(Part 1 of 2)
The Mayans were right. The morons who believed them were also right. It was the aliens who had fucked it up. Apparently—and it was very nice of them to let us know this—the alien technician in charge of setting the alien reminder in their alien calendar had fat fingered the tens digit, and what was supposed to be entered as 2012 ended up as 2032.
But that, very soon, is about to be water under the bridge.
It’s been five days now since their saucers darkened the sky and announced that all those bastards would finally get what they deserve—I mean, in their words, the beginning of the end that they were so regretful had to come to pass, but the budget had been approved and there was a lot of potential profit riding on the successful harvest of the byproducts of carbon-based life left to run amuck so, you see, their hands were tied.
Just like mine are. I rub my hands together and breathe on them, a humid mist forming in the frigid January air. Maybe I should have picked thicker gloves, but these are my coolest black gloves—I think they’re real leather—and, to be honest, I didn’t expect it to take so long to find his apartment.
The last thing any electronic ever played was the aliens’ crocodile-tear-filled message, and then everything had gone dark. My town feels alien without Siri in my ear to tell me where to turn or to suggest a better route. Guess they designed this town with GPS in mind way back when, because none of this makes any sense. Why do all of these fucking signs have N or W or S or E written on them? What is that supposed to mean? I know that Josh’s house is on the east side of town, but how am I supposed to figure out where that is without the compass app?
And it’s not like I have any friends here I can ask, and I’m definitely not going to ask a fucking stranger. Condescending pricks.
I should have asked Mom, before she left. She went with my dad (ugh) and Veronica and Charlize (double ugh), my sisters, to spend their last few days on earth with family. Can you believe she asked me to go too? Why? What’s the point? Why would I want to spend time with people who’ve always hated me?
No, I have something better in mind. Revenge.
But my hands really are cold, Jesus. No, it’s fine. These gloves are great, they go with my outfit, and I’ve always been tough—tough as titanium nails. What’s a few more hours of absolute blistering agony compared to my life. If I can cap this miserable existence off with the perfect revenge, then it’ll have all been worth it. I’ll bear this like I’ve borne everything.
I screw my face up with determination, tip my hat brim down, tighten the cinch of my trench coat, and bravely tuck my hands into my pockets.
It takes a few more hours, but I finally find it. Who knew it takes seven hours to walk two miles? God, life without a car sucks. I passed a whole bunch of losers on my way here too—some freaking love birds sitting at the park, stupid show-off dinner spread in front of them, big bottle of (I’m sure) cheap-ass wine, tears in their dumb, fake eyes; a family parked on their roof, telescope ready to watch the show, kids running around while their parents looked on with empty expressions to match their empty heads; some dumb-ass kid wailing about his mom his dad his mom wah wah wah, shut up! At least there was a store on the way that still had a pretty good unraided stock.
A world of fakers and nuisances. And it’ll all be over in—I look up to the sky—a few more hours? They said the world engines won’t start harvesting until the 6th. I’m not exactly sure how long from now that’ll be, but I think I have a couple of hours at least after it gets dark. Which it isn’t yet.
I really want to wrap this up right when they start to tear everything apart. I think that’d be most poetic. I look at the watch on my wrist—one of my dad’s, seems expensive; he’d left it behind along with his guns. Its brand is some stupid foreign word, but it’s still ticking along. Maybe it uses a battery the aliens couldn’t deal with? Problem is, I have no idea what the digits and ticking hands mean. One of them seems to tell seconds, since it moves around pretty quickly.
But I don’t need to know seconds. I need to know hours.
I spin around and plant my back against the wall, sliding down it dramatically (too bad nobody’s watching), until my ass hits the concrete. I’ll just wait a few hours after it gets dark, and then I’ll take care of business. That’s good enough.
Having my feet so close to my butt like this is actually super uncomfortable. I don’t know the right way to describe it, but, like, it’s really tight in my top and bottom leg? Like something’s stretched to a breaking point?
It’s obvious that humans aren’t meant to sit like this, so I stretch my legs out—carefully. I don’t want to scuff the polish on my black, calf-high boots.
I reach my thick brown (look, they didn’t have any black left, okay!) mittens into my pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes. It takes me a while to pull off the cellophane wrapper, and even longer to figure out how to get the lighter to work, and longer still to actually get the cigarette correctly lit. I’m sure I could do a better job with practice, but I was too busy looking after my health my entire life to try to look like a cool bad boy, alright? It’s not my fault.
