\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 21, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nShot my gun this morn. Kill someone. No, someones. This morning. I shot several times at him, or at several of them. Don\u2019t know. Still don\u2019t know.\n<\/p>\n

\nI was so happy, so so happy after downing a pretty pink pill, just one, no three, no just two of them, I found in a hangout in 6K. Nothing bothering me. I was happy, happy as could be vegging, membering good times with Mom and later, good times with Cindy. Our lives, life together. But then there was the noise. I am sure there was a noise. Crying. Way downstairs. Third floor. No, second floor. I went there once, no twice, went there once and then again with gun. Waited and waited and waited for noise. Scared. Kept peeing. Then needing to pee. At last, I am sure I heard something. Someone crying in 2B. When I crawled in, the place was empty. No. No. Two messed-up and muscled men at kitchen table. Just sitting and sitting and sitting. Silent. No, dead. With their teapot and teacups. No noise. Nothing. But then crying again. In the back bedroom. So I crawled there. I didn\u2019t knock. I just crawled. Quiet and quick. Gun ready.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd I saw him. In a giant closet. Nothing but a dressing table and clothes racks. Sequined skirts, neon dresses, lacey blouses, leather pants, and bird-feathered somethings hanging and in piles. Everywhere. A fashion jungle. He was also just sitting there. But alive. Half alive. Looked gaunt and gone \u2014 and all raggedy and hairy. Like a wild animal. A wild dog. Cornered and wounded. We just stared. And he cried again.\n<\/p>\n

\nI said, \u201cYou gotta go. Not cry.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe put away his tears. \u201cNo. You gotta go.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou\u2019re all wrong, a bad guy. And you\u2019re sick,\u201d I shouted.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot as sick as you. An Eater got you. You\u2019re off. Not even thinking right. About anything.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOne got you too. You\u2019ll hurt people.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo. You will. Once it happens. The change. The Hunger.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, I won\u2019t. You need to bury yourself.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou should kill yourself.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019ll kill you!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019ll kill you first!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, I will. It\u2019ll be better.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLet me do it. No one gets hurt that way.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe wiped his face. With his sleeve.\n<\/p>\n

\nI did also. And then I shot him.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe shot also but missed. I missed too. Hitting something glass. It shattered. It was loud and my hand shook. No, I shook all over. Then there he was again. No several of them or several of him. Someone shouted, \u201cYou can\u2019t do anything right!\u201d And then I kept shooting. They did too. Things kept breaking or crashing or shattering. Then I couldn\u2019t hear. Anything. I hid after that. In the closet.\n<\/p>\n

\nWoke up back in 4E. Ears still hurt. He must be gone. Dead. They all must be. Cause I\u2019m alive.\n<\/p>\n

\nOr maybe it was just me. Alone. Doesn\u2019t matter. Nothing does.\n<\/p>\n

\nGoing to try a new pill now. No two of them.\n<\/p>\n

\n[Ed note: Remainder of entry for May 21st and entries for May 22nd and 23rd have not been included due to there incoherence.] <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 24, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nThree in the afternoon and I can barely put words on this page. I won\u2019t bore you with the aftermath of the Naked Lunch14<\/em> phase of my life. Gotta, wanna, hafta say \u2018yes\u2019 to clean living so I can apologize to Mom and she can tell me what really happened. Hope you enjoyed meeting my inner demons though \u2014 can\u2019t live with them and can\u2019t live without them, no matter how much I dose the finest pharmaceuticals; but hey there\u2019s no need to say more about the unspeakable. You future-fucks don\u2019t care about me anyway.\n<\/p>\n

