The Man Who Watched the World End (6 page)

Dropping Andrew that time and not
seeing him flinch was a reminder of the tests I used to give him to see if I could elicit a response. There were times growing up, and again after my parents passed away, when I would think of little things to do to see if Andrew could understand something I said or did. During the first years of the Great De-evolution, a small percentage of the new-born children were partial Blocks, a state that left them with normal minds trapped inside useless bodies. They couldn’t move or talk, couldn’t even blink on command, but a battery of tests revealed they had fairly normal brain activity. These were the bourgeoisie of the Blocks, still motionless, but superior to those with little or no brain activity. Some of these children had microchips inserted into their brains so a small computer could translate their thoughts into words and phrases. Everyone in those days held hope that if their child was going to be a Block, at least it might be a Block with an active mind. They were grasping at straws, but I guess it gave parents the hope they needed to get through difficult times. A lot of parents in those days just wanted to feel like their baby was a continuation of them, not a mannequin with a healthy heart and lungs.

Those partial Blocks only appeared in the first
couple of months, and only sporadically, before quickly giving way to a hundred percent of the children being completely Blocked. My parents got irritated with me for holding out hope that Andrew could be one of the lucky few who might be able to understand the world around him. The doctors had already given him the entire range of tests to check for relevant brain activity. He failed every o raging teenage hormones in the other ne. But there I would be, sitting on the living room floor, saying something to elicit a response from my baby brother.

One of my earliest experiments was simply yelling in front
of him when his eyes were closed. Of course his eyes never gave the slightest flicker of recognition. Sometimes, just to see if he would smile, I held a bowl of ice cream in front of his face or, and I’m not proud of this, told him that doctors found a cure for being a Block. My parents would walk to the edge of the living room and tell me to leave him alone. If I was still conducting my immature experiments the next time they walked past the room, I was given more chores to do.

My father would come in my room on those nights and tell me why
the tests weren’t important. “Your mom and I love your brother for who he is. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t talk or move. He’s still our son. It doesn’t even matter if he thinks or doesn’t think. He’s still the same person to us.”

“But he can’t even blink a
‘yes’ or a ‘no,’” I said, as though that were a factor in how much or how little someone should be loved. My father took the type of deep breath that let me know I was lucky he didn’t spank me. In place of stinging my ass cheeks, he walked away without saying anything.

The last time I spoke to my mother, before she went to sleep and didn’t wake up, she told me
that Andrew was a part of me and should be respected as such. She told me it didn’t matter if my brother couldn’t laugh at my stupid jokes (she didn’t use the word stupid, I added that in) or play soccer with me in the backyard, he was to be cherished just the same. He was my parents’ child. He was my brother. As the population got smaller and smaller and the other people I knew from my childhood passed away or moved to the final communities, Andrew was the one person who stayed with me.

My tests with Andrew didn’t stop
, though, just because my parents told me to leave him alone. They also didn’t stop just because I got older, or because I appreciated him as my flesh and blood brother, which I do.

They usually started as part of the boredom that ensued during the one-sided conversations I had with him. Even something as simple as talking becomes a forgotten skill if you
have no one to talk to. Sometimes, when I ask Andrew a question, the only noise that comes out of my throat is a slight croak. It sounds like I’m gagging on food before the words are formed. The idea of forgetting how to carry on a conversation or tell stories terrifies me. So I do all of these things with Andrew even though he doesn’t understand my words, simply stares off into the distance. His gaze never moves from one spot on the wall to another unless I readjust his head. I like to think he appreciates having different things to , she shook her head and do look at, but of course he doesn’t care.

The easiest
of my tests with him was to ask a question and tell him to blink once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no.’ Needless to say, the doctors’ tests were much more complicated and reliable. I always held out hope, though, that their tests were wrong. Maybe the same disease that came over him when he was still in the womb would release its grip as he got older. That was what I tried to convince myself of, although I had no reason to think that would be the case. I’m sure the majority of families held the same hopes for their Blocks. The casual tests on Andrew stopped about thirty years ago when a hopeful breakthrough turned into humiliation and heartbreak.

The night of my final t
est with Andrew, I asked if he was doing okay. It was the question I asked him more than any other. I never expected a response; it was just something to say before I started rambling. But on this night he blinked when I asked the question. I barely noticed it because I was so used to non-responses or to blinks that didn’t mean anything.

“Andrew?”

He blinked.

“Can you hear me?”

He blinked.

“Say yes.”

He blinked.

“Say no.”

He blinked twice.

I must have screamed and jumped. Miracles were possible! I was out of breath and gasping. Andrew still couldn’t move his arms or legs or open his mouth, but he could talk to me with his eyes! He could answer my questions. He could give me someone to spend quality time with. Suddenly, I was
presented with someone who could offer advice. He blinked again. Eager to know what he was saying, I asked what he wanted. An inkling of doubt crept into my head, and I found myself holding my breath until I gave the next command and got the next response.

“Say
‘yes.’”

There was no quickly became overwhelmed aof response.

“Andrew, say ‘yes.’”

He blinked twice, then three times.

And that was it. A moment later he blinked one more time, then shut his eyes for an hour. There had been no rhyme or reason to any of his blinks. It was dumb luck, or, not really luck at all, but me engaging in dumb behavior that eventually mimicked progress. In the end, it was no different than if I had given him a deck of cards and kept guessing which card would be next until, by sheer coincidence, I managed to get three in a row correct.