Turns out that was all wasted time. Cigarettes are disgusting. They make you choke, they burn your throat, and they taste like ass (not that I’d ever eaten ass, and I never would, because that’s gross). Alright, well, the cigarette’s not going to be part of my final scene. I flick it into a nearby tree lawn.
I have a much easier time with the contents of my other pocket. It pops open easily under my dexterous fingers, and the taste of its perfect blend of sugar and caffeine helps calm my nerves.
A long time later, I look at the watch again. The big hand’s made almost a full rotation since I checked it last. The little hand hasn’t budged. Does it measure days or something? Anyway, it’s been long enough. Time to take care of this, and then take a piss, and then welcome the end of this shitty world.
The entranceway to the apartment complex is unlocked. I climb up the stairs, taking a break after each floor to make sure I won’t fumble my big speech at the top. I walk up and down the sixth floor hallway three times before I realize the odd numbers are on the left, and knock on the door to number 623.
I can hear muffled voices from beyond the door.
“Who the fuck, now of all times?”
“It’s fine, honey. It’s probably Ms. Gere from 602. She probably forgot which apartment was hers again.”
“And that all of this is going on too. Never thought I’d envy her.”
A woman’s voice and a man’s. My hand tightens around the grip of the pistol in my pocket.
Shit! I forgot to take off the mittens. Fuck shit fuckity shit fuck! I slip my hand out of my pocket and grip the mitten with my teeth… and the door cracks open. Man, fuck you. I just needed two more seconds, and now you’ve made me look like a fucking tool.
(Part 2 of 2)
Josh’s face peers out from the partway-opened door. A look crosses it. Surprise? Disgust?
“What the hell, Kevin? I thought your family left town days ago. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Hah! As if I would go with those fools.” I say, my mouth full of wool as I wrench off the second mitten. I spit it onto the floor between us.
His eyes, those hateful, hateful beady eyes, glance down and then back up to me.
He sighs. “That’s too bad. I really think it’d be better for y—… anyone to be around loved ones at a time like this.”
I don’t dignify that drivel with a response.
“What do you want, Kevin?”
“I want revenge.”
Another sigh. “I’m not going to help you with one of your petty grudges, man. The world’s ending in”—he peers at the watch on his wrist—“seven and a half hours, in case you forgot.”
“Hah hah ha ha! I don’t need you to help me, you simpleton. Because you are”—I sneer to strike the fear of God (or maybe the devil?) into him—“my target.”
“You have to shit or something? What’s with that face?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Look, normally I’d let you in to use my bathroom, but Amelia’s here. If you need to shit there’s a public restroom on the first floor.”
“Don’t ignore me! I’m here to kill you for ruining my life, you stupid bastard!”
His eyebrow shoots up. Yes, that’s right. Feel the terror running through you. “For ruining your life? When did I ruin your life?” He leans on the door as he says it, now too awash in fear and adrenaline to even stand up straight.
“Don’t worry. I’m only going to kill you. I’ll let Amelia live. I’m too much of a gentleman to hurt a woman.”
“Yeah, sure, right, great. But what did I do to ruin your life? Can we start there?”
“Don’t act like you don’t remember!”
“Not acting.”
I can’t hold myself back. I slam my fist into the wall next to the door. Let him see how I’ve been restraining myself all these years, when I could have killed him at any moment. Let him fear! My hand connects with a thud. The wall does not break, and I bite my tongue to stifle the sudden shock of pain.
That doesn’t make any sense. There are so many holes in my basement room from when my dad really pissed me off. Why didn’t this one budge?!
Josh clears his throat. “That looked like it hurt. You want an aspirin? You can have the whole bottle if it’ll get you out of here quicker. Not like we’ll need it.”
“It didn’t hurt at all, stupid.” Okay, great. It doesn’t want to move. It feels numb. How am I going to grab the gun from my right pocket with my left hand? That’s going to look so awkward.
“If you say so. So, how did I ruin your life? I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t know.” He says, trying to pretend that his agape mouth is a yawn and not a barely suppressed squeal of terror.
“Three years ago.” I say through gritted teeth.
“Three years ago? I dunno. You’ve lived three years since then, and I didn’t notice anything different. You don’t seem ruined to me.”
