The Man Who Watched The World End Read online

  It was an odd concept until you saw a Block and realized they really did look just like everyone else, they just didn’t smile or sigh or do anything at all. A month later, another family on the street had a baby and that child was also a Block. The Stevenson’s new daughter was a Block too. I don’t remember another regular baby being born after that.

  It would have been nice to be a little older when my brother was born so I could remember the details more clearly. I’m left with vague impressions, the accuracy of which I can’t verify. I remember having a babysitter for a couple of days while my parents were at the hospital. The girl, barely qualified to be a temporary custodian of anything, popped her bubble gum as she asked, “So, is your brother going to be a Block? That’s gotta be weird.” There’s no telling what my answer had been. Shortly after that I remember my parents coming home with my new baby brother. They put him down on the sofa with all the normal love and care given to a baby, but I also remember, even at that age,">Star WarsI asked my mother why she and my dad were always putting needles in Andrew’s arm—it was something they never had to do to me—and she explained that Andrew couldn’t eat food the same way I could, that he needed an IV to get food and water. So in the oversimplified view of my childhood mind, I remember feeling like I had a brother who was sort of like me, he just didn’t move or make noise and he needed to have a tube coming out of his forearm.

  The first cases of this new syndrome had only started emerging a few months before my brother was born. Doctors in Chicago claimed to have found the first case, however, doctors in the Ukraine and Belgium reported identical findings at the same time, of newborn babies without any significant brain activity. Doctors weren’t sure at first if it was a new form of autism or something else completely. It was as if babies were being born comatose. They also weren’t sure what triggered it or why it started happening all across the globe simultaneously. It ended up being classified as a new disorder, something that was wholly and unquestionably its own state of being. Parents of those first children wanted to know if there would ever be a cure. Soon-to-be parents wondered if there might be a vaccine. They also wondered if there was something they could do—certain brands of food to buy, certain types of formula—that might keep their child from being born that way.

  Everyone wondered exactly what the prognosis meant. What did no significant brain activity mean for these children? The best answer doctors were able to provide was that these newborns had healthy bodies, and their brains were functioning, they just weren’t developing the way normal brains should. The results were bodies that still developed enough to regulate breathing, go through puberty, and eventually have grey hair, but that didn’t develop motor neurons or sensory neurons. People began referring to these afflicted children as Blocks because it was as if their condition obstructed them from the world. More and more newborns began showing signs of this complete lack of acknowledgement of their surroundings.

  Doctors were able to pinpoint the cause of the condition shortly after it appeared. A certain amino acid wasn’t forming; the brain wasn’t developing the way it was supposed to. But while they knew the cause, they were unable to find a cure. They replicated the amino acid, they manipulated every aspect of the birth process, but they couldn’t force the human brain to develop the way it once had. Every step of the baby’s development could be controlled, the correct amino acid introduced, but still the unborn child would reject the treatment and develop the same way as all the other Blocks. Doctors began creating new babies from test tubes. These infants also displayed stunted brains. No matter how human life was created in those years, it wasn’t life that could sustain itself. The entire human rac make me feel any better. aof e had evolved, or mis-evolved as it were, and refused to go back to what it had been previously.

  A generation of people, the final generation of people, grew up just like the rest of us—healthy hearts, perfect circulatory systems, strong bones—they just couldn’t talk or move or do anything else that the previous generations could. So we, the fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of the afflicted, took care of them and raised them as the otherwise normal people they were, all the while realizing this new generation we were taking care of wouldn’t be able to produce offspring. And even if they could, they wouldn’t be able to raise them.

  As a little boy I didn’t understand why someone who couldn’t talk or move should be loved as much as someone who could do those things. It certainly wasn’t fun trying to play G.I. Joe with a little brother who couldn’t make exploding noises or act like our soldiers were killing each other. My parents did not share my reservations. When I was seven and Andrew was three, our parents took us to the beach. My mom and dad spent a week making sure they had thought of everything necessary for a long road trip involving Andrew. My mom checked his supply of child-sized nutrient bags in the kitchen while my dad made sure the child safety seat still fit.

  I saw the amount of preparation involved and couldn’t help but ask my mom, “Why do you even bother taking Andrew?”

  Thinking back to it, she could have crossed the short distance of the kitchen and smacked me across the face, but she was my mother and she gave a gentle laugh, as though my question was silly.

  “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 mom 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 were 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 mom 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 aroun
d 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 agreed 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.

  December 4I 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 shows 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.

  December 5When 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.