He-Him 497.
Dim morning.
Sam Park unwillingly shifts his weight, rises, and walks to the shower. It is a short walk; his is a studio apartment. Sam slips off his sweatpants and turns on the water – 3/4 turn hot, 2/3 turn cold.
Eight taps of the gearshift when exiting the car, three key-twists when leaving home. Good numbers, bad numbers.
The water feels good on his neck. He feels a connection to it. He admires his primate hands, which do so much thankless work. His belly button sits proud and silent. Its work laborious but now long complete, it sits in a content state of early retirement. Raw buttocks and weathered hands.
He knows there will never be men in HAZMAT suits, no more A-bombs, and certainly no asteroids the size of stadiums. He isn’t scared of the end. It’s the “till then” that makes Sam sweat. The boxes and wires that amuse us in our hollowed-out lives.
Bones live on. Uncles' and aunts' and rotten dream-children's. Bounties beneath wet grasses and stone markers. Bones all.
Tom’s driver’s license pegs him at 35, and on a good day he can still pull off 30, but he is, for all intents and purposes, much older than all of that.
He notices a small beetle crawling up his shower door. Slipping, then regaining its grasp. Small body, smaller brain. For a moment, it seems to eye him. Then nothing. Like a snapped twig.
People are dying, being born. Killing and laughing and smoking dope and eating pastrami in the park. Our caves have become houses, our fireplaces moved indoors, but it’s all just wrapping paper for lonely souls lacking answers. Yours. Mine.
The future is robotic and bland and the scariest of those Sam has so far heard predicted. Even among those of government snipers and alien pee-storms and bio-warfare that would make men’s bones melt and their tongues sizzle something wretched.
The damned problem is the inconsistency of it all. On Monday, Sam might be carefree; Tuesday, bleak; Wednesday, uncaring. But the numbers always return. They are his lot: 3, 460, 792, 11. Most people will never see as they chant in the stadium's night air.
(October 16, 2016, was the day he discovered it, the "it" which made all other its irrelevant. Do you hear me?)
3/4 turn, 2/3 turn, water off. Four steps out of the bathroom, always four steps. They are half-steps, really – his bathroom is quite little – but always four.
Sam turns off the TV and rubs his eyes. His purpose is now. The numbers are his friends and will serve him. The trap is set.
Sam’s teachers always praised his coordination, and now it will benefit him in ending the damn thing. People and their hopeless god-hopes. Outside, rain falls. Sam puts the object under his arm and heads out to make fathers weep and mothers wail. Uncaring starlight will press onward, humans at last washed away from a quiet, lonesome universe. Pale, unstoppable starshine.