Radio Silence - Part 11

Richard stopped to watch the flames in the fireplace dance. “I wish I had someone help me get my mistake back in the jar,” he whispered softly, even though there was no one around to hear, except maybe a man with a long beard high above the mess he had made of everything.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m not very much of a story teller after all. You’d think I could at least manage something as simple as telling a story, wouldn’t you? If I couldn’t even do my job. Oh, and while you’re taking notes, make sure the important people always have enough coffee. Have I mentioned that I didn’t have my coffee? And it turns out you can’t make good coffee after the end of the world.”

He pressed the red button on the remote and the fire died.

“Thanks for listening. I can see why people talk to you. Or, maybe it's because I have no one else to talk to, that you seem a good enough option.”

He left the CEO’s office but not before heading to the drinks cabinet that all CEO offices worldwide had. He found a bottle of whiskey. He could tell it was expensive without even reading the label. He twisted the lid and lifted the bottle to his lips and took a swig. He tried to imagine how many dollars weresliding down his throat right now. This was one of the perks of the apocalypse. You could drink hundreds of dollars and not feel one iota guilty. After all, who else was going to drink it?

~*~

“Dear citizens of earth.” He spoke the words out loud as he wrote them down, and then hastily scribbled them out. “No, that makes me sound like some Martian overlord coming to take over the planet.” Richard said. “Dear-. No, I’m not writing a thank you note!” he tapped the pen against his lips. “To everyone that’s still alive?” He sat at his kitchen table with a pad of paper and a blue pen clutched in his meaty hand. He glanced out the window at the grim whiteness that seemed to almost swallow everything up. He wrote down the words. “I guess it's as good enough as any,” he said. “It’s the truth. That’s my audience.”

To everyone that is still alive,” he repeated. “My name is Richard. Richard McGillivray if it matters. I know most of you, if there is even enough of you to be called most,” he chuckled at the words as they came to him and he wrote them down. Hey, at least you could keep a sense of humour during the end of the world, he thought. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

“I know that none of you will know me.” He would wear his MeteoTech embroidered shirt, he thought, when it came to making his speech. So that it would be official. So people, he smiled wryly again at the thought of enough people to be classed as people, wouldn’t think he was just some crazy loon spouting nonsense. Then again, how did a shirt with the MeteoTech logo lend him much more credibility? He thought. “But I just wanted to you let you know…” he stopped, waiting for the words on the page to catch up. “That I’m the man responsible for… well, everything. For this,” he imagined gesturing upwards, indicating everything around him. “For the end of the world. Now,” he put a hand out, as if to halt any interruptions. “I know you probably have a lot of questions. I know that you’re probably really angry. Though I think you’re probably more than just angry, because, well, I’ve destroyed the whole world. I’m angry at myself. I’m more than angry. I just don’t even think there’s anything that could actually describe how I feel. Or how you are feeling hearing this message. Shock maybe. Or PTSD, if you could get PTSD from something like this. From finding out who destroyed the world far too late to actually do anything. I just wanted to say….” He stopped and almost scratched out that sentence.

He threw his pen down and leaned back his chair with a loud sigh. “How can I even say I’m sorry?” He asked the empty kitchen with it’s large windows that did nothing but look out onto a cold and dead world. He used to hear the laughter of children on his street. His neighbours, playing basketball in their driveway, shooting hoops, or attempting, in the net that hung above their garage. There were other children who rode their tricycles, bikes and skateboards up and down his street, since it was a cul-de-sac, and parents felt safer if their children stayed in the protected circle offered by the ring of houses. Richard still noticed the discarded bikes,with the handle bars tipped with brightly coloured ribbon, except now they lay abandoned in the yards, and the grasses had grown tall and unwieldy around them.

