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| "In the streets is the sound of gunfire," the old man muttered. "In the distance is fire and smoke." He sat by the window in his wheelchair, bundled in a long overcoat. His long, white hair was tangled and he was bald on top. His young assistant stood behind him, pale hands resting on the back of the chair. |
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| In the street below, a group of youths chased a bystander off the sidewalk, through a line of parked cars and onto the pavement. When they caught up with him, they clubbed him with pipes, knocking him down. They kicked him savagely in the face, stomach, and groin. He rolled onto his back, arms spread, and began bleeding from the mouth. The old man watched with attention as the youths crushed his knees, elbows and wrists one by one with blows from the pipes. |
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| A vast explosion welled up on the horizon, moving through the air like a river of heat. The floor shivered, windows rattled, something fell from a shelf and shattered. An orange glow silhouetted the buildings. Clouds of thick, oily smoke roiled the air. |
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| "That would be the old refinery," the old man muttered. "Someone has exploded the old refinery. Now if we want to keep warm this winter, we'll have to break apart abandoned buildings and burn the scraps." |
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| Nervousness flickered on the glasses of his young assistant. "What can we do?" |
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| "Nothing! There's nothing to do but watch. All my life I've dreamed of this, was hungry for this. Ever since I was young, I knew it was coming. But it played with us, took its time. Now our role is simply to be here, to witness the catastrophe. It's a priceless treasure, you know, to be present at the end of the world." He cackled, then broke off. Something had disturbed him. "Now that we're here, it's not what I'd hoped for. It's not a purifying force at all." |
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| "Will we survive?" |
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| "You might," the old man scoffed. "Survival comes naturally to the young, after all. But I'm old. I ask for death and it doesn't come. I've been kept alive for some reason, my senses intact. It's like a punishment. Mistakes made in our youth, roads not taken...every cause has an effect, an irreversible chain that leads...that leads to this." His voice sank into itself, no longer acknowledging the other's presence. |
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| There was a silence in the room. The young man lit a cigarette, its red tip reflected in his glasses. Outside, the street began to grow dark. There was a shadowy movement in the window opposite. Below them, a woman in a red dress joined the youths and was laughing with them, loudly and incontinently, as they stripped the clothes and searched the pockets of the man who lay there, dying or already dead. |
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| The old man spoke again. "This phenomenon is being repeated, you know, not just here in St. Louis, but in a thousand cities all over the world. Just the other day, I was reading about how a mob had broken into the Louvre. They took all the paintings from the walls and tore them apart, stomping them into the ground or making fires out of them to cook potatoes. They were angry that art is considered such a treasure. Those relics of another age were so precious that they had a whole palace to themselves, when there are millions of people with no shelter and nothing to eat. So they decided to do away with all that, and start over. And you know, I can sympathize...but there were some good paintings there, I hear. Even if any schoolboy would love to slash the Mona Lisa, simply because he's been told so often it's a masterpiece." |
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