\nSome bad news: you\u2019ll never understand the shit we went through, any more than I could understand what an untidy mess the bubonic plague15 was. Why do I bother writing then? It\u2019s not just because its cheap therapy. It\u2019s also because I\u2019m too lousy a survivalist to make it to the future in person. All I ever wanted was to live long enough find out what happened. Now I won\u2019t. Hey, write back and let me know what it\u2019s like in Tomorrowland.16 Do you have any cool shit, like floating cities, invisibility cloaks, rabble-rousing robots, and fat-free pork rinds? And if I don\u2019t make it\u2026 No, I\u2019ll make it; but if I don\u2019t, write Mom (Ms. Smith at 27 Oak Street, Wilmington, DE 19807). Tell her I tried, that I still love her, that I\u2019m sorry. Like you\u2019d bother.\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 25, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019ve tried everything \u2014 drugs, meditation, sleep deprivation, and rubbing alcohol sponge baths \u2014 to slow down the fricken buggers that are chowing down on my neural pathways like obese retirees at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Now, I can feel the slimy bastards biting, munching, chewing, and shit-propelling their way through my command and control systems. I swear my brain stem is tingling. A little more \u2014 a munch here, a chomp there \u2014 and they\u2019ll destroy their habitat. I\u2019ll have no center; I\u2019ll fall apart; I\u2019ll cease.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s already happening. I\u2019m not hungry. My whole life I\u2019ve been hungry. All I ate yesterday was two basement rats, two dozen roaches, four spiders, and a romance novel. My clothes and skin hang loose on me. I should be hungry. Maybe that\u2019s wrong; I shouldn\u2019t say, \u201cI\u2019m not hungry,\u201d but that I\u2019ve acquired an appetite for the impossible. Two hours ago, I glanced outside, to see those well-fed men toss another helpless figure on their fire. I didn\u2019t fear them and their actions didn\u2019t disgust me. Rather, I trembled and sweat poured out of my pores as I imagined their bodies broken down into finger sandwiches, blood pudding, brazo burritos, and other delicacies. The cravings didn\u2019t stop until I backed away from the window, took two Valiums, and searched my brain for something, anything else to think about, settling on Cindy.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe lasted longer than I will, not because of my hard living, but because I can\u2019t satisfy my compulsion and, unknown to me, Cindy had been satisfying hers. Maybe I didn\u2019t want to know; there had been so many clues, especially our last night. I\u2019d been stuffing myself with freeze-dried lasagna at my kitchen table when a noise crawled into my consciousness: click, click, Click, Click, Click, CLICK, CLICK. I looked up to see Cindy, eyes hidden behind my aviator sunglasses, auburn hair twisted up on her head, and nails painted bright red with robot-model paint. She stopped tapping on the oven and leaned against it. Her lips, which she\u2019d lined with raspberry lipstick, curved into a seductive smile and a long sleek leg came out of hiding in my black wool bathrobe. She looked great, like a 1950s-man magnet, a movie star who\u2019d just walked off a Miami beach. However, I felt as if my rockets had stopped firing, marooning me in space, far from everything.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCindikins, I love you, but I\u2019m not in a loving state.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nBiting her cheek, she retorted, \u201cYou\u2019ll be up to it, once we finish the photo shoot,\u201d and posed: bathrobe off both shoulders, one hand on the hip that was higher than the other, and her other hand behind her head. As she pivoted to give me a view from all sides, my camera materialized, spinning by its strap, and a come-hither smile appeared on her face.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou need to eat Cindy. You haven\u2019t been eating.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe released my camera, which crashed into a pile of never-to-be-washed dishes. Clenching her hands, as beads of sweat began to pepper her face, she cried out as if in pain, \u201cSweetie, what\u2019s wrong with you!\u201d \u2013 her voice trailed off \u2013 \u201cWith us? You\u2019ve never said no.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI took a lackluster bite of my cold lasagna. My mouth full, I asked, \u201cWhat makes you want it so much?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nGripping the bathrobe at her throat with her now trembling hand, she sat down next to me. \u201cYou know what the reason is\u201d \u2013 her voice cracked \u2013 \u201cbecause I love you. More than anything, I love you. Every second of the day, I want to be with you, to be a part of you. Every moment I\u2019m without you it\u2019s an unbearable\u2014\u201d She stopped talking to try to blink away tears, but they began to stream down her cheeks. \u201cTill I met you, I mean till I was with you, I was waiting, saving it for later. It always seemed so shallow, such a distraction from everything I wanted to accomplish, everything important, the planet I was trying to save, my stories, and my dissertation. But now, it\u2019s the thing I need.\u201d She gave a feeble, embarrassed laugh and mumbled, \u201cAnd until you happened, all that unclean commerce of bodily fluids seemed\u2026well, unsustainable.\u201d She paused to wipe her face. \u201cThe time with, before, with Frank, he\u2026I\u2026never did it\u2026he wanted to\u2026a lot\u2026I, we could have\u2026I wish we\u2026I\u2019m not feeling very\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019ll be fine. It\u2019s okay. You don\u2019t have to say more,\u201d I whispered and hugged her.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe leaned toward my cheek and I waited for a kiss, but she pulled away, babbling, \u201cNeed to leave. Have to go. I\u2019ll be alright, but can\u2019t, can\u2019t\u2026stay.\u201d Bewildered, I watched her rush for the basement bathroom, my bathrobe swishing across the floor behind her. An hour later, she was still down there. I should\u2019ve checked to see if she was okay. I meant to. Everything would have been different. Instead, wiped out and believing her words, I had fallen over the cliff into sleep.\n<\/p>\n