The street was silent now. Richard used to dream of silence on those hot summer days that seemed to be made of nothing but noise – music blaring from neighbours stereos, children laughing and screaming, playing hide and seek, or tinkingly sound of the ice cream truck slowly wending its way up and down every block, slowing when it encountered herds of children. Now the silence was the stuff of nightmares and Richard wished even for the irritating noise of the little dirt bikes that supposed adults rode, and seemed so tiny that it should be toddlers, not full grown adult men riding them. He would stand on his balcony then and glare at the idiots as they shot past making more noise than a jet engine, shaking his head at them in disappointment. “You’re a disgrace to humankind!” he would yell at them hoping against hope that one day they would get the message and just get the finger in return.

~*~

I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here. Richard wrote the words slowly. It was hard, admitting everything so long after the fact. But it had been eating at him. He wanted, no, needed to apologize to whoever was still out there. He tapped his pen on the page. I just wanted to say I’m sorry and also that, even though I can’t fix the problem itself. I can’t unclog the ozone layer and return everything to how it was before. But there might be something else we can do. Not that that would help bring anyone back, though. His heart sank. This wasn’t the most uplifting apology or speech, he thought.

If any of you have-, or had, kids. He winced at those words but there was nothing he could do about it. If you have read a young adult book recently, you might’ve come across the remake of Pandora’s box. The one with the sky pirate with the mechanical leg? The one that takes place on the floating continent high above a dead world? Well, I was thinking of something similar. Not that we could make a floating continent. That’s not possible, at least not here, not right now, not on our planet anyway. But I thought that maybe we could, all of us survivors, we could get together, to live together on an island somewhere. Build a community again. A colony of sorts. Start from scratch. It doesn’t do any of us any good to be scattered around the country all separated, all alone, all isolated. I know you probably feel isolated and lonely because I do. It was hard to admit but it was true. Even though he was the one that had caused his own isolation.

But anyway, there you have it. That’s my solution. Even though it isn’t much of one, it’s better than what we have now. We can’t survive on our own. He stopped, and then wrote That’s All.

He took his single sheet of paper, looking so inconsequential and headed to the nearest TV station.

He stepped into the darkened room that was the TV studio with its banks of cameras standing like sentries.

He stepped in front of one and stared into its blank screen. He cleared his throat and began reading. After a moment he stopped and realized the camera wasn’t on. He went over and took a look at it. He didn’t know the first thing about cameras, but he pressed a button that looked like it would be the power button. Nothing happened. “Of course not!” he said, throwing up his hands in frustration. “Why should anything work at the end of the world?” He threw the speech down and it floated slowly and serenely to the floor entirely unaware of Richard’s emotions.

And then it came to him. Maybe he couldn’t apologize over the TV airwaves, but there was the radio. And his radio was working. He knew how to work it . He turned it on, cleared his throat and began.

“I know I must sound crazy,” he added at the end, and he realized that he would now just continue to ramble on to anyone that was out there, that happened to be listening. It felt good just to talk even if he wasn’t sure there was anyone actually out there. But he could imagine it. “I do feel that this is the most sensible thing to do. To regroup, you know? So, that’s where I’ll be heading anyway, I’m heading to the San Juans off the coast of Washington, in the United States, for anyone that is getting this broadcast from somewhere other than the US. Well, I guess there really isn’t much of a US anymore anyway is there?. Feel free to join me. We can start a new world now. The good thing? We’re back at square one. We can live however we want to.” he paused, realizing being so open ended wasn’t really sensible here. “We can live in harmony. Again, all I can say is sorry. I know that doesn’t really help, but know that you aren’t alone. I’m here. As far as I know it’s just me. I haven’t been able to find any others yet, not

where I am anyway.” He didn’t really know what to say next. “Okay, well, bye. Hope to see you soon.” He let the button go, his thumb hurting from holding it down so hard for so long.

He looked around the darkened TV station. “Well,” he said to the TV cameras that looked like giant one-eyed robots. “I guess there’s nothing else but for me to head to the promised land.” And his shoes echoed as he left the building.

~~~~~~

Check out part 12 below to continue the story (and also part 1 to go back to the start!)