Tilte: Alone
Prompt: 10
Words: 2,236
The genie had warned him world peace was a bad choice for his third wish…
Greg drained the last of his gas-station coffee and placed the empty carton on his table. Wiping his upper lip with a cheap napkin, he tossed some change on the table as he vacated it, taking his rucksack with him. Inside; his laptop, a change of clothes, and an old gym sock.
“Mr. Moretti! Wait up!” A girl ran after him, clutching that day’s newspaper. “They said you are retiring! I thought… Who’s going to teach us now?” She handed him the paper, and gave him baleful look as she began to walk away, “Good luck where you’re going. I bet you’ll need it!”
Scurrying through the subway station crowd, Greg deftly flipped a ball cap from some poor lost college student’s head and put it on, whistling and paring off his nails with his hunting knife. He was done! He could barely believe what had happened to him the day before; it was all a blur.
He had been in the library downtown, reading through the e-catalogs when a hologram appeared on his tablet screen. Greg had almost dropped it out of fright, then leaned in to inspect it. The hologram was a woman; she was completely opaque, like steam, and the edges of her body glowed golden. She looked into his eyes and spoke without moving her mouth.
“If you seek your heart’s desire, you have only to ask. Three wishes I grant to thee, and use them for your will.”
“Holy s**t.” Greg tried to put down the tablet, but it was stuck to his hands. “Did one of my kids alter the virtual reality programs again? Dan! It’s not funny!” No one came, no one heard. “Anybody?! And who the hell are you?”
“I am everyone and no one. I am real and a figment of your imagination. I am human and alien; dark and light; choice and indecision. I—“
“You need to make up your mind, that’s what you need to do,” he responded, stalling for time and searching for a power button that had mysteriously vanished. “So, humor me. What’re my three wishes supposed to be about?”
“You choose.”
Greg remembered looking through the hospital window that morning, watching as one of his students lay hooked up to a machine through tubes in her arm, poisoning her body to try and keep her alive. He saw her head, naked but for the hand-knit cap, veins visible through her transparent skin. He had seen too many kids like her, on the brink of death as their own bodies fought themselves in mutiny.
“Cancer. I wish there was no cancer.”
“Are you certain? Wishes cannot be taken back.”
“Why the hell would I take it back?! Of course I’m sure!”
“As you wish,” the woman responded, her eyes glowing red. Minutes passed, and she closed her eyes. When they reopened, they were white again.
“What else? What more do you wish for?”
“I wish I could quit my job and retire.”
“Easier said than done,” immediately a notice of removal dinged on his mobile. ‘Thanks for working at our school! –smiley face-‘
“One more. Be careful what you wish, for I cannot control the way that they are fulfilled.”
Greg thought back to elementary school, when he had stood up on a stool during creative writing in front of his third grade class and declared, “If I met the genie in Aladin, I would wish for WORLD PEACE!” How smart he thought he was back then, thinking he was the most original person in the world…
Screw it. “World peace,” he said, attempting to put down the tablet.
“NO!” The voice cried, anguish in her voice. “I can’t let you… Can you imagine—“
“I know what I want, dang it! World-flipping-peace. That’s my final wish.”
“Won’t you rethink--?”
“No!”
“Your funeral,” she replied, disappearing. The tablet fell from his hands and shattered on the floor.
Flicking his newly acquired ball cap, he headed on a north-bound train to the hospital.
“Greg! Good to see you, fellow!” A portly man with a grey beard clapped him on the back. “Heard you announced your resignation! Good laddie! They worked you too hard at that school!” Greg smiled. He didn’t know the man, but didn’t feel like saying anything. He nodded, and got off the train without another word.
“How may I help you?” A dark haired nurse smiled as she looked up from her computer hologram, waiting to direct him.
“I’m looking for Rose McGuire? She’s in the pediatric oncology ICU?”
“Pediatric what, sir? Do you mean gynecology?”
“Definitely not. Can you look for her please? She’s a student of mine. Checked in two weeks ago for a fever and broken arm?”
“Lemme check real quick… Rose… That’s funny. There’s no record of any Rose McGuire in any of our databases. It is R-O-S-E (space) M-C-G-U-I-R-E?”
“Yeah… it is,” Greg replied mouth dry.
“What about a Belle Moretti?”
“Not in any of our systems, sir. Are you feeling alright? Should I check you into the psychiatric ward?”
“No,” Greg waved the question away, forcing a smile. “I’m just stressed. Imagine! Me confusing a student with a book character.” Walking away, Greg thought to himself, What the hell have I done?
Greg stopped outside the hospital doors and sat at a smoking bench outside on the pavement. What had he done? Had his wish made it so that whoever had cancer no longer existed? His wife… He guessed she had never existed either. He’d have to go check…
Walking to his apartment, he went through his photo albums. There—a wedding picture. There he was, in his suit and tie, but Belle was gone. He flipped through the whole book, and there wasn’t a sign of her, Only pictures of himself, with an empty void where she should have been. He looked for the clipping of their marriage announcement in the paper, to find that instead it held an add for a “Donald’s Pub” in East New America. He knew he hadn’t imagined Belle… he’d held her hand as she died; kissed her in the rain, proposed on the terrace of the hotel they stayed in. It couldn’t all be a fantasy…
Well… I couldn’t have caused too much more damage! He took off the ball cap, and placed it on his dresser. He was distractedly combing his hair when he remembered; his third wish. He had wished for world peace… How would that be achieved?
