i told you that I've been writing
This song is proof that I'm trying
Dedicated to Majical
Cloudz.
I started smoking when I was 18. A
pretty late or pretty early start, depending on your perspective. That's
me, not smoking weed. They prescribe me cigarettes because it's the only
thing that helps my ADHD. I don't know if that's legal. My words
seem to come out better, more fluid, with smoke hanging in the air and a
cigarette between my middle and index fingers. It's not that I don't
think I'll get cancer. It's just my thing.
Peaches got the most delicious peach
cigarettes on her study abroad trip to Paris. Greg told me she had a
threesome with two guys while she was there. I guess that's how kids act
these days. I'm so dated. I'm 13 years old at 26. I guess I
never grew up. We live in mansions now but none of us are happy.
There's a layer of ice covering everything here. Even if I cracked
it with an ice pick I just wouldn't feel right. I don't know what I'm
doing.
Mom's gone. I woke up to a house that
was silent except an unanswered telephone. I put my hand on the ringing
phone, hesitated, then heard a giant crash outside, then two more. Three
cars are flipped over. One is wrapped around a tree and if I look close I
can see two bloody bodies, maybe three if that other thing counts as an actual
alive person. These days, there's nothing unusual about that. The
ice changed everything.
This place started getting icy when the clowns
stopped coming to town. We all liked the clowns, they either scared us or
made us laugh but the point is there was verve to their presence. Now the
writers have lost their muse. How sad.
What is there to write about? How the
climate change catastrophe rained down unbreakable ice to cover every surface?
Did mom pay the heating bill this month? Does it even matter?
From here, looking at all the dead bodies being shoveled into a paddy
wagon, it's still difficult to believe. But it shouldn't be.
I grabbed a pair of mom's high heels, put them
on, and lay on my bed smoking cigarettes until the entire pack was empty.
This is where my journey started. With me in need of more
cigarettes. The problem with buying cigarettes, in this new world order,
is that nothing is for sale. If I want to keep smoking I'm going to have
to loot a place for a carton or two. Again I glance at the freshly
rolled, unlighted cigarette on my bedside table. This is asking for
trouble. This is saying, "okay. I'll be a part of this
world."
I light the cigarette, my last rolled one now
that tobacco can only be stolen in packs. Is it worth it to venture out
there for cigarettes alone? I feel bad thoughts entering my head,
thoughts of this very real, this really real apocalyptic world we're living
in, and I know I'm going to need more medication. By medication I mean
cigarettes. I'm not on Adderall right now. I can't remember the
last time that drug was even for sale. The pharmaceutical companies all
died in the frost, and when we weren't out celebrating the passing away of
those bastards we were alone in our ice covered homes, freezing to death.
I need to get out of here. I zip up my
motorcycle jacket, put on my vegan Doc Martens, and open the front door to an
icy hellhole. All I need is cigarettes, I tell myself. All I need
to do is loot a pack of cigarettes. I can do this. I can.
The world ended last year and I can't remember
it happening. Things sped by in those days, all types of things: me
undoing my body with smoke, the 20 degree summer, and finally the frozen rain.
The frozen rain is what did it, I think. That's what brought the
world to a standstill. The ice on my house, the ice on the abandoned
driveway, and even though I might not want to I know I need to find mom.
If I'm leaving the house for the first time in over a year, I might as
well go full force. I need my cigarettes. I need my mother.
The ice can take care of anything else. I just need my cigarettes
and I need my mommy. I take one more look around the abandoned house then
melt open the front door with a blowtorch. When I get outside, what feels
like 100 pounds of ice fall on my head. Things go black.
I wake up on the steps outside my front door
and there's blood on the back of my head. Sprawled on my back, I look
left and see bloody ice. I don't know if I can do this. I have to
do this. I see the three car pileup more clearly out here.