I always tried as much as possible to keep from being upset in front of my brother. Any time I got mad or frustrated, I went back to my room, shut the door, and turned on music so he wouldn’t be able to hear me curse. I knew he couldn’t hear me anyway, that turning on music wouldn’t make a difference. That night, though, I cried right in front of him. I cried and cried, realizing that the momentary flicker of hope not only made me feel foolish, but rem
inded me how ashamed my parents would have been of the test in the first place.

After that episode
, I stopped sheltering Andrew from my outbursts. The next time I got mad, probably from bumping into a doorframe or dropping a jar in the kitchen, I screamed curses as loud as my old voice would let me. I said every four letter word I could think of in every random order I could think of. There was no apology following my outburst, either. Instead, I walked straight past him to my bedroom and slammed my door.

Slowly, as I grew up, I
learned to give Andrew the attention my parents would have wanted me to give him. Sometimes, when I walk past him, his eyes are open; other times they are closed. It has nothing to do with the environment around him. I can walk past the living room in the middle of the day and his eyes might be shut, just the same as when I walk past in the middle of the night and see him sitting there with his eyes open, staring blankly at an empty wall. I find myself acting as though he’s awake or asleep depending on his eyes. There’s no difference between the two states, but it makes me feel like he’s being given the care he deserves. When I was younger I would even lay him down if his eyes were closed so his sleep resembled normal sleep. My sore back has put an end to that, though.

Andrew’s fever broke yesterday. There’s no telling if the medicine
I put in his nutrient bag did anything to help or if it was his immune system that finally fought off the cold.ustify; widows:0; orphans:0" ai To me, the strangest thing about the Blocks has always been that they have regular immune systems and their organs and circulatory system function the same as normal adults, they just don’t think or move. Having a healthy immune system is the cosmic joke of the Block’s life because it preserves them and keeps them healthy while their lack of mental development keeps them reliant on regular people. Blocks are just like me, except I have free will while they are stuck in motionless bodies with minds that never learned how to process the things going on around them. Andrew has no idea if it’s summer outside or if we’re in the middle of a blizzard. Unlike every other animal throughout history, he has no ability to adapt. Even a tree’s leaves can change color. A flower gives off an irresistible smell. These things further their cause, keep them abundant. For Blocks, it’s almost as if nature has said, “Okay, your time is up. No more evolution for you; you’ve done enough.”

The average Block’s lifespan is roughly ten years less than a regular adul
t’s. This is primarily because it’s not possible for them to exercise the way normal people can, and as a result their hearts aren’t as healthy. The timing is a cruel joke: all of mankind will grow old and die at nearly the same time. The last stragglers may live a year or two longer than the rest of us, but there won’t be a scenario, like in the movies, where a man wanders the barren land for twenty years as the last remaining member of our species. Who would want to do that anyway? If you gave me the choice between living here for another twenty years after Andrew dies or dying the next day, I would want the latter. My days as a survivor would be spent by myself, re-watching the same movies I currently watch with Andrew. Each day would have one purpose: get through it so I could wake up the next day. Without Andrew, that wouldn’t be enough.

At least the weather is of no concern in our ability to keep going.
It’s probably colder outside now than it will be any other day of the year, and yet it only feels like winter because the calendar says it is. Like the weather in the final settlements, our winters here are nowhere close to what you would find in Chicago or Boston. New Englanders would have laughed at what we call winter. A sweater over the top of my regular shirt is enough to keep me warm. I put a blanket over Andrew’s shoulders, even though he has no idea he might be chilly. I think about what it would be like to take care of him during a blizzard if we were living further north. The trash would pile up in my basement until the weather cleared and I could go outside to use the incinerator. If the heater broke, no repairman would be around to fix it. I’d be stuck in the middle of a white, barren wasteland.

Because of this, New England might be void of people already. Probably is. It’s hard to imagine anyone being able to survive the winters there on
their own. The majority of people were inclined to stay in large groups as the population declined. People in the suburbs packed up their belongings and found vacant apartments in the city in order to join other people already there. Tha and yelled, “April Fool!”geother t’s how Camelot came to be a ghost town.

At the same time, people left unfavorable environments, anywhere with snow and ice,
in favor of warm weather cities further south. Florida went from being the punch line to every retirement joke to becoming the lasting image of salvation. Maine and New Hampshire were immediately returned to the wilderness, then Vermont. I have no idea how many people decided to rough it out on their own by staying where they were. Iowa is probably void of human life. Maybe South Dakota has one man living in a log cabin with his Block brother. There’s no way of knowing, just the same as there’s no way for them or anyone else (other than the Johnsons) to know I’m out here in abandoned Camelot.

The group community in Boston failed when a blizzard overwhelmed the inhabitants there. A party from the New York collective went up to Boston the next summer. No one was alive. I’ve heard stories that the same thing happened to the Minneapolis collective, and that the Chicago search party not only didn’t find survivors, they didn’t find anyone at all. It was almost as if the last
remaining Minnesotans simply vanished. I’m not sure if I believe those stories—I don’t want to believe them.

Washington and Idaho were affected the same way New England was. People left the suburbs, gathering in Seattle and Spokane first. Then, when their numbers began to dwindle there, the cities were completely abandoned as the people joined up with the community in Portland and Twin Falls. Those communities eventually moved down to join
the people already gathered in Los Angeles and Reno. When the Chicago community packed up, it joined with the people in St. Louis. That community ended up joining with the Little Rock community and then again even later with the one in Dallas. The Dallas community is one of the few that still exists.