people in my generation got to see, but I can’t help but think of all the places still out there. Las Vegas and Boston. The California beaches. But at least I got to see some of it. And, I tell myself on the nights when I can’t help but think about the rest of the world out there, Tokyo is probably a lot like New York, and the French Riviera is probably just like Ocean City. And so on.
And on the nights that doesn’t help, when I still feel like I never truly got to see what the world had to offer, I think about Andrew sitting on the sofa and how he got to see even less than I did. I’m comforted to know that, while I might not have gotten to see the Sphinx or float down Venice, I did see some things. And for the rest, Andrew and I have our movies to take us anywhere we want.
December 20
My yard has no more twigs or sticks. And I certainly won’t be stepping into the forest to get more firewood. That would be suicide. All of my dining room chairs have been disassembled and burned, as have my small end tables. My baseball cards are almost gone. In the fire today went my set of 1984 Topps. I threw a handful of cards in at a time. While they are worthless now, I still wasn’t able to see my Don Mattingly or Daryl Strawberry rookie cards go in the fire. I set them aside on the end table to be preserved. I did the same with my Bo Jackson and Greg Maddux rookie cards the other day when I set fire to my sets of 1987 Donruss, Fleer, and Topps. The rookie cards do absolutely nothing for me these days except remind me of how happy I was collecting them as a child. When the last of my cards are burned, I’ll start burning Andrew’s collection. Growing up, each time my parents got me a set of cards for my birthday they made sure to get Andrew an equivalent set for his birthday. The same year I got the 1983 set of Topps, they gave Andrew the 1982 set. When the time comes to burn that box, there’s no way I’ll let Andrew’s Cal Ripken Jr. rookie card go in the flames. I’ll set it aside with the small stack of other cards I’m keeping.
Soon, I’ll turn to our collections of old comics. Boxes of Uncanny X-Men and Amazing Spiderman comics will go up in flames. Although I hate to see my childhood collectibles shrivel to ashes, I’m actually quite pleased with the result. One of the chemicals in the baseball cards, maybe the colored ink, gives off a thick black smoke while it burns that the wood wasn’t producing. A smoggy version of a lighthouse lingers in the air above my home. Anyone travelling south in the vicinity of Camelot will see the smoke and know Andrew and I are here, ready to be saved.
It will have to happen soon. I don’t know how Andrew and I will make it through another year. If the swarms of animals don’t get us, old age or sickness will. While my brother has a fever every other week, my old body is growing too feeble to move him to the bathroom when he needs to be cleaned. Burning trash in the incinerator takes me twice as long as it used to. Please let someone find us soon.
All those doomsday movies had it wrong the entire time. Each one that came out through the years imagined a young man or a small group of men wandering the earth in search of another pocket of civilization. Even after the nuclear war or plague or whatever it was that wiped out most of Earth’s population, a few still existed here and there. During their travels they always managed to run into attractive young women. They also managed to find evil gangs who thought ruling the few remaining a nice, quiet neighborhoodrdspjo humans was a good way to spend the last years of their lives. How difficult it must have been for the people writing those movies to think of a time when humans wouldn’t exist at all. Even in the far corners of their creative, inspired minds, they couldn’t think of a scenario where every man was wiped out, just most of them. There always had to be a survivor. Maybe this simply spoke to the optimism of
And on the nights that doesn’t help, when I still feel like I never truly got to see what the world had to offer, I think about Andrew sitting on the sofa and how he got to see even less than I did. I’m comforted to know that, while I might not have gotten to see the Sphinx or float down Venice, I did see some things. And for the rest, Andrew and I have our movies to take us anywhere we want.
December 20
My yard has no more twigs or sticks. And I certainly won’t be stepping into the forest to get more firewood. That would be suicide. All of my dining room chairs have been disassembled and burned, as have my small end tables. My baseball cards are almost gone. In the fire today went my set of 1984 Topps. I threw a handful of cards in at a time. While they are worthless now, I still wasn’t able to see my Don Mattingly or Daryl Strawberry rookie cards go in the fire. I set them aside on the end table to be preserved. I did the same with my Bo Jackson and Greg Maddux rookie cards the other day when I set fire to my sets of 1987 Donruss, Fleer, and Topps. The rookie cards do absolutely nothing for me these days except remind me of how happy I was collecting them as a child. When the last of my cards are burned, I’ll start burning Andrew’s collection. Growing up, each time my parents got me a set of cards for my birthday they made sure to get Andrew an equivalent set for his birthday. The same year I got the 1983 set of Topps, they gave Andrew the 1982 set. When the time comes to burn that box, there’s no way I’ll let Andrew’s Cal Ripken Jr. rookie card go in the flames. I’ll set it aside with the small stack of other cards I’m keeping.
Soon, I’ll turn to our collections of old comics. Boxes of Uncanny X-Men and Amazing Spiderman comics will go up in flames. Although I hate to see my childhood collectibles shrivel to ashes, I’m actually quite pleased with the result. One of the chemicals in the baseball cards, maybe the colored ink, gives off a thick black smoke while it burns that the wood wasn’t producing. A smoggy version of a lighthouse lingers in the air above my home. Anyone travelling south in the vicinity of Camelot will see the smoke and know Andrew and I are here, ready to be saved.
It will have to happen soon. I don’t know how Andrew and I will make it through another year. If the swarms of animals don’t get us, old age or sickness will. While my brother has a fever every other week, my old body is growing too feeble to move him to the bathroom when he needs to be cleaned. Burning trash in the incinerator takes me twice as long as it used to. Please let someone find us soon.
All those doomsday movies had it wrong the entire time. Each one that came out through the years imagined a young man or a small group of men wandering the earth in search of another pocket of civilization. Even after the nuclear war or plague or whatever it was that wiped out most of Earth’s population, a few still existed here and there. During their travels they always managed to run into attractive young women. They also managed to find evil gangs who thought ruling the few remaining a nice, quiet neighborhoodrdspjo humans was a good way to spend the last years of their lives. How difficult it must have been for the people writing those movies to think of a time when humans wouldn’t exist at all. Even in the far corners of their creative, inspired minds, they couldn’t think of a scenario where every man was wiped out, just most of them. There always had to be a survivor. Maybe this simply spoke to the optimism of
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