Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“Of course.”

“Has any other part of my mind been interfered with?”

“Not as far as we can tell.”

“So my memories are intact.”

“Probably, yes.”

“So I saw what I saw, and I heard what I heard.”

“That seems likely.”

“So it still happened. And if that’s the case, it won’t matter what happens in here.” He tapped his skull.

“I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”

He smiled at me again. “Well… I suppose I’ll just have to make do with reality.”

He was definitely going to be hard work.

I did not spend all my time at the centre. I commuted back and forth from Hub Metro and the apartment I shared with my partner, Bell. I had long since warned him I would not have much time for him during a major evacuation, when I would be working eighteen hours a day for weeks on end, and he said he understood. But we were between evacuations for now, and I was still having to spend almost all my time at the centre with this new group, so he felt neglected and let down. He also tended to pester me for information about the group. As a linguist, he was curious about worlds full of dead and untranslated languages. There were rumours spreading from the Diplomatic Service about a lone survivor found on a world full of corpses, and he guessed my work had something to do with that. I had to remind him firmly that the group had the strictest confidentiality. To my surprise, this left him grumpy and even more unreasonable. In retrospect, I think he was starting to look for a way out, but at the time, I was hurt and irritated by his response.

At the centre itself, we continued trying to persuade the members of the group to interact outside group therapy sessions. We arranged activities to encourage them to work together to accomplish simple goals, and the first goal we picked was dinner.

I delegated this task to Veofol one evening while I was back in Hub Metro, trying to explain to Bell why he could not interview my patients about their languages. Each morning when I returned, I would have a conference with Veofol and the other overnight staff to catch up on what had happened while I was away, and if there was anything serious, there would be reports to read and issues to address with the patients. The morning after Veofol tried to persuade the group to cook a meal, he simply sighed, shook his head and presented me with his report and the recording of the session.

REPORT: Group Activity (Cooking)

y276.m4.w2.d7

Dr. Veofol e-leas bron Jerra

At 18:00, I called the group together in the kitchen to begin the evening’s assignment. Everyone but Katie showed up. She has failed to engage in any social contact with the group, and remains in her room virtually all the time.

There were a range of menu options, but they first had to agree which to make and who would do what. The arguments started immediately. Iokan suggested they make one dish they could all share, while Olivia didn’t want to share because she complains everyone else’s food is bland and tasteless. Kwame suggested she have her own meal and stop bothering the rest of them. Iokan proposed a compromise: a meal that could be divided into portions and seasoned one by one. Olivia wanted to know what they could cook, and Iokan suggested a basic stew could be made and separated into different vessels. When asked what might be in the stew, further disagreement resulted. Olivia grew irritated with the argument and deliberately disgusted the group by describing some of her favourite recipes. I have to admit that my own stomach turned when she described ways to cook human (or revenant) flesh. Liss decided she didn’t want any meat in the stew, but Kwame insisted they have it anyway as he did not want to give in to Olivia. Pew stayed very quiet, as he often does when the others argue.

I was on the verge of enforcing a choice when Katie made an appearance. She ignored the group, went to a storage locker, took out one of the individual microwave meals we’re not supposed to use except in emergencies, cooked it (they take about 30 seconds), then left without saying a word.

Olivia declared that Katie had the right idea, took one of the meals for herself (along with copious seasonings to add later), and tried to cook it. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to use the microwave, and hitting it got her nowhere. Liss declared she used them all the time, but she was unprepared for one not made on her world and mistakenly set it to ‘defrost’. Olivia shouted at her for ‘thinking she was so clever’ — it is clear that Olivia regards Liss with contempt — and Liss fled the kitchen in tears.

I stepped in to tell the group how to use the microwave, as the objective of a group meal had entirely disintegrated by this point. Olivia cooked hers and left, leaving Iokan and Kwame behind. Iokan continued to be friendly and helpful, showing Kwame how to operate the microwave, but also continued to have very little tact. He attempted to console Kwame about the actions that led to the end of his world, but did so by implying there was some kind of divine reason for the nuclear war. Kwame found this very offensive, and left as soon as his meal was ready. Pew then made his meal and took his leave. He was familiar with the device, but did not intervene at any point.

Liss returned now Olivia was gone, and Iokan again volunteered to help her. Once their meals were ready, she asked for his help fixing a problem with her screenplayer setup. Even she could not bear his company for too long, however, and once the device was ready, she asked him to leave.

Conclusions:

It’s going to be difficult to get them behaving like a group. It’s not just Olivia’s disruptions, but also Iokan’s attempts to help, which, while well-meaning, tend to repel the others. Pew is quite withdrawn, and Katie completely so. Kwame tends to stand apart from the others unless something is done to bring him in. Liss irritates most of the group (except Iokan, of course), and causes disruption in her own way.

Before we resort to more extreme methods, it may be worth trying again. If we can find something that appeals to the more disruptive elements (Olivia especially), this might neutralise the most serious problem. I’ll prepare some options for you to choose from.

I started our next group session very conscious of how far we still had to go. Most of them were barely speaking to each other, with the exception of Iokan; but anyone he spoke to would usually do their best to get away as quickly as possible.

Katie arrived as the chimes sounded, having set out in precisely enough time to walk in the door at that moment. Kwame, Iokan and Pew were already there. Liss ran in a couple of minutes later, apologising for her lateness. I located Olivia outside, half asleep on a garden chair with hat brim down and earplugs in (presumably to give her an excuse not to turn up). I sent Veofol to rouse her, and we waited until she joined us, tossing her wide straw hat on the floor.

“What, were you all waiting?” she said. “You can start without me. I don’t mind.”

Once she was sat down I addressed the group. “Well, thank you to everyone for turning up. I know it’s early days yet, but you don’t really seem to be getting to know each other very well, so I’d like to try and address that in this session.”

Liss brightened up. “Are we going to tell stories again?”

Olivia muttered, “Not if I have to listen to one of yours…” Liss’s smile vanished.

“Not quite,” I said. “What I’d like to do is throw the session open to you. We can discuss a topic of your choice.”