Page 33 of Them

Up to 107.6, the man was met with only garbled silence as the static flickered in tone and volume with each change of frequency. It was the depthless voice of a rotting world, a language spoken only by aimless artifacts of a failed species.

Up to 107.6, the man stared at the etched letters on the broken fence picket. It looked as if a caveman had spent long hours contemplating the words, scratching charcoal numerals onto rock walls.

Up to 107.6, the night was dominated by static and stealthy steps of raccoons and rustles of sleepless birds. The deer and field mice watched him from the bramble, wary. The world was quiet, and he was the last man on Earth.

107.7.

“—et me at the White House if you’re around. It ought to be safe enough. Too urban for them nowadays. It’ll take two or three weeks to make the trek myself, once I finally leave that is. I’ll let you know, whoever you are, when I get the guts to pack up and move. If you’re even listening. Maybe it’ll be just me. I suppose I’ve gotten used to that. Don’t worry about food. I’m bringing a picnic for the two of us. If it’s only the two of us. I’d be thrilled to see more folks but… Well, I suppose it might just be me… I’ll talk to you tomorrow, listener. Same time, okay? Two o’clock on the dot. I have two ten right now, if you want to sync our instruments. If you’re there. If anyone’s there. L.B. over and out.”

The man checked his wristwatch, 1:32, and wound it forward to 2:11. Then he wrote on the notepad: 107.7, two a.m. His hand was surprisingly steady.

He listened for a long time to see if the voice would return. When it didn’t, he twisted the knob back to 93.1 and stretched out on the grass as tears tickled the corners of his toothy smile.

The rat race used to have an endgame in mind. A goal. I reckon I once came mighty close to that finish line, at least by many folks’ standards. Yessir, a high-ranking government official in the finest country on the gods’ given Earth… depending on who you asked, anyway.

To others, I was the devil’s minion. One of many. No more than a cog in a machine. My superiors saw me as a soldier, and my subordinates were afraid of me. It’s not their fault; I wasn’t a particularly personable officer. Funny how you can hang your hat on others’ opinions, but it’s only once you’re all alone that you start to think about how you treated them. About the things you’ve done.

Among my cache of books, I brought along a handful of holy texts. I’m no God-fearer, as I’ve already said, but at times they’ve provided me with something like relief or comfort, but not quite. I don’t really know.

An Introduction to Hinduism isn’t much for depth, considering it looks about fit for a high schooler, but I’ve enjoyed the translation, nonetheless. One section was devoted to the Bhagavad Gita, a story about Vishnu, the Creator, Preserver, and Reshaper of everything and all. I read it beneath a dim LED in dire need of replacement, for I rarely replace these lights. I envy the free dark outside. I want to wallow in it.

I read the Bhagavad Gita, and I wept.

Vishnu had taken the human form of Lord Krishna to counsel a young royal warrior, Arjuna. Prince Arjuna faced a crisis of great personal and national responsibility; he was to fight a civil war against friends and family. A tale as old as time. But Lord Krishna, this avatar of the beginning and end of everything, was determined that Arjuna should see his duties as a warrior fulfilled. To fight would break the prince’s heart, but he had to fight for the good of his kingdom. His people. That was the warrior’s promise.

We weren’t warriors.

Arjuna remained distraught. Conflicted. Seeing no other choice, Lord Krishna abandoned his simple form. The fabric of reality faded, and Lord Krishna transcended into a multiarmed deity. “Now,” Krishna said, “I am the Lord of Death.”

We weren’t that either. Death has a purpose. A beauty.

Now, I am Death. I’d heard that somewhere before. Mine was a simplified, probably laughable translation, but I was certain of its familiarity, even if it’d been a bit different. A bit off.

I don’t know how long ago that was anymore. Even if I have a working clock, time’s dead without the sun. Didn’t crack the spines on any of my gospel when I was in the desert. Not until after Maine, after New York, after I fucked this world straight to hell and hid my sorry ass away in a hovel. Go figure.

After I read the Bhagavad Gita, I sat on it for quite a while. Something prodded at me from the slick, dark corners of my bunker. I couldn’t shake the sense that I’d almost heard those words before.

Weeks later, beneath the hollow glow of these LEDs, I was reading an atlas-sized American history textbook. I guess I thought there would be something worth remembering. Not much, as it turned out. Lots of wars with lots of weapons for lots of reasons, very few of them good ones. I’m not even sure why I brought it. Why not just forget it all? Leave our sordid history to rot on the vine.

I gravitated toward the World War II section. No surprise there. It’s the last time we buckled up and did our job. Fought fire with fire. Acts of great evil used to extinguish an even greater one. Warriors fought for a better world that they would not live to see. People risked their hearts. Hazarded their souls so others wouldn’t have to. Uncle Sam actually saved the goddamn world.

Then we dropped the nukes on Japan, and my rose-tinted eyeballs shattered like glass. Those words appeared to me again in that textbook, ever so different, printed in slippery black ink beneath a photograph of their speaker: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

It was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. I remembered the quote but never knew it came from scripture. I thought he’d made it up, said it because it was merely true. But then I realized that the only spiritual connection I’d found since hiding in the bunker… I shared with the destroyer of worlds.

Oppenheimer wasn’t Death. He didn’t want to be Vishnu or Krishna. He just wanted someone to tell him that he was only human. To share the burden and face his judgment not alone. We’re two endcaps on the same bookshelf, he and I. Two pieces of the same prophecy.

I put those feelings down for a long time. Shackled them in the cellar of my mind. I never wanted to, of course. I wanted to stare at the consequences and dwell on my role. Be punished for it. Perhaps find some slice of self-respect. But the more I gazed into history, the less I felt an agent of it. Yet I’m not helpless. I never was.

The rat race is indeed over. The maze has broken down and there’s no one left to repair it. I wasn’t running toward anything, only holding on to this thin idea that I could make things a little bit better, but what I really wanted was to stay alive. I’m no Oppenheimer, and I certainly wasn’t trying to save anyone with Project Artemis. None of us were. We weren’t fighting for anything grander than our own ambition. I don’t deserve the reassurance of Vishnu. I’m a broken man who’s since turned to hundreds of gods, worthy of none of them.

I don’t even deserve Death. There’s enough ammo here for Superman to put himself down, but I shouldn’t get to rest. I haven’t done anything yet.

And let’s face it: Those were selfish thoughts for a selfish man. I wasn’t strong enough to bear my own guilt. I wondered if my courage would ever return. Even setting pen to paper still hurts. I tried so many times to get the words out. To say something. Anything. For my own sake. Because if I could write it all down, then maybe I could come to believe that someone might read it someday. I could tell them everything. How sorry I am.

Whatever hope I held on to shattered when the radios finally went silent, and everyone was gone.

The scariest thing in this world isn’t the monsters we brought home. Nor is it the decrepit artifacts and the humans who left them. It’s the idea that I shouldn’t give up, ’cause Lord, all of them, whichever one, knows that I really want to. Gods, I want to give up so very badly. It would be the easiest thing to do.