\nDid she ever love me, even care about me? Did she always know she was infected? Was it all about using me because I was the last man standing (or rather hiding)? None of that matters. All relationships are a mix of deception and affection, and no matter the exact balance of our relationship, she made me happy; that\u2019s the important thing. I think I also made her happy. She seemed to like the love limericks I\u2019d whisper to her before we slept.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe time I spent with Cindy was the happiest I\u2019d been since right after Dad left, when Mom and I just had each other. During those days, Mom catered to me. Each night she\u2019d read me a story. I\u2019d squash up against her scratchy bathrobe, safe and secure, both of us sinking deep into our sagging leather couch, and she\u2019d make up voices of impossible-to-believe characters \u2014 insects in a giant peach, a crazy chocolate factory owner, too-lucky orphans, a witch, and every sort of animal. All I want is to see her again \u2014 the latest blond chaos perm and her crinkly blue eyes, bright as a torch flame \u2014 so I can tell her sorry for everything. I could pass in peace if after I apologized, her arms opened up, showing that she forgave me and still loves me. Mom\u2019s also the one person that could confirm that the twisted memories pounding away at me aren\u2019t true, that my jealousy was because I wanted more attention, not due to something you\u2019d see on an abnormal psychology blog. All it\u2019d take is a few minutes.\n<\/p>\n

\nI need to get it together; I cried for the past hour. It\u2019s going to get dark soon and I need to eat, even if I don\u2019t have the right kind of appetite. I now know how strong Cindy was, how the Hunger and one\u2019s particular compulsion go to war with one another. I wish I could talk to the fire and rescue squad; but, they\u2019re asshats. If I don\u2019t make it, whoever finds this notebook, I beg you, apologize to Mom for me, and tell her that I always loved her. But I\u2019ll make it. I\u2019ll see her. They made sandbag emplacements outside the train station yesterday so the train has to be coming soon. It has to. And Mom worked so hard and suffered so much because of me. She deserves to see her son one last time and not get some sort of message service. But if you would, if I don\u2019t make it, please, all I ask is that you tell her sorry for me, that I always loved her.\n<\/p>\n

\nMay 26, 2027\n<\/p>\n

\nWoke up. The hunger too. Woke up to Hunger. But I control it, I fought it, fighting it. Can\u2019t think right but, getting better. Heard a whistle, rumble, rumbling. A train was outside. Lots of people too. And dogs. Noise. Big noise. Lots of shouting, yelling. Doing organized, organizing. So happy. Going to Mom. I\u2019m on train now. I don\u2019t remember how I got through that fence. I had to though. To get to Mom. Must have climbed over or crawled under. Got lots of bruises and cuts. Lots. Tired. All happy\/glad. Can whistle. Am whistles.\n<\/p>\n

\nOkay, the Hunger fugue is gone for now. To know that I\u2019m on my way to see Mom feels like I took several Percs.17 I\u2019ll be able to make it. I know I can. However, I still feel the Hunger lurking, waiting for when I\u2019m weak. But Mom is a few short hours away. I can do that easy. I hope no one saw me stiff-walk in here like Frankenstein\u2019s friend. I still can\u2019t remember how I [Ed note: Sentence incomplete] <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe door is opening.\n<\/p>\n

\nI pop my head over the top of the seat. Odd, it\u2019s a little girl in a neat yellow dress. She\u2019s singing, \u201cRing Around the Rosie and a Pocket Full of Posie,\u201d and skipping down the aisle toward me. Looks to be ten, maybe eight, but she has rouge and blue eyeshadow on her face. Why did she slam to a stop and go silent? Right, cause she saw me. Oh Gawd! Oh my Gawd! She looks so sweet \u2014 healthy and plump, like a sugary treat.\n<\/p>\n

\nDO NOT BITE! DO NOT BITE! DO NOT BITE!\n<\/p>\n

\nJeez-o-man, that\u2019s over! There\u2019s too much wrong in what I did; but no way to help it, no way to describe the Hunger pains \u2014 the cauldron of boiling acid that is my stomach. How much longer until the train starts? How many passengers could there be? Okay, I\u2019ll say what happened since nothing matters anymore.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe girl had stopped only five rows away. She chewed her tongue like it was bubblegum. I was dreaming about doing the same when she asked, \u201cHey Mr., you ain\u2019t a Zombie are you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nStill peering over the seat top, I said, \u201cAre you asking if I have the plague? Zombie isn\u2019t polite,\u201d and slid over so I was half in the aisle.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe looked at me as if I was being silly.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnyway, what makes you think I\u2019m ill?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe pointed at my arm. \u201cThat stumpie.\u201d I looked at myself and wished I could\u2019ve worn the clean shirt I\u2019d saved for the trip, put on my sling, and brought more than my notebook.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOh that. An awful dishwasher accident.\u201d I shoved my bad arm into my ragged flannel shirt, popping a button.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat\u2019s you writing?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat did you say? You\u2019re too far away. Can you come closer?\u201d I hoped I wasn\u2019t salivating.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo! You schmell.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nI wiped sweat, grime, and a little spit off my face with my sleeve and grunted, \u201cHey why don\u2019t we play, \u2018Simon Says,\u2019 while we wait?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nMaintaining my sanity somehow, I got her almost within grabbing distance. Two short rows. So close. She looked so good. It\u2019s hard to stop thinking about. I would have been nice. An arm, a small pink fleshy arm. That\u2019s all I needed. Man, oh man; such a waste. Such a waste. If her mom not screamed. Camed in and screamed. No her mom came, and, bloody screamed. I can\u2019t write write right write. Dragged treat. Away. Moms are good. I miss Mom. Am going to now. Yes, think that. I have to think that. But Hungry. So Hungry to. Gawd Damn!\n<\/p>\n

\nYelling outside. I see a mom yelling. A lot. \u201c\u2026your policy toward\u2026Tell me Exactly what is the policy [Ed note: Sentence incomplete] <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nWhite Blob voice. \u201cYes Ma-mom. Zombies can\u2019t take the train.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nInterview with Joseph Scarboro, male Caucasian aged 51, former member of Northeast Exploratory Fire and Rescue Squad 23. The interview was conducted by Share\u2019n Chan, 3rd level Comparativer of the Boston Scientific Commons Case Studies Club, on September 27, 2050 at a community kitchen near the interviewee\u2019s residential co-op in Boston (Northeast Coastal Ecoregion North American).\n<\/p>\n

\nOnly the interviewee\u2019s responses are provided. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nResponse(R)-1: Of course, I remember him. Why I\u2019m here. Found his notebook. Don\u2019t know what made me keep it.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-2: Yeah, it was the cover. That babalicious redhead with that laser gun standing in front of that burning sci-fi city. Don\u2019t see that kind of art anymore.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-3: Read it all. Those two weeks with Cindy got me through some lonely nights. The rest is a downer. For a day, I was even glad I charred his ass after reading what he did to Sprite.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-4: She was our squad\u2019s cat.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-5: In New Haven when, ahhh couple of months after most the big cities and bases went down. It was chaos. Doc. Niratpattanasai Na Ayutthayaiasia\u2019s drug saved us all. Still, the Guy don\u2019t deserve to get his name on about every free clinic and cr\u00e8che. A lot of them Compulsive sci-en-tists got the desire to find the cure. He got lucky. Hey kid, bet you don\u2019t even know he took chunks out of his lab rats and they had the wherewithwhatever to try the drug cocktail he\u2019d juiced up. They even got the word out and\u2014\n<\/p>\n

