THIS AIN'T PROM NIGHT

Back before the world burned, Fareed had been living the life: a lucrative position with a firm of distinction, a wife who loved him or at least said she did, a significant collection of police badges, his hair. One Saturday morning he decided not to get out of bed just yet. He stayed there, first for the sex, then for the hash tea, then for the vintage cartoons on TV whose colors danced and swayed. He especially liked the theme songs, could anticipate lyrics before they were actually sung, and while it was probably memory he told himself that it was “escalated psychical ability.” The phrase, battlesuited with sharp k’s, pleased him immensely. And then he heard the high whine. He assumed it was something in the cartoon, but it stayed when he muted the set, and he furrowed his brow and frowned. The bomb hit at the corner of Warner and Weeks, vaporizing houses for a block in any direction. Eleven thousand other bombs fell upon the land that morning, dispersed randomly, deleting through blast nine hundred thousand lives. It was conventional ordnance, which the news took as a blessing. No need to worry about contamination or containment. You were either dead or you picked up and got on with it. The people in charge—mostly men, except for the Secretary of Defense—got on with it, responding in kind. And so on and so on. Fareed’s wife, visiting a frightened aunt, was exploded in the third phase.  When Saturday rolled around, the first Saturday since what he thought of as the Warner-Weeks Massacre, he tried to recapture the past: sex (with a paid companion—life was short, mourning shorter), hash tea (brewed double strength), cartoons (but none were on—only endless suited figures harrumphing about what was and what could never again be). His escalated psychical ability had failed him. Nor could he remember a single theme song. Fareed tried to turn off the TV but failed. Brenda, the escort, tried too. No luck. Had the government locked it on? Fareed paid Brenda, tipping generously, sent her home, resolved to take a long walk and compose remarks for his wife’s upcoming memorial. But he could not leave his bed until well past what would have once been dinner, and then he felt only terror stepping out onto his front lawn, where he saw dozens of other men and women also trying to emerge, sometimes waving at him, sometimes turning away, never speaking, tongueless wraiths peopling the inky night. He patted his pocket, where he had put two badges, one real, one prop, as if there was any difference anymore.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas