The World Itself Departed Read online

  The World Itself Departed

  J.B. Beatty

  Book 1 of The World Itself series

  THE WORLD ITSELF DEPARTED

  © 2017 J.B. Beatty

  ISBN-13: 978-1542896368

  ISBN-10: 1542896363

  BISAC: Fiction / Dystopian

  Cover design: Erik Reichenbach.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual corporations or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or part (beyond that copying permitted by U.S. Copyright Law, Section 107, “fair use” in teaching or research, Section 108, certain library copying, or in published media by reviewer in limited excerpts), without written permission from the publisher.

  “To ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it is so hard to die, ere the world itself is departed.”

  --Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

  1→METHINKS WE HAVE HUGELY MISTAKEN THIS MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

  Some things are impossible to laugh about.

  Did you hear the one about the guy who hung himself but couldn’t get out his last words because he was too choked up? Not funny.

  Try finding a “man walks into a bar” joke with a suicide angle. You can’t. Unless you just now made one up. And it’s not funny at all.

  Yet I argue there is a humor in my meager attempt to off myself. Simply put, I failed. Abysmally.

  I attached a noose to my neck and tied the other end to the bar in my closet and then tried to let gravity do the work. I didn’t know if I could order my legs to comply with my will—would they fold in a sit-down strike as I had ordered? Or would they struggle to provide support for my fading heartbeat and gasping breaths, and involuntarily reflex me back into the world of the living? Whose side were they on, anyway?

  God knows. I had found the rope in the garage. It was not a normal rope but a green, stretchy rope. I hoped it would do the trick, or maybe deep inside I hoped it wouldn’t. My first couple tries, it stretched so much that I had to loosen it from around my neck and try again, attaching it much closer to the bar.

  Finally, I think I had it right. The rope tightened. It burned my neck. At one point I tried to loosen it because it felt uncomfortable. I had to fight that weakness. I tried to will myself into death. I gasped. My legs did as they were bidden, at least for a while. I zoned out, saw spots, lost track of where I was.

  I gasped. I think I blacked out for a time. I panicked, that feeling you get when you wake up with a start from a bad dream. I could not breathe any longer, and my fingers struggled to loosen the noose. One of my legs—the left one, I think, since it’s always been the least reliable—must have lashed out in nervous panic and kicked at the wall. Moments later the closet door slid open, blinding me with light, and my sister Julie stared down at me. She looked like she was bracing for a very loud scream and then instead she sneezed all over me, before breaking into a disgusting and spirited fit of coughing. All over me.

  She shook her head and gasped for breath and threw herself at the rope and struggled to untie it. I started zoning out again—I think—at this point. Finally, in frustration, she kicked me in the stomach. That brought me back to consciousness.

  She wrestled with the noose around my neck and finally yanked it off. Then she screamed and slapped at me until I huddled in a corner of the closet, hands above my head, warding off her blows. She gave one final kick before launching into another round of wet, productive coughs. She doubled over and muttered, “You fucking idiot” between hacks, finally taking the rope and slamming the closet shut. I listened intently to her progress, worried that she would run downstairs to tell Mom. This would be the last thing my mom needed. Ironically, a few minutes earlier I thought that I was the last thing she needed.

  Instead, the pathway of Julie’s sickness led to her bedroom, where it sounded like she was coughing out her spleen.

  I stayed in the closet, gasping, exaggerating each breath, ttorn apart by wildly conflicting feelings and covered by clothes that had fallen off their hangers. I realized one of the items I was tangled with was my funeral suit. Given the multiple ironies swimming in this stream with me, I would say, yes, this was kind of funny. Not that anyone was laughing.

  I myself didn’t laugh for a full two or three minutes. Then, yes, I did laugh. It started as a smirky sort of titter, then quickly grew into a belly-wrenching guffaw, one so exaggerated that it seemed feigned, though I will swear it was genuine. I don’t know why I laughed. Maybe this is what they call “nervous” laughter. The internal debate left me in tears.

