William Gass - Middle C

The evidence initially pointed in the direction of human extinction, but biologists suggested that, although no one would admire what they had become, a few, the most adaptable to execrable conditions (with their claws, fangs, and double stomachs), would survive.

A virus is the best bet. However, there are billions of people. A few of them are bound to be, by sheer chance, immune.

CON. No true human will survive — if any of us do — by being reduced to a species, by becoming a scarcely remaining member of a class the way there are some salmon left; because out of our species has emerged the individual like a flower from a dung heap, the self blooming as a unique person should, valued for her singularity, the quality of her consciousness, the gifts of her genius. This is our extraordinary, our miraculous achievement; it is the legacy of the great Athenians. When a genuine individual dies, he or she is not replaced. Every day, the individual has to be achieved anew. Appeals to the collective would return us to the evolutionary fold. It is true that the individual cannot survive alone; but what he or she needs is the help of other individuals not more loud-mouthed members of mankind; rather the community of those who are fully aware of the world. What a dream it was to imagine the universal kingdom of ends. That, Professor Skizzen would whisper to himself, is the moral imperative. It is totally impossible to realize. So Man may survive, after all, but only as a flock, a pack, a horde.

PRO. But every snowflake is unique, it is alleged; every salmon, petal, pinch of dirt, is as different as Mondays in Montana, Tuesdays in Tucson, Wednesdays in Waco. Fingerprints, retinas, DNA: they distinguish us. Besides, we can find the world in a grain of sand.

CON. Phooey to that hooey. Those distinctions disappear whenever we vote. Each of us becomes a number. The belief that we are special — you and I and he and she — is revealed as an illusion. Two thousand six hundred twenty-nine died in the April storm. Mud slides buried thirty-five. Shot while sitting on the porch swing, seventeen this summer. That’s the norm, the average age of, the median for … Six miners were found alive. When the ferry capsized twenty-one Chevys drowned. Twenty-nine million cans of tuna were returned to have their engines tuned. Last year at this time he was batting.334. When Charlie died three people noticed and one cried. Most men have no more than six different sexual relationships during their erectile lives. The tornado caused 18 million dollars’ damage. Christmas sales are up. The lottery pays 60 mil to anyone holding ticket number 8210759364. That’s my phone number at work.

PRO. Everyone I know is an unusual individual. Aunt Minnie does jigsaws for a living. She enters the most difficult contests under the stiffest rules: you cannot look at the completed picture or even learn its title; the edge must be completed first, not omitting the last, lost, little one; the fitting of forms must rise like flooding water from bottom to top, puddling is prohibited, etc.

CON. Harriet Hoff’s time of fourteen minutes fifty-nine seconds, during the 1995 finals, was better than Minnie’s by two minutes thirteen seconds. Women have won for the sixth straight year. Among the men, Frank Link had the best time but he still finished eighth.

THE WORLD comes in 1,500 pieces. Of this puzzle we have 1,250 in stock. A few of the boxes have nothing missing. At cost: $2.73. At retail: $9.99.

There were three sharp knocks, and Marjorie slipped in. She seemed zipped into a towel, her wild hair terrible to behold, and sat upon the bed with the familiarity of one who has made it. Joseph followed each movement, transfixed. White hands darted out of her sleeve like laboratory mice and just as swiftly were withdrawn. After a moment during which Marjorie inspected him for flaws, she rose and moved in his direction. Joey put down his milk. Good boy, she said. You deserve a nice surprise. To Joey no surprise was nice. The Major bent over, her palms shot forth and closed upon his cheeks. The holes in the sleeves were great dark ovals now. Unhand me, Madame, you forget yourself, Joey said, frightened from the world into a novel; and Marjorie recoiled as though struck by the book from which he had unconsciously taken the phrase. Un hand me , she shouted. Un hand me , she repeated, with renewed emphasis. Next she screamed in his face at the point of his nose. As if blown by the noise, Joey backed his chair away, causing a plate of cookies to slide across the tiny table, overturning the glass of milk, and knocking a heavy history of music to the floor near which the equally startled stream of milk had commenced its spill. Her scream was as sharp and high as a child’s cry but lasted longer than the length of any blade and undulated as if made for a scary movie or the stage. Out of the room, whose door now stood open, Marjorie paused for breath before emitting a shriek that rivaled her first. Thoroughly frightened and utterly bewildered, Joey held one ear shut while trying to save his history. Finally he simply kicked the book to safety with a foot and released his ear, since the scream had wound down like the siren does for all clear. In the reverberating silence that followed, a few pellets of snow ticked the windows. He actually thought, Sleet; even: Oh dear. Finally Joey’s heart could be heard rising to the occasion.

After a pause to prepare his body for its next move, Joseph found a towel to mop up the milk, although one edge of the rag rug had done a good job. A door bang brought him to his row of windows. Marjorie, in her white scuffs and terry-cloth robe, was kneeling by the back bumper of the Bumbler. She removed the blocks from behind the wheels of his car, brushing the bricks away with a sweep of her hand. Then, after a pause and a faint squeak, the emergency brake failed, and the Bumbler accelerated awkwardly down the steep drive, careening over the curb and into the street, where it narrowly missed a parked car but struck a utility pole with such force the pole acquired a lean and the car a dent in its trunk that looked intended. Standing at her door now, Marjorie yelled, Good-bye, you ungrateful piece of waste, and disappeared into the house. The door shut with a slam that sung in his windows. At the foot of the drive, blocking half the street, the Bumbler sat in a pool of shade or a pool of grease; it was hard to tell because of the way the light had to fall now to reach the road.

Joey peered at his car in disbelief. That good-bye had been meant for him. What had he done, he wondered. Then — what had she? He could not immediately find any meaning in this attack on him or his vehicle, but he knew he would have to leave at once, pushed into the cold and continuing sleet, evicted like someone who hadn’t paid his rent. Ah, but perhaps his rent had come due just now. His mind refused to proceed in that direction. Somehow — the thought fell into his lap like a dislodged book — it was Debbie’s fault. Fortunately he had very few things that he needed to gather. There were the documents that Miss Moss had helped him compose (those that they had done together as a joke), a knot of socks, and — lucky break — Miriam had most of his laundry. He had to get himself and that car on the road. Or off the road. Joey’s eyes fled around his former room. His first fear was not that he would leave something behind but that he would meet her in the entry, ready to rescream and recurse and recriminate. Ah … the key. Should he leave the key. He fished it from a pocket and put it down by the turned-over glass. Then he snatched it back again. Suppose the car would not start. What could he do then? Where would he go? He had a library key, too. If he left the one he should leave the other. Or should he keep both and — Joey was surprised by his own train of thought, as if it had burst around a curve into its station — haunt the stacks, sneaking in to sleep like Portho might have, and in future years, in cahoots with Miss Moss, to spook the Major, visiting his thin presence upon a section labeled INJURED AND INNOCENT.