Tagged: family

Nepotistic Non-Neglect

Dear Planet Earth,

I’m not going to mind getting used to living out of five star hotels for the duration of the invasion. I won’t give any more information about our locations other than that from now on since it’s become disturbingly apparent that the mole people can and have been reading this blog all along.

When I’m not catching up on much needed sleep, taking advantage of this electric razor I scored, and enjoying the oft-neglected luxury of two-ply toilet paper, I’m getting piss drunk with old friends. Today was Dr. Eimer.

He was in the best spirits I’ve ever seen him. We’ve all been, really, since the successful raid and liberation of the slave labor camp. He was fascinated by the mole man manifesto Perry gave me. Eimer read entire passages aloud last night, as giddy as a school girl. A Japanese school girl.

I told him he could borrow the book since I think I already found the important parts I needed. It served as an uncomfortable reminder too, I guess. As my comrades were forced to work to the bone all day, many to the point of death, I was living it up in a shady room with three square meals a day. They’ve all been doing a good job of hiding their contempt, which by all accounts must be there. Hell, it’d be there for me if I was in their shoes.

Whatever the case, Eimer showed his ecstatic appreciation by giving me his bottle of vodka. And that lasted for a fun hour.

Ryan

Dear Planet Earth,

It was the first day in a while that Perry hasn’t come by to dispense fatherly advice or spread the Good Word about the mole people. He’s been trying to interpret passages for me from A History of the Inheritors, the ancient manifesto of our underground overlords. It’s all bullshit, and I’ve told him as much since he started his temptation to bring me to the dark side and join him so that we may rule the galaxy as father and son.

I did have another awkward conversation with my gruffy gaoler to make up for Perry’s absence. He dropped off my usual gruel at the usual time, and I asked him, “What’s your name?”

He looked through the window suspiciously.

“Why?”

“It seems important,” I said. “You feed me everyday, recharge my laptop, clean my bedpan. But I don’t even know what to call you.”

His gaze eased, perhaps understanding the bigger conflict on my mind.

“Ryan.”

I nodded.

“Well, nice to meet you, Ryan.”

I briefly considered offering him my hand. He was about to go, but I stopped him with another question.

“You have any kids, Ryan?”

“Look, pal, this ain’t the Marriott here. You’re not a guest and I’m not your friend. Any issues you got with The Big Guy are between you and him.”

He stormed off after that, leaving me with a half-full bedpan and dreams of a paternal relationship I never knew I wanted.

The Talk

Dear Planet Earth,

He’s been coming to my cell for the past couple mornings. My father. My dad. I don’t know what to call him. He didn’t stick around long enough when I was a kid for me to give him one of those common labels. I don’t even know his first name. Maybe I’ll ask him next time — if I don’t try to punch him in the face.

He told me that they worked on recruiting him even before I was born. The homies — he chuckled over my new nickname for them. He said that they told him about the coming invasion, of the mole people, the true inheritors of the upper crust. He chuckled when he used the word “mole people,” too. To him and his fellow homeless minions, they were and always will be the “Inheritors.”

They ruled over all levels of the Earth for thousands of years until we homo sapiens revolted and drove them underground. This was eventually seen as a truce by the Inheritors. They could tolerate our dominion over the inferior crust so long as we maintained peace and the fragile ecosystem affecting all of the layers. But humans screwed it up. We destroyed our planet beyond repair and the Inheritors saw invasion as their only option to protect the Earth.

He said he’d understand if I couldn’t forgive him for abandoning me and Mom. He said he tried to save us from the same fate as the others, using his considerable pull to keep us away from the fighting before it began.

I sat silent for much of this, turning this new information over and over in my mind, seething. He left me a book to read — the same one that convinced him to leave us all those years ago.

I should have punched him in the face.

Painine

Dear Planet Earth,

Pain. Blinding, striking, unrelenting pain. It consumes me, taunts me without words, chews on me without teeth.

I’ve heard of pain like this. I’ve heard my grandfather complain of such a feeling in his hands. It followed him all the way into death, forming an image in my mind of an unearthly malady beyond simple arthritis. I feel like that old man. I feel like ten old men.

They gave me drugs — morphine or codeine or some other “ine” — the first few days here at the hospital, but then the supplies became scarce and they decided a kid like me — practically a man — with a single bullet wound didn’t need that much painkiller. So, now I’m the painkiller. And I’m losing.

They left me with 50 cc of painine and the possibility of never walking again. I sound bitter, like an old man, but I don’t know how else to feel. I was shot in the leg by a mole man. I was shot in the leg by a mole man and I can’t think of anything but the tingling, tormenting fire in every inch of my body.

Liberty

Dear Planet Earth,

I had to get away from the house — every house, really. They’re nothing but constant reminders of normal, domestic lives filled with schools, jobs, and families. They’re a stark realization that I may never again have what I never really wanted.

I walked down to the Strip again to see if there was anything new. It’s strange to think a place that once  symbolized every sinful, unrestrained impulse of America has now become my source for world news. I met a guy who said he was coming from Missouri with his family to escape the earthquakes they were having there. The last words he heard from his radio said that similar quakes were occurring all along the East Coast and that FEMA was starting evacuation measures. I don’t know if I really believe his story — or if I want to believe his story.

I heard other people too, with less reliable information. One girl swore she saw a swarm of UFOs in the sky the night before the tremors started. Another man claimed he saw a news report about the Russians starting a controversial military exercise before every TV channel went off the air.

Before I left, I stopped by the New York-New York again, which undoubtedly got hit the hardest during the shakes. It was still insanely dusty, but I was relieved to see that a little bit of order had been restored. Two weeks ago, I would have been suspicious seeing a cop walking around and asking if everyone was all right, but today it really brought me a sense of peace. For a second, I started to think that everything just might be okay as long as we stick together and help our fellow man. I snapped this:

And it just took a second.