Kristine Muslim - Age of Blight - Stories

Somewhere on this continent, someone — possibly another child, perhaps ten-year-old Evelyn of 941 Willard Street, Bardenstan — would attempt and succeed at last in trimming her bangs with a blunt pair of scissors designed for cutting paper. The fact that she botched her first hair cut did not matter. What was significant was what she did afterward. Evelyn buried the hair in the backyard and something, someone, grew out of it.

When at last the initial wave of the much-awaited extinction event finally struck, it did so without causing much physical pain. And what lingered in its wake was something akin to catharsis. Because who ever said catharsis has to be pleasant?

As for you and the other children, understand that what happened to Carlos last night can happen to anyone. So this morning, the fear is palpable. You can see it in everyone’s eyes, although they have long mastered how to control the telltale tics associated with dread. Everyone sits quietly at first, huddled in small groups and taking all the corner seats. The outcasts and the ones who have yet to develop social skills have no choice but to occupy the armchairs at the center of the room.

The headmaster takes the stand and explains in his usual monotone everything he knows — or what little he knows — about the Empty. “I’m sure you’ve all heard about Carlos,” he says. “The Empty started to eat away at his left ear last night. This resulted in partial hearing loss. As you all know, the Empty spreads like wild fire when it begins in the head. So in a few hours, only the right portion of Carlos’ face was visible. His parents informed me that he finally disappeared around three a.m.”

You expect the headmaster to offer comforting words. Instead, you hear him say, “It’s just his time, I think. The Empty will get us all in the end and we can’t do anything about it, unless something else kills us first.”

You’re pretty sure the headmaster will soon regret what he just said. But it isn’t so bad now, is it? Acknowledging that the Empty will get to just about everyone — friend and enemy, family and stranger — makes it a perfect equalizer. You’ve long since stopped wondering about the Empty, believing that you can just as easily end up dying another way before it can get to you.

Some of the children drum their fingers against their desks, while some fidget in their seats, all of them busily feigning either impatience or nonchalance to hide their fear. Or is it boredom? At the center of the room, the outcasts and the ones who have yet to develop social skills clutch their book bags close to their chests — the currently acceptable norm for alleviating anxiety in a public setting. The headmaster dismisses everyone and then tells his star pupils, the ones who clinched the highest scores in the obedience exam, to take care on their way home.

As usual, you head straight home after school and arrive just in time for the evening news, whose omissions are far more telling than the information being disclosed. On television, you watch a man from Bardenstan, his disbelief-turned-anguish unmistakable as he recounts how the Empty got him while he was waiting for his turn to be laid off outside his boss’ office. He says, “I got this, uh, good severance package, but this Empty, oh god, it’s just not fair. It has spread to my belly button. I have a hole in my frigging stomach now. And yes, I don’t feel a thing, but I can make out my gut, a part of my — I don’t know that part of me, that organ that appears yellowish — this is so wrong. All I know is the doctors say I’m going to be really prone to infection. They say I have one, two years tops until, you know, I finally disappear. This just isn’t fair. Nothing is.”

You agree with the last thing that the man from Bardenstan said, and you would have paused to think about it had you not been distracted by a ludicrous diaper ad that replaced the man’s haunting face on the screen. You forget your desire to mull over the sentiments of the man from Bardenstan. For the next two hours, you watch on television how the citizens of this country scramble to get their affairs in order.

Switching from one television channel to another, you become suddenly aware of an itch on your left shoulder. Alarmed, you sit up. Because you are expecting the worst, you rush toward the bathroom to inspect yourself in the mirror. There’s no relief as wondrous as seeing yourself intact. There’s no Empty gnawing quietly, much like the natural ravages of your body. At least for now, you are safe.

When I heard the familiar yapping followed by scratching against the doggie door which I had hammered shut days ago, I realized that it was back, and it wanted to enter the house.

I wrinkled my nose as I approached the back door. That smell was something I could never quite wash off its fur during the days I had no choice but to bathe it. It had gotten stronger now — that stench of decaying carcass.

I let it loose in the wild five days ago, hoping that it would not find its way back to us. I overfed it before I left it by the side of the road near the woodland area in Bardenstan. It was too dazed, too sated with its meal of artificial celery stalks and meat to make chase when I slammed the car door and sped away from its stunted form.

It used to walk upright before we adopted it from the shelter. Government regulation — each family had to own one. Now it crawled on all fours, the posture of the submissive, after three months of torture.

My father beat it twice a day with a stick for no good reason but because he felt like it. My little brother once lit some fireworks tied to its tail. That reduced its tail to shreds and made it yelp in pain. As usual, the tail grew back two days later. A long time ago when men were still gullible, it might have been misconstrued as a creature of myth, a creature that was sacred. These days, we all took it for what it was — a creature to quench our appetite to maim other people.

I remember reading that the amount of pain we inflict on others shows how much we hate ourselves. Sometimes, it scares me to admit that it might be true.

My little brother killed himself last month. He slit his throat using the same cutter he used to carve Chief, his wooden toy Indian. As for my father, I saw him cry just once after the funeral. Before the week was over, he died in what I wanted to believe was a freak car accident, going 98 head on into a concrete embankment. The neighbors brought enough casseroles to feed me for a year. And what to do with the leftovers distracted me from the onset of grief.

Sliding the kitchen curtain, the vinyl one with painted-on green apples, I tiptoed by the sink and took a peek outside. It had grown emaciated. Its fur was matted with dirt. And it stank — I could smell it even from here — the familiar odor of deprivation, hopelessness, and death. It nuzzled the doggie door, hoping it would someday open. I wished I had the stomach to kill it. I hated its lack of will to fight, its unending devotion to the people who could never love it back.