CORTEZ-MAXIMA LABORATORIES

Happy Apocalypse Day.

My daughter tells me they still celebrate "The 32nd" up there. Technically it's September 1st, but the soldiers call it that because of some…em…something about all those days needing to be together. To be truthful, my tired old brain struggles to recall the reason. It has been so long.

The nomads apparently call the end of the world a holiday, too. Feh. I'm shaking my head as I write this.

The "Thirteen days of the Apocalypse," they call it. It follows a similar pattern. It's the first month of the year but to them, it is the thirteenth. So much for tradition. Something about the world starting anew again, bad luck being good luck, I don't pretend to understand these pagan customs. My girl won't admit it, but she's scared of the nomads, too. Maybe just as much as the soldiers. I can see it in her eyes when she speaks of them, how she skips a page in her sketchbook, skips a step across the room…

She is here

Happy Apocalypse Day.

I suppose that's the 9th anniversary already.

It does not scream out of pain, usually – all the worst parts are numb and the nerves are blunted. I wish I could take credit for that niceity, but, of course, it was all burned away.

It screams for attention. For sleep. It is hard to sleep, he says, the lab is too small, it is too bright. We are lonely, too, you simple thing. If only a bomb were to make ME deaf, then I wouldn't have to listen to this!

He is yelling. Still yelling.

Other men (lesser men?) cried, begged, went silent, even relaxed. He did, once, as well. But now… the way he looks at me when I move to quiet him, it's…

Improper.

I thought he would grow tired of this attitude problem, but I suppose it's just the way he is.

Happy 32nd.

Isaac is sleeping. Finally.

How easily I fall back into the role of father and caretaker. He is a helpless child. Certainly older than my daughter, but not by much. And he is much younger in the mind.

I didn’t see him much before this. Maybe caught a glimpse when the Senator brought him by for his bi-annual checkup. Wispy little man, wouldn’t stand up straight, and stared for too long, in a condescending sort of way. Still does. Although now, the look is much more sinister.

And Elba…what a hopeless woman! To think I looked up to her. She dotes on him, too. Too much. She coddles him. He is wholly dependent on us, yes, but he is still a man, and shouldn’t be softened so. Hasn’t he been feminized enough? Think of his dignity, woman! Countless times I’ve walked into the main laboratory to find them in hushed conversation that quiets on my arrival. If they are plotting something, then I will wring it out of him. Though I can’t let my thoughts get to me. She is a frail old woman. He is bound to his bed.

She is the reason we’re here, she is the one blessed with the ability to reincarnate the dead; God works through her hand. In staying by her side… may he also work through mine.

I keep them alive, I hold the keys; yet it feels like they watch over me.

It has been five years now since she came back. I…wish she was all I lived for. But. Without fail, every time my eye falls on him, it's like one of those tubes is connecting us at the chest.

I mustn't dare sever it.

No man on this cursed, blank earth has artificially lengthened a life so long. The hands of a god, she says. And she is right. My daughter tells me I can help other people out there, too, and I am sure they do exist! And that Elba is wrong, wrong, but how can she be wrong? If she is wrong, doesn't that make me wrong? But why would my little girl lie? Perhaps both truths are truths. There are people, but they are all dead. There is a world, but it is wiped clean. We can make it live again…