  I didn’t leave the closet for hours. When I did, I don’t know if I was a changed man. But my world had changed.

  In journalism class, they teach the five W’s and the H. You already know the failure that embodies my H, so let’s attack the Ws:

  Who: I’m a nobody named Arvy Baczkowski. Nineteen years old, dark hair, glasses, bad complexion, and a skinny physique that inspires no women. I like puns. And pugs. No, I hate pugs. They’re not even dogs. My actual first name is “John,” but that’s Dad’s name, too. And we couldn’t have two Johns in the same family, so my cruel and short-sighted (in this instance) parents decreed that everyone had to call me by my middle name, which is a tribute to my great-grandfather, Arvy Serwacy Baczkowski, who disappeared in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel during World War I while serving as a private in the American Expeditionary Force. Most likely he was exploded into nothingness by German artillery. Or American artillery. Or British. No one had very good aim back then.

  What: You know that as well as you know the how. A half-hearted, pathetic suicide attempt.

  Where: In a closet in the Baczkowski family house—a ranch, if you care, but not the kind with horses and leather. We live in a subdivision outside of a tiny town named Shiawassee, Michigan.

  When: Right smack dab in the fall of what we called my “gap year.” Lovely term, which when parents say it, actually means, “Our loser son didn’t bother to apply to any decent colleges until it was too late, and claims it would be shameful to attend the local community college with some of his former high school classmates because he feels he is too smart to lower himself to that level. So we’re making him work as a busboy at a local Mexican restaurant until he wises the fuck up.”

  Why: That’s the big one.

  I don’t fucking know.

  How’s that for an answer?

  Sometimes it’s almost nothing that starts it. A word. A look. A poem. A homework assignment. Sometimes the lights fade away and it gets really dark in the place where I am. Sometimes I throw myself against the walls and nothing gives. Sometimes I can’t for the life of me find a way out. And I fall and keep falling, so far down that I wonder if I will ever hit bottom. Sometimes I think that the only way to end it is to end me. Sometimes I wake up the next day and I have to start all over again, and I wonder what will send me plummeting next.

  “Arvy, are you in there?” It’s Mom. I’m sitting at my desk in front of my computer. It’s not even turned on. But I needed a place to sit, and this is default. “Arvy?” she says again. I haven’t responded because I’m thinking about whether to respond. “Arvy?”

  I give. “Yeah.”

  “Is everything alright in there?”

  I look around. The room could use a straightening. And some decorating. “Mostly,” I say. “Though the feng shui is off a bit.”

  She pauses on the other side of the door. She won’t come in unbidden. It’s usually safe to commit
suicide here in privacy. “Honey,” she says slowly, “Remember about misdirecting through sarcasm. Try not to do that. Remember what Dr. Lawler said.”

  I grab a pencil like a weapon. I find paper. I doodle. “Okay, Mom. I won’t misdirect.”

  “You’re not sitting in front of your computer, are you?”

  “Mom, it’s the only chair in the room.”

  “Yeah, honey… Listen, I need your help. Julie came home real sick from the football game.”

  My mind grapples with what this has to do with me. “I’m not a doctor.”

  “I know, honey. I’m doing all the doctoring. But you can help me by getting some food together for dinner. And you can help with Shannon.”

  Shannon is our needy golden retriever. All unconditional love, but chronically starved for attention.

  “And honey? You should be active today. Remember? Active interaction with positive people.” Concern and love drips from her voice, even when parroting shallow precepts.

  I sigh. Roll my eyes. Since this is all taking place after my suicide, I realize that this is my afterlife. Hell is ennui.

  “Okay, Mom. I’ll get on that.”

  She pauses. “And honey… Hey, your dad will be back soon. They had to leave the football game early because Julie got real sick there. He dropped her off and ran out to get her some medicine. So… so come on down.”

