"My brother died not long after this..."

He was dead because he didn’t listen to me

Ready to continue the fiction adventure into the original novel, “Senseless”?

These were yesterday’s words, or you can go back to the beginning here.

Thank you for being willing to go off on a new and unexpected journey and for gifting me this recovery time!

And hopefully you enjoy the special glimpse at a book I otherwise never would have shared?

I will return to my normal style of essayist writing and real time rambles and Every Weekday Promises but…

Maybe this is an experiment worth taking?

Please share. Consider supporting an independent writer. And let me know if you wish you could turn the page (fingers crossed, but I’m not editing this to perfection before sharing… I’m just willing myself to be vulnerable and share in all its imperfection).

See you tomorrow for more!

My brother died not long after this whole thing started.

“Have you heard the news?” he asked over the phone, even though literally everyone uses text instead.

“The shit happening in Australia?” I asked back, commuting home from work. He always had a way of calling me right after one of my more exhaustive days at school; right when a hot shower and alfredo sauce seemed almost in reach.

“Yeah, this sickness or whatever,” he said on the other line, “What do you think about it?”

“Honestly, Antony, I don’t know,” I frustrated-exhaled at him, wondering if I should stop at the 7-11 before my exit and get one of those cherry-Coke-amalgum-Slurpees we used to drink as kids. They hit the spot on a bad day, always, and tasted twice as good with Rum for good measure. “I don’t really have time to watch the news.”

“Well you really should baby-sis,” he predictably said, “How else are you going to guide America’s youth if you don’t even know what’s happening in it?”

“Um, I don’t guide them, dip shit,” I said tartly, “That’s the VI teachers’ job.”

“I meant it metaphorically, asshole,” he rejoined, a little bit of sadistic sibling glee in his voice, “And it’s your job to therapy them, no?”

“Nope,” I huffed, completely over the exchange and wanting to watch The Office re-runs on my couch already, “I mean, yes… well, it is therapy but it’s an actual proactive one. I actually teach how to utilize tools in life so lives can get better and… Shit, whatever. You sound like everyone else who doesn’t know what an OT does.”

I could hear his laughter through the growing heat in my face and knew he wasn’t really trying to piss me off or get under my skin… he just had a skill for it. 

“Stop smiling, jack ass,” I said, flipping my blinker to the turn towards home.

“How do you know I’m smiling?” he smiled back, “Fecking weirdo.”

And that was Antony. I was his fecking weirdo, always… and now he was dead. He was dead because he didn’t listen to me, and he was dead because I didn’t listen to him. But I really wish one of us had.

“That’s some bull shit,” I remember saying a few months later, when it had already spread up and down New South Wales, and into India, then later along the East Coast. “That is actual bull shit.”

“Listen, I know you don’t get it because we never believed in God beforehand… like growing up and stuff. I get that,” he said on what would eventually be our second to last phone call, “But there has to be a reason this is happening. This doesn’t just happen. It has to be the earth saying, ‘wake up!’”

“Or it’s because we haven’t found enough data to establish a treatment plan yet,” I responded, emotion tightening my neck, “Everything has a reason, you’re right. I agree. But everything has a medical reason too. If we harness stem cells and create biomarkers and use donor organs… We can definitely find a solution for this. Have you seen that report about the gene modulators yet?”

“WAKE UP!” he kept talking… “The universe is telling us to wake the fuck up, and I can’t help but think we’ve done this to ourselves.”

“What the hell are you even saying?” I fumed at the time, “You can’t just pray the gay away, Antony. That’s not how this works.”

“I know I can’t,” was his reply, suddenly softer than normal, “But this isn’t some conversion therapy, Rose. This is the end. People are dying. A lot of them. I can’t help but feel like we did it to ourselves.”

He was dead a few weeks later.

I had read about groups forming alliances with churches and spiritual leaders because they felt the only way to stop the spread was through abstinence. It makes sense. No touching. But to think that this was our punishment for not abstaining as a population? Or that we brought this on ourselves through sodomy and sin? Or that this was just AIDS 2.0, and another chance to fault the Convenient Homosexual?

“That is actual bull shit” I said to him… but then he was dead.

For a while, we had a lot of reports on the news. We knew that it was spreading and that it was certainly through touch. Movies like Dangerous Touch and 40 Days and 40 Nights and trash zombie flicks soared to the top of download streaming services before it stopped being funny. Or before they were all dead. I’m not sure which came first.

Some went theological (even surprising sources like my brother). But when they started finding groups dead in prayer circles- holding hands and shriveled up like prunes… shells of who they used to be – it started to echo louder. Eventually, the media stopped reporting all together. Now, there hasn’t been any sign of civilized life in weeks.

“Is the media really considered civilized anyways?” Theo had joked once, long before they were gone too.

We used to talk about all of the reactions humanity was having to this outbreak. We would judge, and argue, and even laugh. The Suicide Supremacists fascinated us the most. Then the deniers. Sometimes the conspiracy theorists. But eventually there were too many divides to count, and no way to count them, or even see the coverage anymore.

Eventually, we were left alone. Trapped. Shut off from the world… with nothing to do but build our own.

Continued Tomorrow.

** Thumbnail Art Credit: Erick Centeno **