The Last Joint on Earth
“Pre-shelled pistachios.”
“Mm. Yeah, I could see that.”
“Rascal scooters.”
“For people who weren’t actually disabled.”
“For people who weren’t actually disabled, yeah.”
“Yeah…”
“VR porn.”
Everyone hums in agreement.
“No no no, it was once they got north of, like, a hundred cable channels. That was the beginning of the end.”
“So if we’d stayed at 99 TV channels, we’d have been fine?
“Yes.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen — you wanna know the real point at which human society began its collapse?” The first dude says. The three other dudes around the fire look his way intently. “Look no further that yer own two fingers.”
“Weed?”
“Cor-rect. ’Til this came along, life was about huntin’, gatherin’, and survivin’. Y’see way back when, some caveman stumbled across the first ever batch o’ giggly bush n’ took mankind’s first hit, laid his caveman ass down to look at the stars, n’ ‘en dreamed up civilization. Then he got some puff-puff-pass goin’, an’ the rest o’ the tribe came on board. Fast forward to us diggin’ up liquified dinosaurs n’ jammin’ ’em into cars, chokin’ up the oceans with plastic, then finally: everyone but us four dudes gettin’ their clock punched early by muther nature.”
The four dudes gaze into the dancing flames, their haggard faces keeping warm courtesy of the last light source on the planet.
“There’s somethin’ awful ironical ‘bout us burnin’ up the planet usin’ the dead critters what used to be runnin’ thangs,” Dude one snorts. “Maybe too hun’ed-ought years from now, some octopus-descended cephalo sapien son of a gun’ll dig our deliquesced asses up, squirt us into their 8-wheeled octopus cars n’ pump out the last of mankind through their octopus tailpipes, drivin’ down InterSea-66 on their way to the tentacleball game two octopus towns over.”
“Maybe they’ll have an island country somewhere with a weird obsession with monkey porn.”
“Nah you know what did it? You know what fucked us?”
“What?”
“The smart people,” the second dude says contemptuously. “Wouldn’t be no fuckin’ cars or TV or iPhones or none of it if not for some fuckin’ nerd out there, buildin’ on the last nerd’s work from the generation before. Royals and the church and all them medieval muthfuckas killin’ intellectuals was self-defense.”
“Nah man, it was the 2nd smartest guys.”
“2nd smartest?”
“The guys who had to compensate for their shortcomings by amping up something else- “ Dude three says bitterly, “It was Edison fucking over Tesla, Ray Kroc fucking over the McDonalds’ brothers, same shit over and over- all ’cause they weren’t smart enough to be the best. Insecurity’s what fucked us.”
“Small dicks fucked us?”
“Y’know Hitler had a micropenis?”
The fourth dude chimes in.”I don’t think it was us, guys.”
“How you figure?”
“We were an experiment.,” Dude four says, taking a drag. “The bio-sphere- Gaia- Earth-mother,-“ he exhales. “Whatever nomenclature you prefer, she decided to give the monkeys a shot,” he sniffs. “Wanted to see if we’d do better than the lizards and birds.”
The first dude chucks a few twigs into the flames.
“Did we, ya reckon?”
“Well let’s see…” Dude four looks to his brow pensively, “we didn’t quite reach the seafloor, but we managed to touch the sky and stick a flag on the moon- that’s not bad, I think.”
“Yeah, not bad at all.”
“Planet probably looked at us the way we looked at flies n’ ants n’ whutnot- tiny ass people, tiny ass lives, why’d they bother doin’ shit?”
“Hm.”
The four dudes contemplate the last vestiges of the fire they’d started, watching with melancholy as it settles into glowing coals. They feel the encroaching darkness surround them.
“Alright fellas, are we doin’ this er what?”
“‘spose now’s as good a time as any.”
The dudes all pick up their handguns and check the chambers to make sure there are rounds inside.
“It’s been real.”
“Yeah absolutely, nice knowing everybody.”
The first dude puts the gun to his chin, slides his finger over the trigger, and closes his eyes with conviction. The others watch him nervously, gripping their pistols in anticipation. Dude one’s hand trembles more and more vigorously, until he finally relents and brings the gun back down.
“I can’t dew it, man. Hot damn, even after all this,” he laughs breathlessly. “Ah still can’t…”
“Aight, how ‘bout everybody shoots the person on their left instead?” suggests Dude two.
The guys all take a second to psych themselves up, then, in turn, press their gun barrels to the corresponding dude’s temple.
“I’ll do the count,” the third dude says gravely. “Okay, here we go-“ he gulps. “Three-
“I’m right-handed.”
“Yeah me too, we might fuck up.”
“Okay then,” dude three sighs as he lowers his pistol. “In that case, everybody shoot the person to your right.” They switch. “Ready? Alright- three, two-”
“Wait are we doing three, two, one, shoot, then fire the gun, or is it three, two, one, then fire immediately?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. It’s three, two, one, then pull the trigger on ‘shoot’.” Dude three wipes his brow. “Alright, c’mon, before I lose my nerve.”
“Can I just say something, real quick?” Dude four pipes up.
Dude three gives him an exasperated look.
“Real quick. I just wanted to say, that despite everything, we had a good run. We answered a lot of questions. We got to see and experience things our ancestors never thought possible. We took the baton that was handed to us and did the best we could with it…” Dude four says fondly. With their free hands, the dudes raise their liquors of choice on high.
“To whoever comes next.”
“To whoever comes next.” The other three echo melancholically as they each toss their second-to-last shot back. They gulp it down, toss the bottles, then dude one flicks the last joint on earth into the dying fire.
“Alright, everyone ready?”
Nods all around.
“Three…
Two…
One…
