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And you would never live like a rodent in tube city, now would you?
Inevitably, you’ll come join me in what we now call Outpost 37, Lighthouse 1—what you currently know as Philadelphia, the Comcast Center skyscraper.
These days, tides rise and fall by hundreds of feet due to the increased speeds of weather patterns and the daily earthquakes that open and close gigantic underwater crevasses. Our planet is re-forming.
Today the water is so low, we can see Billy Penn’s feet and just a few inches of the old City Hall building atop of which he is still perched. City Hall is under the sea so it looks like Billy Penn’s walking on water, hence your Jesus reference.
Greetings from the future.
The year is 2032.
There’s been a nuclear holocaust, just like everyone feared there would be, and we’ve managed to melt the polar ice caps, which flooded the planet, covering a third of all known land with sea. Remember that movie your science teacher showed you? Well, Al Gore was right.
The nukes wiped out a fourth of the world’s population, and a food shortage from lack of land and fresh water took care of another fourth, or so they say.
Here in the North American Land Collective—we merged with Canada and Mexico several years ago—our overall losses weren’t as dramatic as in other parts of the world, but our land loss was just as great. This resulted in what has been compared to a migratory heart attack. Everyone was forced into the middle of our country, which caused chaos, of course, and required military law and a new sort of totalitarian government.
They’ve started to build vertically. Sky is the new frontier, the hot real estate. It’s all elevators and skyscrapers and enclosed tubeways in the clouds. People mostly live their lives indoors, somewhere between the earth and outer space, hardly ever breathing unfiltered air or feeling direct sunlight on their bare skin. They’re like gerbils in plastic-tubing cage cities.
But not us.
We have volunteered to man Outpost 37, Lighthouse 1, and we spend most of our days boating around the tops of what was once the Philadelphia skyline. Including you, there are only four of us here.
It is our job to provide light for any vessels that might accidentally find their way into our sector, so they will not crash into the exposed tops of underwater skyscrapers. We are to aid in military operations, of course, but we have not seen another human or a single boat of any kind in more than a year. We have not been officially contacted by the North American Land Collective government in ninety-seven days, nor have we been able to make our satellite links, which leads us to believe that all global communications have been shut down.
Why?
We don’t know.
But here’s the kicker: We do not care.
We are happy.
We are self-sufficient, stocked with twenty more years’ worth of poly-frozen food packets.
Scientists have proved that being exposed to so much unfiltered air, being closer to the great nuclear fallout clouds that drift aimlessly across Global Common Area Two, or what you call the Atlantic Ocean, will definitely shorten our lives quicker than smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and yet we are at peace with our position and feel as though we have escaped—or maybe like we have finally arrived home.
We’re living in the moment.
Sometimes we feel guilty knowing that so many people have suffered through the horrors that put us here, but as we had no control over those things, we simply try to enjoy our good fortune.
Our life is strange.
We spend our days in the boats searching the tops of skyscrapers for anything interesting, entering apartments and offices and stores as amateur archaeologists. These are the Egyptian pyramids of our time—“our underwater Machu Picchu,” you like to say.
You excavate more with the others, “reconstructing the lives of strangers.” It’s like a game. “Our greatest form of entertainment.” The three of you love to play Who Lived Here? and your answers are full of heroes and heroines who once did brave and noble deeds back before the sea swallowed up their entire civilization.
There are a trillion stories to be found beneath us. “Outpost 37 is perhaps the greatest interactive fiction library man has ever known.”
You said that, by the way.
I’m always quoting the future you.
You’re quite quotable.
You also love spotting dolphins. There is a large school of them here. They’ve begun to mutate due to the nuclear fallout and are slightly larger than they used to be. You often ride on their backs and call them buses. “I’m going to catch a bus,” you’ll say to S and she’ll clap and laugh as you hop onto one, holding the fin, being sprayed by the creature’s breath. We treat them like pets, swim with them often, and cut off the red squidlike parasites whenever the dolphins roll and offer up their smooth white bellies.