  “Sure, Mom. Let me wrap this up. I’ll be down in a little bit.”

  “Okay,” she sounds greatly cheered. “Okay, I’ll be downstairs.” Which is, of course, the only option if you’re leaving upstairs.

  Mom went back to school to be a teacher. Then it was to be a psychologist. Then it was to be a nurse. And then I don’t remember. For her, it’s all about the helping professions. I think those helper people tend to come from the most screwed-up families. It’s a theory I have.

  Dad’s just Dad. We don’t quite understand each other at all. Cut from different fabric, it seems. He’s all sports, and outdoor work, and hunting. He used to be a builder—houses and garages and a car wash he seems strangely proud of. I guess that went well, because now he works in the front office of a bigger firm. Sales and management. He says it’s warmer there in the winter. That’s one of his jokes. Really.

  Julie is my little sister, and the son my Dad never had. I’m not saying she’s butch. In fact, the guys at school all pretty much maintain that she was about 12 degrees of hot on a 1-10 scale. But she loves sports, and outdoor work, and hunting. Once a guy—not one of my friends—tried to date-rape her. She left him with a broken nose and a face that looked like a blood orange gone bad.

  Dad and Sis went to the U-M football game together today. That’s their thing. Season tickets cost a phenomenal amount, for the glory of sitting on a cold 6-inch wide seat jammed together with your 110,000 closest friends. I went once. That was enough. Dad—every time—says he’d be glad to take me but it would be a waste because I don’t even like football. I’m not a fan in the same way that heretics were not considered God’s children in the Middle Ages. It’s simply not considered normal around here. It’s lucky that I’ve avoided being burned at the stake.

  When I was a kid, I could never catch. My dad would take me to the backyard and throw footballs or baseballs. Usually they never came near my hands, because I would cleverly and quickly remove my hand from that space to avoid injury. Sometimes, if I wasn’t fast enough, the ball would bounce off my finger and bend it backwards and I would cry. Dad would say, “Oh, so close! You almost had it!” as he would walk me inside. Mom would bend down to me and say, “What happened? Oh, you poor you!” And Dad would mutter and shake his head and go find a ball game on TV. Usually later the same day I would see him in the backyard with Julie, and she’d be catching every damn ball. At dinner, Dad would say, “It’s a shame they don’t have girls football! This kid would be a Hall of Famer someday,” and he would smile at Julie while I angrily worked to keep my food groups from touching each other on my plate.

  I still can’t catch, but that window has closed, the one where society expects me to catch anything. I don’t even have to try anymore. Someone throws something, says, “Catch!” and I can just watch it tumble to the ground like a cancerous pigeon as I stand by with my hands in my pockets.

  I hear the door open downstairs and “Hey!” being shouted. Then I hear Mom saying, “You don’t look so good.” Dad is home, and apparently he doesn’t look so good. I was actually about to head down to help with dinner. It’s not something I normally do, but I was going to actually interact actively with positive people—Mom, who fits the bill, but mostly the dog. Instead, though, I just lie on my bed and listen to why Dad doesn’t look good. Information discovery is more interesting this way, because it’s more challenging than actually going downstairs and seeing what’s going on.

  I hear the word “flu” being thrown around. Maybe they let a sick person into the football game and 110,000 people have body aches and fevers and nausea. That’s kind of funny, a little. Then I hear Julie run from her bedroom into the bathroom, where she loudly regurgitates hot dogs and pretzels and soda pop. She sounds like a wolverine giving birth without medical help. Great. I’m not coming out.

  Then I hear Mom coming upstairs to tend to Julie. She stops at my door and says, “Honey, it’s going to have to be self-serve for dinner. Now Dad’s sick too and I need to take care of them. It might be food poisoning.” Then she goes to the end of the hall where the bathroom is and says, “Did you both eat the hot dogs?”

  I put on noise-cancelling earphones, fire up Spotify, and wrap myself in a cocoon. If I was even hungry before, I’m not going to be again for a while. The sound of puke does that for me.

