Beyond Imagination - 3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

August 20^th 1992

(Elliot Taylor)

I wanted to forget and leave it all behind me, but I couldn’t. When he confirmed that everything, I remembered was real, I couldn’t ignore the voice in my head any longer. For years, I forced myself to accept the world as it was, believing nothing I felt or wanted would matter. All the experiences of connection and understanding beyond human comprehension were just childish dreams. Then, the proverbial pandora’s box was opened when I knew those connections and experiences were real, I needed to explore and learn more about everything and especially about this strange man.

It didn’t take me long to find out his name was David Freeman; he was twenty-four years old at the time of our first encounter during the first day of my freshman year. He served as an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at my college, which was strange considering his aptitude and high intelligence. Beyond the surface details, very few people knew any details about his personal life, but several classmates from his hometown in Florida revealed his history to me. I learned about his brother’s horrific murder, which has made his family and him very closed off to others. I also knew based on the desperate intensity of his bite and caressing suckle of my wound during that thunderstorm, he may be hiding some facts about his sexual interests like me. None of that explained his knowledge, though.

For the next two years, I did my best to follow him. I took every class he taught, even summer classes that weren’t covered by my scholarship. I followed him to every event he was lecturing at, paying for the guest passes. I even took up jogging just so I could jog past his house every day, despite never being athletically inclined before. I had to take on a part-time job just to keep up my obsession with him. Maybe under other circumstances, it would be like Michael Myers’ level of psychopathic creepiness, but he did not confront me about it, nor report me to the authorities, who would probably send me away to one of the camps or worse. I never entered his house, never spoke about anything outside classwork, nor even had any physical contact. He knew and I knew, but there was an unspoken agreement between us that neither of us should say it.

There was a comfortable quiet relationship between us, a peace that I never found with any girls I made love to during those two years. When I ran late for his class due to my part-time job with a janitorial maintenance company’s night shift, I would find a cup of coffee and muffin at my assigned seat when I entered the class. When he didn’t show up to his class due to illness, I would leave a Tupperware container of chicken soup for him at his doorstep.

Other than those few moments of tenderness between us, the world moved as it had, before I met David. With the years of inward moral focus under President Robertson, things slowly grew into what they were heading towards. There were wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, but the US had withdrawn the bulk of its military to Europe and the US mainland due to internal issues. The Strategic Defense Initiative ended in 1989 with its funding going into faith-based programs, along with an emphasis on new education and employment policies. In noting that the practice of busing school-aged children to create racial diversity was unconstitutional, the US Supreme Court also ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was also unconstitutional since it was not equitable or fair to all groups by forcing certain groups to integrate. In the last 3 years, some things like “White-Only” movie theaters, restaurants, and churches began to come back in different parts of the country. Protests and riots were common news items, along with national guard units in various cities. People were dying from GRID in the camps, people were dying in the streets from the riots. It all felt wrong to me, but folks on the news kept saying that things were going “back to normal” and the President said it was fair for different people to be with their kind. The ideal of equality gave way to fairness, or fairness for certain people.

Then, the world began to fall even further into insanity.

In the afternoon, news reports begin to come in that a KGB coup had happened in the Soviet Union, yesterday. While the US was having its problems, the USSR didn’t fare much better. Their economic liberalization policies had backfired badly. The East German government had fallen and the Baltic states seceded last year. The Communist Party had lost the Presidency of Russia to Boris Yeltsin, who was running as an independent, as well last year. Something was going to happen in response to all this liberalization and democratic progression. According to the news, elements of the Russian military seized Gorbachev and were surrounding Moscow, while Boris Yeltsin had left the city and was rallying units of the Russian military at Vypolzovo air base, where several hundred nuclear weapons were housed. Everyone was holding their breath at this standoff.

I wanted to call my mom, sister, and older brother over the phone, knowing it could be the last call to them. Sadly, other folks had the same idea at the residence hall and there was a line for the phones. I tried looking for phones around campus, but the landlines were all being used. I didn’t know anyone who lived off-campus, except David. I weighed my options throughout the afternoon and into the night while listening to vague reports about troop movements and exchanges of gunfire in Moscow. In the middle of the sleepless night of fear, I chose to act despite my fear.

I jog the six miles to reach David’s home, it took me two hours to reach his front door. The sun is coming up now, so it must be close to morning.

I knock on the door three times before he appears. He stares at me in amazement. I notice his face appears sullen with tears streaking his cheeks. I want to embrace him out of instinct, but despite the circumstances, years of repressing such desires hold me back.

We didn’t have time for our emotional impasse, so I ask him pointedly, “Can I use your phone, Professor Freeman? I need to phone home.”

He looks at me sheepishly, then answers, “It won’t matter, Elliot. The nukes are on their way. They already hit Florida at 5:29 AM.”