One youngster swims alongside your boat every morning when you make rounds. You named him Horatio, because he’s so loyal. We joke about him being your best friend and call you Hamlet, a play you are still reading nightly after all these years. “It gives and gives,” you say. Just like your high school English teacher told you.
But your favorite thing to do is scuba diving down into the city, exploring the watery streets that are still full of cars and hot dog stands and monuments and park benches and petrified trees and sports complexes and so many other things from our past, your present.
We only have so many bottles of oxygen in storage, so you don’t get to go as often as you’d like, because you are saving a few for the future. Rationing. You believe in the future now. It’s easy for you, because you love the present. Also, because you have S now.
You still get melancholy sometimes, especially when you think about the past, but mostly you are happy.
It’s a good, weird life.
We are a happy little family.
I understand that you are going through a tough time, Leonard. We’ve talked about it in detail during our late nights manning the great beam of light.
Your past—what you are currently experiencing—would be hard for anyone to endure. You’ve been so strong, making it this far. I admire your courage, and hope you can hold out a little longer. Twenty years seems like a long time to you, I bet, but it will pass quicker than you can ever imagine.
I know you really want to kill that certain someone. That you feel abandoned by your parents. Let down by your school.
Alone.
Peerless.
Trapped.
Afraid.
I know that you really just want everything to end—that you can’t see anything good in your future, that the world looks dark and terrible, and maybe you’re right—the world can definitely be a dreadful place.
I know you’re just barely holding it together.
But please hold on a little longer.
For us.
For yourself.
You are going to absolutely love Outpost 37.
You’re going to be the keeper of the light.
My first lieutenant.
Our beam is quite impressive, even if no one ever sees it but us—we send it out every night religiously. And when we turn out the lighthouse to conserve power, you will see stars like you’ve never seen before. Mind-boggling stars, the depths of which you will never map.
A strange, beautiful new world awaits, Leonard.
We’ve found an oasis in their ruins. We really have.
You want to see it, so just hold on, okay?
With much hope for the future (and from a man who knows for certain!),
Commander E
SEVEN
My school is shaped like an empty box with no lid.
There’s this very beautiful courtyard in the center, with four squares of grass, benches, cobblestone sidewalks that make a huge +, with White House-looking columns at the far end, and a cupola tower that overlooks the whole thing.
Before school or during lunch periods it’s crawling with students—like an awful cockroach infestation of teenagers. But during classes it’s serene, and I can never resist sitting down on a bench and watching clouds and birds fly by overhead.
I like to pretend I’m a prisoner kept in a dark, dank cell who’s only allowed fifteen minutes a day in the yard, so that I remember to really enjoy looking up. And that’s what I’m doing when Vice Principal Torres taps me on the shoulder and says, “I hate to interrupt the nice moment you’re having, but shouldn’t you be in class, Mr. Peacock?”
I start to laugh because he’s acting all superior like he always does. He has no idea that I have the P-38 on me, that I could shoot him in the heart and end his life right now just by pulling a trigger, and therefore he has no power over me at all.
He says, “What’s so funny?”
And I feel so fucking mighty knowing that the P-38 is loaded in my backpack, so I say, “Nothing at all. Care to sit down? Beautiful day. Beautiful. You look stressed. Maybe you should take a rest with me. Looking up at the sky is really healthy. I learned that by watching afternoon television aimed at women. Let’s chat. Let’s try to understand each other. What do you say?”
He just looks at me for a second and then says, “What’s with the hat?”
I say, “Been watching Bogie films with my neighbor. I’ve become quite a fan.”
When he doesn’t answer, I say, “You know—Humphrey Bogart? Here’s looking at you, kid?”
He says, “I know who Humphrey Bogart is. Now back to class.”
I cross my legs to let him know that I’m not afraid of him, and then say, “I missed homeroom and haven’t checked in yet at the office, so technically I’m on my own time. Haven’t punched in, so to speak, boss. Not yet under your jurisdiction. Right now, I’m just an everyman in a park.”
Vice Principal Torres’s face starts to turn eggplant purple as he says, “I don’t have time for double talk this morning, Leonard.”