  I must have dozed off.

  I slowly open my eyes. Something doesn’t sound like music. It honestly sounds more like screams. But as I try to focus in on it, I can’t. I stay in my cocoon on my bed and listen. I take off my earphones. That helps a bit. I hear noise, but it’s not talking. Maybe it’s more vomiting. Or the dog attacking a rawhide bone. Only it doesn’t sound like Shannon.

  I roll over and try to go back into my happy place. They say that sleeping too much is one of the red flags of depression. I’m sure they’re right. But they don’t say why. I’ll tell you—because it feels so incredibly good to be asleep. It’s like drugs without drugs.

  Sleep won’t come back, though. That train has left the station, leaving me lying in bed wondering what’s going on. I don’t hear human speech, I suddenly realize. In my house, speech is like background noise. It’s always there. Mom and Julie talk incessantly, either on the phone or at us or each other, or to themselves if they can’t find an audience. Now the house is filled with sound, but it’s not talking I hear. There’s banging around. Grunting. Wolverine obstetric noises.

  Outdoors, even our neighborhood sounds different. No lawn mowers or leaf blowers, which comprise the normal weekend music of our suburban lifestyle. I hear shouts and distant sirens.

  A car backfiring.

  Something feels off.

  2→WHAT MONSTROUS CANNIBAL AND SAVAGE COULD EVER HAVE GONE A DEATH-HARVESTING

  Istand up. I notice I’m still wearing my shoes. I had put them on for my suicide, thinking the weight might help. And then I guess I fell asleep with them on, which is something I don’t do. Oh well.

  I pause at the door, and I can still hear the snuffling going on out there. Either Julie or Dad has some seriously terrible sinus event happening.

  I open the door and step out into the hallway. I look to the bathroom, where the door is open and the light is on, and I can’t immediately process what I see.

  Blood. Red. All over.

  I see someone laying down, legs extended toward me, out from under the person who is crouching over them. There must have been a horrible accident and I was too tuned out to notice.

  “Mom?” I say, panic cracking my voice.

  The face turns toward me, blood matted in Julie’s blonde hair, a shred of skin dan
gling from her mouth. She is chewing.

  “Mom?!” I step forward, almost against my will. I see my mother’s face and chest, torn and stripped, and Julie’s hands inside her, rooting around for her next morsel.

  I think I scream. Something motivates Julie to leap up. She comes at me like an animal. I throw myself back in my room. My hands scramble to lock the door, even though I had to promise never to lock the door again after the marijuana incident of the summer before.

  I can feel her pounding at the door, throwing all her weight against it. She doesn’t weigh much, but she’s way the hell stronger than me. I lurch across the room and yank at my desk, and start pulling it toward the door.

  Julie howls and pounds and scratches, and she will get through if she keeps it up. I push the desk against the door, and I rake my hair through my fingers as I try to process what the hell is going on. I look outside. Nothing. A speeding car goes by. Sirens. A gunshot? I think I hear a gunshot. I can open the window and get out on the roof. Then, I don’t know. I am actually that awesome with plans.

  My monsterized sister Julie somehow busts the lock, and the desk starts moving. Where the hell’s my dad?! I need my phone! I scramble to the bed and find it in the cocoon. I open the window. Looking back, I see Julie’s blood-stained arm reaching through and flailing. Jesus!

  Stepping out on the roof, all I can think is that I’m the type who would slip and fall. I would break an ankle and lay there on the grass as my sister eats my spleen and my heart. My dad would come out on the porch, shake his head, and say, “He never really was much of an athlete.”

  But I don’t fall. I awkwardly make my way like a sand crab down into the gully of the roof, and that leads me to the corner next to the porch. Down below are bushes, and farther, grass. Now I’m going to break my ankle, unless I can do a roll. The kind that other boys practiced all the time when they were little because they needed that skill to jump off garages and out of moving cars like on TV.