Turning on the television, he flipped channels till he came to the news; “Threats from New Detroit are pouring in as President Angler reassures public that the city state of New America is in no danger of attack… Radical groups in Old Kansas protest in the squares, demanding liberties from centuries ago…” Greg turned off the television. It sure didn’t sound like world peace to him. Maybe the “genie”, if that’s what she was, didn’t get a chance to fulfill his wish; after all, the tablet had broken. As Greg drifted off to sleep that night, the day’s happenings slipped from his mind…
A piercing siren woke Greg and he bolted upright, falling and getting tangled in his sheets as he attempted to go see what the matter was. He detached himself from the cocoon and grabbed the remote, stabbing the power button and hoping…
A bedraggled news reporter came into view as the screen powered on, black smudges on a usually shiny face. “Ladies and gentlemen… a state of emergency has been declared. An atomic bomb, I repeat, an atomic bomb has been launched with an arrival time of 6.8 minutes. The military has already tried to intervene with no success. This is not a drill. It is unknown the contents of the bomb, but it is believed to be launched by the New Detroit group and will most likely decimate the continent—“ the reporter paused and listened as he pressed a palm to his earpiece. “Holy—we just received new intelligence that 28 similar missiles have been targeted on various areas all over the globe. The scientists are running simulations right now, but…” He paused, breathing heavily. “It is expected that the world’s population will be reduced by at least 98 percent.”
Greg backed up, tripping over his backpack. No… It wasn’t real! It wasn’t! He grabbed his wrist, pinching it hard between his forefinger and thumb. A red welt and sting of pain told him that he wasn’t dreaming. Scrambling around the room, he stuffed anything and everything into his bag, looking around, and running out onto the street. Chaos and anarchy reined. Crowds rushed as sirens blared, people trampled beneath their neighbor’s feet. Children screamed and dogs barked, everyone a blur of bags and heads and limbs.
“Where do we go!?!?!?” A hysterical woman cried in his ear, latching onto his coat.
“A shelter! Anywhere!” he cried as the woman was torn away by the swelling tide.
“KEEP CALM. THERE IS A BOMB SHELTER ON 2ND STREET BELOW THE MAYOR’S OFFICE. PLEASE MOVE IN AN ORDERLY AND CAREFUL FASHION—“ A cop called, unheeded, with a megaphone from atop a fish market roof.
Greg pushed his way through the crowd, knowing that he wouldn’t make it, he wouldn’t make it! Then, from the corner of his eye, a door with an old yellow and black sign faded into the concrete wall. Barreling to the right, he pushed his way through the door and locked it behind him. He pinballed through the house, ripping open and slamming doors until he found it—the fallout shelter. Crawling in, he sealed it behind him and pulled on the old fashioned light switch hanging in his face.
A cot, food shelves, and an oxygen filter he hoped still worked were all that was in the little room. Greg sat on the cot and buried his face in his hands. What had he done… After a moment, he dug into his backpack and found an old radio and switched it on, looking for anything on the airwaves… Some Elvis and an emergency broadcast greeted him.
“This is not a drill… Atomic bombs converging on several sites around the world… Get someplace safe, duck and cover…”
Greg huddled on the cot, the radio sitting on the mattress next to him.
“3 minutes to detonation… 2 minutes to detonation… 1 minute to detonation… T-minus 30 seconds…”
Greg dropped to the floor, holding his head as the electronically tinny voice counted down.
“10… 9… 8…”
He wished he could take it back. Why had he chosen this? How could he have been so stupid?
“7... 6… 5…”
He saw his wife, Belle Moretti, walking down the aisle of the church on 7th street in her white dress, smiling on the happiest day of his life…
He saw himself and Rose, playing chess with an IV in Rose’s arm…
“1… 0.”
A rushing of wind swirled around the house, almost deafening. It goes on and on and on, louder and louder, inducing more fear the longer it lasts; then, the bang. It shakes Greg to his bones, a hard, awful sound; the sound of people dying in a flash.
Then, silence.
One. Greg looks at his hands. These hands that killed 7 billion lives. Two. He slams his hands on the wall. The shelter held; he wasn’t dead. Three. Greg sobs, curling on the floor of the shelter, tears gathering on the unforgiving concrete. He stays there a long, long time…
A clock tells him that its been 42 hours. He can’t stay here any longer. Greg pulls his bag onto his back, not caring what’s left in it. He staggers to the door, hands mindlessly fumbling with the handle until it swings open.
Darkness. That’s what Greg sees. A desolate landscape; a scorched ground, empty and devoid. Greg pulls out his radio, and checks all the channels; nothing. He pulls out his phone; no signal. Greg drops it on the ground and walks.
Greg stumbles along the ground, seeing the scorched bodies, people killed in the blast. He’s killed every one of them, every last one. A dark ash falls from the sky like snow, settling on his shoulders gently. Greg coughs, a drop of red falling on the empty earth.
He gets to a clearing; he must have walked many miles from home. Greg has never really seen the country before. He kicks a rock, watching as it settles among a clump of blackened weeds. A lake, gray with ash lays before him. Greg drops his pack. He falls down to the water and wades in, the gray attaching to his clothes the further in he goes. Floating on his back in the water, Greg hears the silence. He sees the sun, bright and inviting in the middle of a blue and gray sky. A breeze scatters the ash, blowing over him like a blanket.
Greg doesn’t notice as his skin turns red, or as his lungs fight to keep breathing oxygen. He can’t stop floating, and looking at the sky. How beautiful, he thinks…
A bird, somehow untouched by the firestorm, begins to sing its mournful cry from the top of a scorched olive tree as Greg slowly drifts away below the surface of the lake on Christmas day.
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