After Things Fell Apart
“Know just what you mean. I thought about leaving, but I’ve never been away from Seattle before. I’m afraid I’d miss it. Want a smoke? I’ve got plenty.”
“Sure.” She gestures with the shotgun. “Just toss it over.” She catches the pack with her left hand between two fingers. Her first puff of smoke glows neon, squirming like a hyperactive amoebae. “Thanks,” she says.
Sometimes I get clear memories of the days before the War. A year ago I ran two miles in fifteen minutes and hated the kind of people who would pollute the temple of their bodies with tobacco smoke.
I remember sitting in a busy railroad station listening to this strange Jehovah’s Witness lady and counting the crushed cigarette butts on the floor with a distaste verging on loathing. I’ve never hated anything as much as I hated smokers right then. The Witness picked up on this and told me how smokers were the spawn of the Great Beast and how the number of the Beast somehow referred to R. J. Reynolds. I picked a longish butt up off the floor, and took the habit up that very minute. Nicotine has never since let me down.
“Thanks,” Alice repeats. “You know I miss the little things most of all.” She drags the cigarette, holds in the smoke, sighs.
“I know.” I light one up myself from a fresh pack. “There’s nothing quite as good as the little things.” I cough a bit. “Have the whole pack. Really. I know where there’s usually a warehouse full of them.”
“Hey thanks John,” she says. The gun barrel relaxes a little. “Sorry I’m so cautious, but man, I just don’t know what to trust.”
“No problem. There’s a lot of weird shit going on these days. For all you really know I’m just another Loony. Or something worse. Then again maybe you’re only hallucinating me.”
I used to be a philosophy professor at a major California university. But I could never quite get the hang of existentialism and consequently I grew isolated from the tenured faculty.
“Maybe so,” she says, “but if I am you’re the first apparition that’s given me cigarettes. And none of the Loonies I’ve run into have been all that nice either.” Alice rests the butt of her shotgun on the ground. She leaves the safety off.
God’s face has reappeared in the sky. I try to ignore Him. “Have you had much trouble? The Loonies leave me alone pretty much.”
“No, not much trouble. But I got robbed in Tillamook and one time a bunch of them chased me for two days. I think they wanted to eat me.” Alice tosses the last bit of her cigarette into the pit, stands and stretches.
“Noooo,” I say making my mouth a big round crater. “I saw a dinosaur the other day.”
“Really? A real dinosaur?”
“Well, Alice, it’s hard to say for sure. Acted like a real one and I wasn’t quite curious enough to find out. That’s the only way to stay alive I think. Treat everything like it was real. You never know.”
“I guess not.” Something in the distance has caught her attention. “Hey quick, do you see that? Over there, that big squirmy thing by the MacDonald’s.”
I’m relieved. At first I thought perhaps that she had seen God, and if she sees Him as well that would make it more likely that He is real. Unless of course Alice isn’t. “No,” I tell her, “must be hallucination. What color is it?” And then, of course, I actually see it—a great oozing spineless thing struggling to squeeze through a tangle of fallen arches. “Damn! I see it! God, that’s disgusting. We better get off the street. C’mon I know a safe place just around the corner.” I extend my hand. “Look, have you eaten lately? I think I’ve got some canned stuff.”
“I don’t know, John.” Alice looks at the giant slug then back at me. “I think you’re okay, but I don’t dare trust you. It’s nothing personal.”
