The Boy Who Wasn't Real

Elisaveta

"What the hell was that?" Eric asks. "When was this?"

"If you would just shut up," I say, "we could rewind a couple of minutes to catch the date. I'm sure it was on there somewhere."

Eric huffs. "Okay. Do you know how to rewind this thing? I don't think I've ever seen anything so old in my life."

"Of course you haven't, tech boy. You just know everything about everything until it comes to old TVs that probably use less than ten buttons on their remotes. Of course you don't know how to work it." I give him a look and examine the TV.

It's a box with a screen and a couple of square buttons. That's all there is. No fancy motion detector, no camera, no light that blinks when it's on. Nothing but a screen and buttons and a box. I don't believe that Eric doesn't know how to work this piece of junk.

Pressing one of the buttons, I smack my hand on the top of the TV. The screen goes from the dully-coloured picture with the reporter in it to an equally dull picture with a well-dressed lady's torso and a red headline.

"Breaking news," says the lady, "This year is about to get even more devastating. Since the beginning of this year—twenty-one-thousand-four—we've had three pandemics, fifteen wars and plenty of world-wide government disagreements. Now, on April seventeenth, we have an apocalypse. The continents are merging. I don't know what to say except: here's reporter Chad Smith with the details. It has been a nice time covering the news for everyone. This is Valarie Floyd, good night and good health to you all."

"So this was on April seventeenth, twenty-one-thousand-four," I remark. "Do those things mean anything to you? What is an april? And twenty-one-thousand-four?"

"I don't know about that april thing, but I'm gonna assume that twenty-one-thousand-four is a year. That means that this was a while ago, because we don't number our years anymore, do we?"

"No, we don't. I wonder what the reporters meant by continents. Did there used to be more than one piece of land? How did that work?"

"I'm sorry to be rude, Elisaveta, but those questions are useless. What we should be asking is, why did this happen?"

"I think it happened because people we too stupid to notice that the planet hates them." I grin and look for something to write down the information. I find a small notepad and a pen. Writing down the date and both the reporter's names, I quietly ask Eric, "Can you please call me Lissy?"

"Sorry. I'm not used to calling you that."

"Come on. You've known me for barely a week. You aren't used to anything about me, Eric."

"How do you know that? You're not a psychic, are you? Because you already have that weird thing with the knives and I don't want to have to deal with you reading my thoughts too."

"Oh, be quiet. Take this paper to Sam and tell him to search the date and people up. And ask Evan what this room was used for before."

"Yes ma'am." Eric mock-salutes and leaves the room. I stare as his russet-brown hair vanishes down the hallways—they're not hallways, really, more like connectors—of the Rig.

I begin to search the room. Careful to avoid any more piles of feces, I drag all the furniture to the middle of the room as best as I can manage. Where the couch was, I find rolls of money and a few guns—oh, and let's not forget dust. Lots and lots of dust. The TV set sits on a hatch that—when opened—contains a control panel that most likely ran the Rig. Putting everything back into its place, except the money and gun, I look underneath the small table in the middle of the room.