“But it could have been different! I could have finally been happy, but you took it all away from me! You took away my one chance! And I’ve dreamed of this day ever since.”
“I’m sure this is all very clear to you, but you’re going to need to be more specific. I must have ruined a lot of lives without realizing it, since nothing’s really coming up.”
My hand rises up of its own accord to slam the wall again, and I barely restrain it. I’m losing control of my demons. I can feel the uneven press of fillings grinding under the pressure of my rage.
“Jess—i—ca.” I barely manage to get out.
“Jessica? Oh, you mean that girl who was on our team before she transferred over to Devops? I remember she was nice, wicked smart too.”
“And she was mine! You turned her against me!” I can feel spittle flying past my lips. This is it. This is the moment. Did I take the safety off? What was a safety again? How do you take it off if it’s on?
“Oh, I remember now.” He raises his shirt up to wipe his face, revealing his stupid fake toned stomach. “She asked me if I’d sent her a picture of a dick from your Slack account as a joke, and I told her I hadn’t.”
“And if it weren’t for that, she’d be my wife right n—”
I don’t know what happened. One moment I’m getting on with the preamble of my speech, and the next moment I’m sprawled against the opposite wall. My jaw hurts, and everything tastes like pennies. My vision finally settles, and I see some red splotches on my pants. I wipe my mouth. It stings.
And there’s Josh, looming over me. Ready to take advantage of a cheap shot to put one over on me and hold me back from achieving my destiny, like he always is.
He shakes his fist before rubbing his temple. "You know what? I’m not even going to apologize for that. You’re a real piece of work, Kevin. You always have been. I just hoped that one day you’d wake up and figure it out.
"I did my best, you know, I really did. I helped you get that job, I put you on my team. I fucking shielded you from the consequences of your shitty work, apologized for your goddamned outbursts. I even kept you from getting fired.
"I should have listened to Amelia from the start. She told me you were a lost cause, but I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know what the fuck happened to you in middle school, but that smart, nice kid I knew is fucking dead, and I guess he has been for a long time.
"The world’s not out to get you, man. I’ve been in your corner, your mom’s been in your corner, our teachers liked you—they worried about you. Don’t even get me started on what your dad did to get you through college.
"You have so many people doing their best to help you out, and you’re always so pissed off. About what? For what? What fucking reason do you have?
"And let’s talk about this ‘revenge’ for a second. I ruined your life… because I didn’t lie to cover your stupid tracks? I ruined your life because I convinced Jessica that you were socially awkward but harmless, and wouldn’t it be nice if she moved to a team with more upward mobility by the way? I ruined your life by risking my career for you?!
"Did you ever think that maybe it’s your fault for sending a picture of your penis to a coworker who you’d only ever talked to during morning meetings? Did you ever think that maybe you had some control and responsibility for the way things turned out? That maybe people would have liked you more if you hadn’t wasted so much air insulting them? That you would have had better luck dating in college if you hadn’t only approached drunk women at bars? You got a reputation for that, you know.
"People used to like you, man. And even when they stopped liking you, they still loved you. Even though you did the best fucking job you could to be unlovable.
“You’ve got seven and a half hours left. Maybe you can figure something out before the world ends, but I guess it doesn’t fucking matter. And since it doesn’t fucking matter, I don’t want to see your face again. I’m going to spend the last few hours I have with the woman I love. I want to say that I hope you can spend yours growing up and realizing the world isn’t—wasn’t—as ugly as you wanted it to be, but I frankly don’t care. Fuck off.”
The door slams shut, and I hear the sound of a deadbolt slamming into place.
I’m staring at my boots. Something warm dribbles off my lip.
After a few minutes, I push myself to my feet. I wobble over to the door and lean down to scoop up my mittens. Fuck you, Josh. I’m going to kick that goddamned door down, and we’ll see who’s fucking responsible for fucking what.
I tug the mittens onto my hands, and start towards the stairs. Turns out that going down is easier than going up.
I really like this take on the prompt! The whole time I thought it was some futuristic sci Fi world where humans relied on technology too much (despite the now obvious hints). Loved the fact that Josh’s speech shattered my perception of the world as it reveals exactly who the protagonist is. Especially loved how Kevin’s internal thoughts consume the story, you did an excellent job showing the world through his perspective of things!