So I say, “I’m talking pretty effectively, I think. I’ve answered all of your questions honestly and accurately. I’m always straight with you. But you don’t listen. No one listens. Why don’t you just sit down? It’ll make you feel better. It could really—”
“Leonard,” he says. “Enough.”
I say, “Jeez” because I was really trying to make a connection. I would have talked with him openly and honestly—no double talk at all—if he would have just sat down, taken a few minutes to be human.
What’s so important that he couldn’t take five minutes to look up at the sky with me?
Then Vice Principal Torres does this really lame, unoriginal thing, which depresses me. He probably does this bit with his son, Nathan, whose elementary school picture[17] is on VP Torres’s desk. Vice Principal Torres says, “Mr. Peacock, I’m going to count to three, and if you’re not on your way to class by the time I say three, you’re going to have a big problem.”
“What type of problem am I going to have?”
He raises his index finger and says, “One.”
“Don’t you think we should discuss the consequence of my possible inaction so I can decide whether or not doing what you have requested is truly in my best interest? I want to make an informed decision. I want to think. This is school after all. Aren’t you supposed to encourage us to think? Help me out here.”
He makes a peace sign, and says, “Two.”
I look up at the sky, smile, and then stand just before he says three, only because I need to shoot Asher Beal. That’s the only reason. I swear to god. I don’t want to make this day any harder than it will already be. I’m not afraid of Vice Principal Torres, his fingers, or his lame-ass counting. I assure you.
I start to walk to the office, but then I spin around and say, “I’m worried about you, Vice Principal Torres. You seem stressed. And it’s affecting your work.”
He says, “I’ve got a full slate today. Cut me a break, okay? Will you just go to class, Mr. Peacock? Please.”
I nod once and, as I walk toward the main office, I hear Vice Principal Torres sigh loudly. I don’t think his sigh is directed at me so much as it’s directed at his life—the fact that he’s so stressed and busy.
It’s like all the adults I know absolutely hate their jobs and their lives too. I don’t think I know anyone over eighteen who wouldn’t be better off dead, besides Walt[18] and Herr Silverman, and knowing that makes me feel confident about what I’m about to do later on today.
EIGHT
I do this thing sometimes where I put on this black suit I have for formal occasions such as funerals and I carry this crazy empty briefcase I got at the thrift store. Only I don’t go to school.
I practice being an adult, like I pretend I’m going to a job.
I walk toward the train station, and about two blocks away from it I always fall in line with other suits swinging briefcases.
I’ve studied their dead expressions enough to blend in.
I walk soldierlike, copying their steps, swinging my empty briefcase just so—almost goose-stepping.
I insert the coins into the bins outside the station and grab an old-fashioned paper newspaper, which I tuck under my arm, just to blend in.
I pay for my ticket at the machine.
I descend using the escalator.
And then I stand around all zombie-faced waiting for the train to come.
I know this will sound wrong, but whenever I wear my funeral suit, go to the train station, and pretend I have a job in the city, it always makes me think about the Nazi trains that took the World War II Jews to the death camps. What Herr Silverman taught us about. I know that’s a horrible and maybe even offensive comparison, but waiting there on the platform, among the suits, I feel like I’m just waiting to go to some horrible place where everything good ends and then misery ensues forever and ever and ever—which reminds me of the awful stories we learned in Holocaust class, whether it’s offensive or not.
I mean we won World War II, right?
And yet all of these adults—the sons and daughters and grandchildren of our World War II heroes—get on metaphorical death trains anyway, even though we beat the Nazi fascists a long time ago and, therefore, every American is free to do anything at all here in this supposedly great free country. Why don’t they use their freedom and liberty to pursue happiness?
When the train comes, the herd jumps on really quickly—like they’ve all been underwater forever and there’s oxygen inside.
No one talks.
It’s always quiet.
No music or anything like that.
No one says, “How was your night?” or, “What are your dreams and aspirations?” Or tells jokes or whistles or does anything at all to lighten the mood and make the morning commute more bearable.
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