petals

“what if only one of us dies?”
pink petals fell onto our clothes, and we didn’t brush them away. we just kept looking up at the branches and the sky.
a honeyheart bird was hopping around us in the grass, looking for bugs and seeds. it came quite close, even jumping on my ankle at one point. maybe honeyhearts were all this bold, or maybe this particular one was used to being fed by humans. maybe it understood that humans were dying out as a species — our supremacy was drawing to a close. it may have come to gloat; i thought it had come in pity.
“can’t think about it,” i said, even though, really, it was the only thing i could think about: virus, virus, virus.
a warm breeze blew over me. i unbuttoned my shirt, all the way down, so i could feel the air on my skin. it was nice to be outside, and it was nice that he was watching me. who cares if i was ordinary? this was the end of the world, there were no more soons, only nows and nevers.
it wasn’t an unpleasant apocalypse, really. not compared to what it could have been. it wasn’t violent. it wasn’t noisy. the general mood was one of acquiescence, like the wind on a sand mandala, or a new years eve crowd going home after the fireworks and music have stopped.
i noticed, abstractly, how quickly the end of the world had become a normal trauma for me. it was only three weeks ago that we all heard that first news report from rexburg, but then it was madison county, then it was five states, then six countries. we called each other, and met up to talk about it. then the special rolling coverage and the facebook warnings. then the military commander on tv, the sign language man by her side. then the first local case.
a4 pieces of paper in calibri font started to appear in windows. “due to infection risk, we will be closed until further notice. we appreciate your understanding. bless you.”
by the time they’d closed down the roads and airports, it was already everywhere.
tv channels were mostly playing reruns now, and the occasional talk show where a panel of unsmiling celebrities gossiped about new evidence, about causes and cures, about conspiracies. they didn’t really need to sensationalise it; the reality itself was sensational enough. i was watching when newsreader henry warne collapsed on screen. you could hear someone screaming in the studio, even after they’d cut the vision and put up a logo. i couldn’t get rid of the thought of that: just a logo, and screaming. i didn’t watch anymore channel 23 after that.
channel 6 was just back to back “everybody loves raymond,” even though everyone knew patty heaton was one of the first thousand to get it. they did a whole tribute to her on tv, and we all tuned in. that was the last big tribute really, because there were so many famous people dying each day, all the stations could afford was an in memoriam slide show, like at the oscars.
social media was less well-behaved. online conspiracy was like a mind virus that spread even faster than the physical virus. nothing was believable anymore, or rather, everything was.
the virus that came to be known as Cobalt-Ricks was variously described online as a bio-weapon designed by a foreign power , as a poison contained in sugar and tinned-foods, or a kind of gun fired by invisible aliens, or a brain cancer that came from smartphones, or a chemical unleashed from hydraulic fracturing, or, in the worst version, a revenge virus cooked up by a shadow-cartel of lgbtq masterminds in revenge for HIV. never mind that queers like me were dying just as much as straights. but that wasn’t even the most wackadoo theory. online there were a lot of people who were uncovering that harry potter was actually a documentary about a real wizard school kept a secret by the british royal family and that slytherins were putting curses on everyone. i liked reading that theory when i couldn’t sleep.
soon enough most of the conspiracists were dead anyway, and they left their social media posts as sad legacies.
then the online world got sadder. there were a lot of parents publishing updates on their dying children hour by hour in visceral detail. nobody wrote it, but many of us thought that the parents who outlived their kids were the lucky ones.
social media updates became smaller: “i’m scared,” “she’s gone,” or “what am i supposed to do now?”
messages to chat groups: “guys i think i’ve got it.” or “i love you all.”
whatsapp messages with one grey tick.
green dots disappearing from facebook. the street going quiet. people driving away. it seemed like the comments section might keep me company, but we were really only a small group of shut-ins who couldn’t shut up.
class cancelled. work cancelled. border control. people with symptoms will not be admitted to the precinct. police are armed and will shoot to kill. stock up. curfew.
this was really it, and it was happening quickly. like i say: three weeks.
and to think we had all been so worried about an asteroid, or about an invasion. they said this one would get you within a day. not too nasty. you’d overheat and collapse and die in a couple of hours. not much suffering. the photographs sure looked like suffering, though.
an sms from my parents interstate: “we love you so much.” i wrote back “i love you guys too.” and then that unthinkable quiet, the ghosting of actual ghosts. i cried a lot, but later i was too scared to cry. something decoupled in my mind.
some of the suicides took their valuables onto the lawn, and put a piece of cardboard with the word “FREE” on it — all that twentieth century bullshit: books, cds, figurines: none of it could immunize, or even console.
my neighbour mrs angel was especially considerate: she lay down in a dumpster, called out “i’m going now!” before shooting herself. that was only the third day of it being in the city. i peered over the edge, said goodbye, and took her gun. then i went and stole her tamiflu, her oxies, and her car-keys. i found a caramel slice in the fridge. she had left a little card with my name on it and a love heart. it took me 90 minutes to pull myself together and get the fuck out of there. when i got home i took my gloves off and cleaned everything for the rest of the day.
