Archive for the ‘Jen Larsen’ Category
Apocalypses
Thursday, November 25th, 2010
If he weren’t already dead— head torn off of his neck with a thick, tearing sound, and I swear I can still taste the blood that fountained up and spattered my face—I’d kill him all over again. John was the one who was going to live through the robot apocalypse—he had been making sure of it for years. Oh, he didn’t know it would be robots, not for sure. He had been prepared for it to be any of a number of apocalypses. It could have been the classic zombies or cold war fallout; the earth could have been struck by an asteroid, the sun could have winked out, a wolf could have eaten the moon. He was prepared for any eventuality: canned food, a wall of weapons. Survival guides, handbooks, medical kits, medical-grade pharmaceuticals, and extra can openers. He had trained himself to make knots, suture a wound, and had a pretty good idea of how to restructure and rebuild a society that had been decimated by a virus so virulent you’d think it had a mind of his own.
The point is—he was ready. He knew everything. And he told me, a throb in his voice and his hand on his heart, that he’d protect me. I told him, I don’t want to live through the apocalypse. I told him, just let me fall into the crack that splits the earth in two, and don’t worry about fishing me out. Just figure out how to stick the two sides of the whole back together, and get on with things.
You’ll think differently when it happens, he said.
Not likely, I said. I’m afraid to say I snorted, in a derisive way. I turned the page in the June 25th issue of The New Yorker.
I’ll keep you alive no matter what, he said.
Don’t bother, I said airily.
He should have listened to me. I mean, you know it’s my fault he died. Lunging to shove me out of the way of the pincer-clawed, traction-treaded harvester, he took the blow that was meant for me. I was so tired of running, and I didn’t think he had seen me stop. I didn’t think he had seen me turn and throw my hands up and say Fine! Okay! You win! He hadn’t believed I really meant it. Worse, I hadn’t believed he had meant it, either.
If he weren’t already dead— head torn off of his neck with a thick, tearing sound, and I swear I can still taste the blood that fountained up and spattered my face—I’d kill him all over again. John was the one who was going to live through the robot apocalypse—he had been making sure of it for years. Oh, he didn’t know it would be robots, not for sure. He had been prepared for it to be any of a number of apocalypses. It could have been the classic zombies or cold war fallout; the earth could have been struck by an asteroid, the sun could have winked out, a wolf could have eaten the moon. He was prepared for any eventuality: canned food, a wall of weapons. Survival guides, handbooks, medical kits, medical-grade pharmaceuticals, and extra can openers. He had trained himself to make knots, suture a wound, and had a pretty good idea of how to restructure and rebuild a society that had been decimated by a virus so virulent you’d think it had a mind of his own.
The point is—he was ready. He knew everything. And he told me, a throb in his voice and his hand on his heart, that he’d protect me. I told him, I don’t want to live through the apocalypse. I told him, just let me fall into the crack that splits the earth in two, and don’t worry about fishing me out. Just figure out how to stick the two sides of the whole back together, and get on with things.
You’ll think differently when it happens, he said.
Not likely, I said. I’m afraid to say I snorted, in a derisive way. I turned the page in the June 25th issue of The New Yorker.
I’ll keep you alive no matter what, he said.
Don’t bother, I said airily.
He should have listened to me. I mean, you know it’s my fault he died. Lunging to shove me out of the way of the pincer-clawed, traction-treaded harvester, he took the blow that was meant for me. I was so tired of running, and I didn’t think he had seen me stop. I didn’t think he had seen me turn and throw my hands up and say Fine! Okay! You win! He hadn’t believed I really meant it. Worse, I hadn’t believed he had meant it, either.
Reality
Monday, November 15th, 2010
At first I thought I should of never had said yes because they promise you fame all up and down the planets and all kinds of money, but then there you are head-over-heels and pissing into a squeeze bottle, or trying to figure out how to open one of those tubes of steak and you don’t remember the last time you woke up from one of those nightmares without flying across the room and smashing your face on the bulkhead. I just can’t sleep all strapped-in, okay?
But they said, Act natural! Like there’s anything natural about reality television I should of said but didn’t, because I didn’t think of it. I wanted to be better than that but you can’t act different than everyone else. You just can’t. We acted natural, like monkeys. All over the space station. Zero-g has got a lot of advantages when you stop smashing your face—these chicks were pretty stacked I could not help but notice—and we did what we wanted and things were pretty okay, beer and tubes coming up like clockwork until they stopped and finally we noticed. The insides of our heads were banging and we noticed we were alone maybe for real. Chuck got right up into one of the cameras and he screamed his head off and Jamie cried pretty steadily when we ran out of tube lasagna and vodka, and if the cameras were still recording no one cared any more. Not even us, mostly.
We’re going to run out soon. Of squeeze bottles because Charlene won’t just wash hers like the rest of us mostly remember to do, and food tubes. Jimmy says we’re going to end up being like cannibals as if it was funny and then he said and I’ll eat Jamie first and the way he grabbed at her, and her shrieking, it was like they thought the cameras were still rolling.
Mostly we play gin rummy, or sleep or screw and wait for how it’s going to end. I’ve got a bottle of Jack under my bed, and I’m pretty sure I can take the girls. When Charlene’s down on her knees and I put my head against the window, when I look at that view, the Earth and all our fans floating out there too far away, I wonder if I should just crush her skull now.