Squinting into the distance, it looks like three dead bodies are sprawled
across the ice covered road. I walk over there and fall 27 times before I
make it to them. When I do, I see the corpses up close. Twisted,
distorted bodies on the road and a voice from one of the cars. There are
living people jammed into this one, I know because their screams cover
everything like a thick layer of ice. I can't take it so I crawl inside
the car, a VW van, and undo the belt buckles of everyone in there. There
are three girls and two boys packed into this car and I try to drag one of the
girls out but she wails in pain, so I back off, but that just makes her scream
even harder. I finally get everybody out of the overturned van.
Everyone's pretty much writhing around on the ice, with their broken
bones and everything. The boy with shoulder length black hair spits blood
and looks up at me.
"Hey, do you think you can help us turn
this wagon over?" The VW is obviously stolen, and all the seats have
been removed. I spot three large bottles of Wild Turkey in the back
seats.
"My name is Chris, by the way."
I nod. So far, no one else is saying
anything. I introduce myself and reach down to shake Chris' hand from his
incapacitated position on the ice. When I pull away my hand is covered in
blood. I address Chris.
"Yeah man, but I mean, are you
okay?"
"Oh yeah," Chris said.
"We're fine. We just had a near-life experience."
He says this through a cackle that makes me uneasy.
"Help me," one of the girls wails.
I wrap my arms around her and my face turns red. I can't deal with
this right now but it could be my only way to locate my cigarettes and then,
more importantly, my mom. I pull the girl up to her feet. When
everyone from the van is standing it clears room to access the interior of the
vehicle and I find one more girl in there. Her neck is snapped and her
eyes tell me she's gone. I drag her lifeless body out of the car, then
turn to face Chris.
"Is she dead? Oh fuck. We
lost Amber. Guys, we lost Amber."
The girl I
helped to her feet says, "oh, come off it, Chris. Don't say her
name. Don't tell him our names. Names don't exist anymore."
It's true. No one refers to anyone by
name anymore, just "him" or "her" or "you" or
"them." I decide to lean back against an ice tree while
everyone gets their shit together.
"All right," Chris says.
"Now can you help us?"
I help them right the VW and Chris thanks me.
He offers me a ride somewhere and I'm too dazed to decline. I get
into the van, along with three girls and one boy covered in blood and wincing
from broken bones. Then Chris gets in. The other people in the van
near instantly grab one of the bottles of Wild Turkey and pass it around.
The girl I helped offers me a sip. I take the biggest gulp I can
then pass the bottle on. Chris starts the ignition on the VW and after
about ten tries gets it to start.
"So where are we going?" I ask
Chris.
"Wherever," he responds, then
cackles that same icy cackle that sends chills up my icy spine. We speed
off into the distance.
"So what's your name?" Chris asks
from driver's seat.
"Chris, stop it. There are no
names. You know this." The same girl with the name problem who
I helped up yelps this from the back half of the van, where most of us are
bumping and rolling around with the Wild Turkey. The other boy is in the
passenger seat.
"I was just trying to be polite.
Jeez," Chris says. At this, everybody starts laughing, even
me.
"Although just because something's
antiquated doesn't mean it doesn't have value--"
The boy in the passenger seat holds a finger
to Chris' lips.
"Shhh. It's okay. There are
no more names. Just accept it. Everyone else has." The
boy says these words slow and comforting. Chris takes the boy's hand in
his, squeezes it, and focuses on the road.
When the Wild Turkey gets passed back to me I
take another huge gulp and then I retry my question from earlier: "Chris,
dude, where are going?"
"New York City, brainiac. That's
where all the action is going down, right?" My stomach sinks when I
hear this. New York is a warzone and I don't want any part of what might
be happening there. Besides, there's no way mom would be in New York, or
even the United States. There's just no way.
"Can you just drop me off at the train
station? It's on the way. Actually it's just down the road."
Chris sneers at me, then says "alright,
it's your funeral. New York is where the last of the battles are being
fought though. You sure you want to miss this?"
I think about it for a second, about what
could happen if I stay with them. I don't have to think long.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm sure."
I could have gone with them. I could have trusted them. They
looked like anarchists. But who could be sure these days?
