Sleepwalk

by Dan Chaon

we’re waiting to see how Armageddon plays out, keeping an eye open for ways it might turn to our advantage. Even in the worst-case scenario, odds are that at least a few of our kind will struggle on long enough to evolve into creatures suitable for whatever new environment is ahead. I’m no evolutionary biologist, but I have faith in our species’ stick-to-it-iveness.

Kinda how I feel, even though things are most likely going to get much worse than they are now.

We shake hands. “What can I get for you?” he says. “I’m in need of eight to twelve fresh burner phones,” I tell him. “And a full blotter of hundred-microgram LSD-25. And a case of those little airplane-size bottles of vodka? Miniatures, I think they’re called. And if you can get Tito’s brand, that’s my preference.” He inclines his head thoughtfully. “Well, I can get you the prepaid mobile devices right away. The others may take … forty-five minutes? Can you wait?” “Sure,” I say. “No problem.”

Lol, shopping for LSD at Walmart!

I like to take what they call a microdose every couple of days. Just a few drips from an eyedropper, maybe a fifth of a tablespoon. It’s sub-perceptual: you don’t even hardly notice it in the day-to-day, but it does a nice job of bringing the wonders of being alive to the fore and pushing the horrors a tiny bit back. Which is an important survival technique. Voilà! The bliss of temporarily giving a shit.

One of the things I’ve observed about white folks who grew up well-to-do: they have a deep investment in the idea of merit, and there’s a special scorn, I’ve noticed, for the poor of their own kind. They may acknowledge that race plays a role in keeping people down; they may even be sympathetic to the plights and sufferings of certain marginalized groups—but white trash is trash for a reason.

Great observation, especially in drumpf’s America.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she says, and I look down at the dot on the phone that blinks red, recording her voice. Instinctively, I don’t know why, I reach down and turn it off. “What?” I say. “I’m—I’m not the only one,” she says. “What do you mean?” “I’m not the only biological child you’ve got,” she says. “From what I’ve gathered so far, there are a hundred and sixty-seven of us. Probably more.”

Whaaaa—??

“What do you want to drink?” she says. “Scotch,” I say. “And some penicillin if you’ve got it.”

??? Scotch and penicillin???

I’d like to think that I wouldn’t be a bad father … even though, at this moment, I’m planning to go to my daughter’s hideout and kill her.

Lol!

“You mean like that movie where the kids in the boarding school turn out to be clones that are, like, being raised as organ donors?”

Never Let Me Go

To my left I am passing some smoldering airplane wreckage that hobos are scavenging among; they are collecting pieces of luggage and stacking them into piles, and seagulls are fomenting overhead, wheeling around like leaves in a dust devil.

So trippy how the author just drops in these horrific scenes of decaying social order in the background. Billy doesn’t keep up with current events, and is so used to seeing these disasters that they hardly register.

“So,” I say. “Your mom didn’t end up having the baby, I’m guessing.” “No, she did,” Cammie says, reflectively. “It was a little girl. She died when she was eighteen months old, just after I turned nineteen. She was born with a neurogenerative disease. Neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis,” Cammie says. “Well, hell,” I say. “I’m sorry to hear that.” “Mm,” Cammie says, and she doesn’t say anything for a while. “I think it was her punishment,” Cammie says. “They told her not to try to have a baby, but she wouldn’t listen.”

Is there a global birthing problem? Billy mentioned “another pandemic…”

“So you don’t know that we’re on the verge of evolving into two new species? One will be bodiless and digital and immortal, and the other will be physical and empathic and attuned to the earth and servile. You’re the latter.”

Whoa.

He looks over his shoulder at me. “Ward doesn’t want me to tell you this, but … he’s also your progeny. Or more like your brother, or cousin…”

Whoa! Wtf?

And now I’m aware that the vibe here is much worse than I thought. My subconscious has finally relayed its message, which is You are not safe here. “I’ve got to go,” I say. “I think I need to excape.”

“Excape?” Like he says Experanza? Is such mispronunciation a product of his Neanderthal DNA?

she knows she should have told me but I was an idiot not to know. “I’ve been stuck looking after you most of my life. You and three of your half brothers. Two of whom are in the loony bin right now.” “Where’s the third one?” I say. “With me,” Experanza says. “We’re about fifteen minutes away from you. Just stay where you are.”

Billy’s got brothers??

“So,” she says, astonished. “This … this is King Philip, isn’t it? Wow! He’s a legend!” “That’s not his name anymore,” I say. “Let’s not call him that, I think it’s upsetting to him.”

From Philip to Flip: just like that Jason Momoa Slumberland film, that i saw a few days ago!

and another advertising the fun, comfortable, and convenient Roosevelt Hotel of Keystone, located at the base of Mount Rushmore. But of course Mount Rushmore is nothing but rubble these days,

Another glimpse of the chaos of this world.

it must have been three or four years ago?—the last time I was in New York City, right before the big floods started hitting Manhattan.

Rising sea levels.

Outside, there are more and more dead trees—scorched-looking pines and leafless shrubs, and I guess we’re coming up toward the exclusion zone, which extends in an eighteen-mile radius around the site of the Mount Rushmore bombing. Back in the Guiding Star, I had a Geiger counter which would have told me how much radiation was wafting over me, and I know that this can’t be good for my potential prostate cancer, but what can I do?

Somebody nuked Mt. Rushmore?

Now it’s the Temple of the True Science.” “Harland Jengling,” I say. “Exactly!” says Cam, and gives me a confiding squint, grinning out of one side of his mouth. “He’s my father,” Cam tells me.

Cam is Billy’s brother!