\nR-6: Sorry. It was the worst, out there on our own, just us, the Zom\u2014 ah infected, and freaked-out survivors.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-7: Yeah, the journal stayed in my\u2026ah possession until I heard the Global Open Forum would pay for plague memora\u2026ahh…ballia. Dug it up and traded it for a week at a Cape Cod leisure camp. Only thing those wacked Seattle anarchists ever did for me. My local forum is worse\u2026always sending neighbors over to encourage me to volunteer, suggesting I exercise, how I should eat, not to waste my carbon rations. It\u2019s like everyone\u2019s my big sister. And why somehow do I always gets cycled into sucky enviro jobs, even did radioactive reclamation last week? Is there anything you can\u2014\n<\/p>\n

\nR-8: Sorry. I know. Sure, the guy saw our posters. Journal says so. If he wasn\u2019t such a paranoidal we would\u2019ve currred him and got him to his mom. Also, he coulda got his wound fixed right. And now the fake limbs, they\u2019re way better than the real thing.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-9: Alright. Yeah, sure did. He wasn\u2019t secret-agent man. Kept seeing the glint off his binoculars. And man, he was noisy. His shootout terrified us all. We couldn\u2019t chase down every crazed Compulsive. Dangerous. Several of my buddies got comped. Better to stay out of their way, let the disease run its course.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-10: Sad? He had Cindy! And before that, he was sitting pretty while things went to shit. He got it better than most. If you want sad, I could make you cry till spring.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-11: When we found him, he was snapping his teeth like a wacked rabbit eating a carrot.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-12: What da ya mean what happened? You know the answer.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-13: Yeah, I agreed. Give me a second. Alright, I\u2019ll tell you. You already saw the records. Barbequed that poor guy. Did that a lot, but he\u2019s the one I can\u2019t forget. He failed every test. Nothing human left in him those tests said. But maybe they weren\u2019t perfect cause when we threw him on, his snapping stopped for a few seconds. He got a horrible freak in his eyes and shouted, \u2018Tell Mom I\u2019m sorry. That I love her.\u2019 After, I was crying and shit. Later it was non-stop nightmares and a lot of home-brewed beer to stop them. Thinking about it, I shouldn\u2019t have read his journal. Not even a field doc helped. It was years before all that crap stopped.\n<\/p>\n

\nR-14: Stopped only when I looked up his mom! I used those fugee registries they set up and some leave. Amazoling, I found her and her husband, Alex, Asian guy like you, living in some caretaker complexes south of Boston. Can\u2019t call what they were doing living though. Both had wrinkled up like old people do and were leaning on their neighbors for food. Those were bad times. You posties got it lucky. He\u2019d lost an arm. And she, well she had oldertimers, that forgetting thing. I shouted Steven so many times at her I was hoarse, but I must have half-connected with something cause her eyes lit up and she cried, \u2018Oh Stevie you\u2019ve finally come home.\u2019 Without thinking I said, \u2018I\u2019m so so sorry. I love you Mom.\u2019 I even hugged her. When I left, she still had an empty smile on her face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Autobiographical Case Histories from the Abridged 2055 Multimedia History Project on the Plague Year: Documenting the Rapid Sclerosis Pandemic. Society for Research and Education of the Global Open Forum Recovery Group. Case Contents: Selections from the subject\u2019s journal and an interview with a surviving member of the fire and rescue squad that quarantined the subject. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106716,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19864],"tags":[19863],"class_list":["post-137513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-32-summer-2019","tag-the-colored-lens-32-summer-2019","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/106716"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137514,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137513\/revisions\/137514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}