the world was emptying out, and all i could think about was you, Elías.
we were out of time.
but still, i didn’t come find you. i hid inside for a fortnight. i watched funny cat videos. i kept to my routines: up at 6.30, bed at 10.30. i didn’t know whether to leave my lights on or off at night. i left them on.
it didn’t matter. i probably already had the virus and just didn’t know it. no one knew how it was spreading. it wasn’t human contact, but what was it then? something in the air? the water? the food supply? the bugs? the light? our genes?
this morning, you msgd me: still not dead?
i sent back: still not dead.
you sent me: samesies. let’s do lunch. i laughed so hard. i don’t know why.
so i sent back: a picnic? roosterspur?
and you sent: i’ll pick you up in 20. violence in your street?
and i sent: pretty sure they’re all dead.
i was crying, and glad, and excited. i turned on the shower and shaved and got clean. this would be our first and last date, and i wanted to smell amazing. i tried touching my cock to see if i could get an erection, and i could, which was probably sacrilege or monstrous.
i couldn’t remember the last time i’d touched someone, even before Cobalt-Ricks.
heard your car coming from such a long way away. i hadn’t even realised how quiet things had become until you drove over to my place. i heard you up main, and left down warren, up fifth, and into cradle. there was no noise-pollution, see.
i wasn’t sure what to do as i came out the front door. lock it?
i locked it.
“i brought a gun. not for us. just in case-”
“it’s okay, me too.”
“have you ever used one before?”
“no.”
“me neither.”
you drove out of the dead street. it was a beautiful day.
i found myself hoping i would never come back — not because i was suicidal, but because it was so depressing and meaningless, it didn’t even feel like home anymore.
at the corner, i looked into the mcgilvray’s yard. they’d shot their dogs and just left them there. that didn’t seem right. dogs weren’t even getting sick. but i guess the number of people who could feed them was dwindling fast.
still. it felt wrong, like an ancient superstition about taking your animals into the afterlife, something emperors or pharaohs would do out of psychotic narcissism.
petals were falling onto our clothes, but we didn’t brush them away.
“ever been in love?”
“twice. you?”
“maybe once. i don’t know now. there was this guy, emile, he worked with my brother. i thought at the time it was love but now i think it might have been…”
“…infatuation?”
“yeah.”
“did you sleep with him?”
“no.” I found myself feeling weirdly brave, so I said “Elías, I’ve never had sex with anyone.”
the fact that you didn’t express any shock, and I don’t know why but I was super grateful for that.
you turned and asked “would you like to right now?”
my heart went into overdrive. or maybe it was a symptom.
“yeah.”
you reached inside my open shirt and the fabric fell off my torso. i flinched, and arched towards you at the same time. “i don’t know what to do,” i said in a small voice.
“yes you do.”
you were right. i did.
sex was beautiful, but my mind kept reciting Cobalt-Ricks, Cobalt-Ricks, Cobalt-Ricks. the temperature of your mouth was a symptom. the sweat on your back was a symptom. even the flecks of gold in your eyes were symptoms. the image of us must have been beautiful — fucking in the jade grass amongst the pink petals — but my mind was perverse. when i put your cock into my mouth, i imagined i was sucking on a gun, or that the flavour of your precum was a kind of bitter poison that would spread down my throat into my lungs. but you were so tender with me, and my instincts told me to hold nothing back, to be as juicy and real with you as i could be.
and when we were done, we lay there with our legs and feet entwined but our bodies apart.
“what time is it?”
“the end of the world.”
i could hear someone beeping a car horn, but a long way away. and i heard gunshots, but no screams.
“you want to go on a road trip?” you asked.
“where?”
“i don’t know. see the sights. go south. go find our dead relatives. find somewhere nicer than this to die.”
i didn’t know whether to say yes or no. what if only one of us dies?
so i just started babbling: “i always used to love movies about the end of the world. even virus movies.”
“same.”
“outbreak and contagion and all the zombie movies.”
“same.”
“because the end of the world was like, we fucking deserved it, and it was also like, thank goodness we don’t have to fix things now because they’re fucked up so far beyond our control.”
you let me keep babbling. “i remember being sure we were going to be wiped out in my lifetime, and i found that super reassuring. like, who cares about climate change or the clintons or the plastic in the ocean or world war three because we were on a collision course so we wouldn’t be held responsible anyway. and even when Cobalt-Ricks finally got here there was a part of me that was like “thank goodness, that’s overpopulation taken care of,” you know?”
you rolled onto your side to look at me.
i kept going. “i don’t even know how many people are dead now. i haven’t even seen what dying looks like. i’ve just read about it in the comments. there’s no one in my street now, just me. i don’t even know how many people are in the city — i can hear maybe one or two a day. and the water’s going to run out and the food’s going to run out and there’s going to be violence, and i feel so guilty, you know? like this is all my dream, and Cobalt-Ricks is my dark wish, and it’s here, and it’s awful, and i did this, i wanted this. i thought the end of the world would mean freedom, but it’s not freedom because everything is so far out of my control.”
“I love you,” you said.
“I love you.”
and we listened to a sound vista that seemed to stretch on forever.
