We Need to Do Something

by Max Booth III

Our phones won’t stop screaming, each slightly out of sync with the other, making the noises jarring and insane.

Anxiety’s threat of total annihilation increases with every additional pop-up.

“Most things come to an end, don’t they?”

It’s amazing, how quickly Mom can transform from soothing parent to bitter spouse. Both of them have practiced this trick to perfection.

Once sweat locates my skin, it wastes no time in overextending its welcome.

The moment I got home this evening, it felt like he was begging for a fight, it didn’t matter with who—anybody would do, as long as they could bleed, as long as they could break.

Wind howls like wolves hungry for fresh meat.

Rain and wind screech loud enough to drown out the thoughts from our throbbing brains. It is the sound of banshees escaping from hell.

The reality of the situation is already sinking in, even if nobody has the courage to voice it yet.

Absent are the usual pleasantries most kids expect their parents to share. No thank yous, no how was your day?s.

The way they act around one another, it’s less like a marriage, more like an epic rivalry. Maybe that’s what all relationships are like. Maybe nobody actually loves each other. They just argue and fight and have babies and scream and break things and eventually everybody dies.

The outcome will always be the same, no matter what anybody tries to do. Everybody dies. The end.

Guys who think they’re owed everything just for having a dick. Delusional assholes who think they’re the center of the universe.

You can’t light a fire and expect nobody to get burned.

Its engine always sounded ominous, as if promising certain doom, like old bones rattling in a haunted house.

Everybody feels bad for the girl who discovers her father dead in the front yard. But the girl who discovers her father passed-out drunk in the front yard? Forget about it. Nobody’s ever going to speak to her again.

We dig our own graves and then we jump headfirst.

At night it’s impossible to determine if my eyes are opened or closed. All I see is black.

Sometimes I can’t decide what would be worse: if we died from starvation or if we never died.

She’s telling me how she used to be dead. Most people are, she tells me, they just don’t realize it.

“Cotard delusion,” she repeats. “Walking corpse syndrome.” “I don’t . . . ” “It’s like a mental illness, I guess. People become convinced that they’re actually really dead.”

A dog means we aren’t alone. A dog means we haven’t been completely abandoned. A dog means we’re going to be okay.

“I’m a good boy,” the dog says from the other side of the door, only it’s not a dog at all, not with a voice like that.

Tongues. This whole thing started with a tongue, didn’t it? Not just one, either. Of course not. A world plagued by tongues, flapping like meaty perpetual motion machines.

Nothing lasts forever.

“Anybody can survive anything, assuming they handle it the right way.”

Sit in the same room with someone long enough, and you quickly realize there’s only a finite amount of conversation starters. Especially when it’s with your immediate family, people you’ve lived your entire life with. We talk about TV shows and movies coming out soon that we’re excited to watch, as if there’s any fucking hope we’ll ever actually get to watch them. Life as we know it has dramatically changed, and the likelihood of a return to normalcy seems slim to none.

“What if it’s never over?” I ask, which is the question we’re all wondering but I’m the only one with enough courage to actually say it.

We’re all pale and ready to die. My stomach’s a raw void eager to swallow me whole and I grant it permission without hesitation.

“Whether or not he came back because he wanted to be with someone he loved as he died, or . . . ” “Or what?” He leans forward, eyes open, expression blank. “ . . . or if he was trying to take me with him.”

“Just, like, the concept, you know? Replacing one face over another. Masks over masks. What if I’m the deepfake, and the demon inside me is the real deal? The real me.”

“We have to do something, don’t we?” I wail. “We have to do something.”

She told me she knew it was all going to be okay because it had to be. You get it? It was going to be okay because it couldn’t possibly be any other way. That we just had to believe it would be okay and act brave and strong and it would all work out, and you know what, baby? She was right.

She cries and rocks Bobby in her arms and his eyes are half-open but he’s no longer breathing, and we all know it, we’ve known it for several minutes now, but that doesn’t stop her from rocking him, from holding him tighter and spitting tears and mucus from her mouth as all of the world’s agony blossoms into its final form.

“What the fuck is a subreddit?” Dad asks, but I ignore him. Despite our current predicament of being trapped in a bathroom, there is still not enough time to thoroughly explain Reddit to my father in a way that he will comprehend.

Our existence has been a burden on not only them but also ourselves since day one in the womb.

“Some people, they aren’t meant to be fixed, no matter what you do. Some people are cursed from birth.”

“The truth is, Mel, you can’t prevent the inevitable. No one can. All you can do is delay it for a little while.”

Just a reminder for those somehow reading this afterword years into the future: 2020 was not a particularly kind year for the human race. The coronavirus pandemic pretty much fucked us all.

What would happen if we got stuck in here, and nobody came to help us?