In shock, I stammer my denial in the face of reality, “No, things like that can’t happen. Things are going back to normal, right? This is all wrong…This…”

Before I can stammer any more words of self-denial, he grabs me into an embrace, then plants a kiss on my lips. As his tongue enters my mouth, I stop resisting the attraction that I held for him over the last two years. The world will soon be a pile of nuclear ash, there was no reason to resist anymore.

When we broke the kiss, David tells me, “I like men sexually and I have fantasies that make me hate myself.”

Without hesitation, I reveal my truth, “I am sexually fluid, gender doesn’t matter to me. It’s the individual, who attracts me.”

As we finish exchanging those truths. A strange sound emanated from behind David. He moves aside to reveal an odd creature, who appears reptilian in character and one hundredth the size of a human being. The creature was nibbling on an apple, happily unaware that the fruit may be one of the last things he could be enjoying.

David introduces the creature, “This is Pick, he’s an alien from the planet Binpuka Minor.”

My eyes widen at this revelation, “You have an actual alien being, you had real proof that we’re not alone in the universe. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

David shakes his head, “Look around you, do you think that the revelation that we’re not alone in the universe would be well received? We’re killing each other and this planet for petty reasons based on presumptions and selfish desires. The government would just cover it up and lock anyone with knowledge of it away.”

I point to Pick, “If you got him, then you must have a way of contacting others. My friend was stranded here on Earth, but he used human electronics to reach his people for help. If we get a hold of them, they can fix all of this. They can give us another chance in the past.”

David raises his voice in frustration, “You don’t think I tried over the years after GRID broke out? You don’t think I’ve tried to fix things on my own with the technology we have on Earth? I got a complete encyclopedia of alien civilizations and interstellar cartography in my head, but it’s useless. No one wants to answer me and I cannot create a stable temporal field with our electronics,” he huffs bitterly, “To them, we’re a lost cause.”

I look up at the bright red-orange sky of early daylight, softly replying, “He promised to come back for me.”

I am completely lost. The world is ending and there is nothing left to live for. The truth of my dreams has become bittersweet. I walk into David’s house and curled myself in a corner of the room to cry.

(David Freeman)

Dammit, why can’t I do something to change this? The radio broadcaster said San Diego was just hit by a nuke, so we’re 138 miles away from the first strike in California. I guess that the Soviet and US forces will strike major nuclear military bases first to hopefully mitigate the nuclear exchange by reducing retaliatory strikes. San Diego is home to several nuclear aircraft carriers, so it’s an obvious first-strike target. After the first wave, the second wave of strikes will focus on the remaining military bases and the weapons development laboratories. We’re less than 5 miles away from Santa Susana Field Laboratory, we’re within the outer fallout range of a nuclear blast. With some quick calculations on the variable of ICBM speed, the approximate start of the second wave, and weather patterns, I guess that we’ve got about 16 minutes before the fallout.

I’ve got iodine tablets, food, and water stored in my basement for five weeks, but that’s only enough for me alone. I never thought I’d have to fend for two people, but if we’re careful and conserve our energy during the mandatory three weeks of nuclear fallout decontamination for radiation levels to even out, we may be able to survive this together. Our attraction toward one another has waited two years, so another three weeks is nothing.

In the corner where Elliot is crying at the state of our world, I pull at him, “We have to go downstairs. We got less than fifteen minutes now before the fallout starts and the radiation begins to ramp up.”

Elliot ignores me and resists my pull on his shirt.

In frustration at this stubborn man, I aggressively shove and yell at him, “We got to go downstairs! I am sorry for your loss, but I’ve lost my parents, too. I’ve lost my little brother to all this shit. All we got right now is each other and a decent chance at surviving the end of the world.”

He looks up at me, like my old dog Bruiser when he was a puppy at the pound. There was a need in his eyes, a deep desire for someone to just make things right and bring him home. I noticed that aspect in Elliot, he followed me throughout the last two years and kept an arm’s length away from me. Though, he still maintains an interest in me, including offering me chicken soup. I reciprocate by offering him breakfast, having learned he was paying for all the classes with me through a part-time job as a janitor at night. Knowing he was at the very least bisexual adds layers of thoughts in my mind too about what it means about his sexual interests. None of that matters though at this moment, he just needs to come down stairs with me.

He solemnly responds to my request, “There’s no point to survive. If he won’t come back, if nothing we shared mattered, then I am not worth it.”

Now I am getting very angry, so I slap his face twice to emphasize my point, “To hell with what your alien boyfriend may think about you. Fuck live for yourself, dipshit. If you can’t live for yourself, then live for whatever this is between us. I am human and can’t offer you certain things due to my nature, but I can promise you that I won’t ever leave you behind.”

Elliot stands and takes my hand. Staring at my clock, I can see we have about five minutes left after that mini-existential meltdown. Pick walks alongside us, having abandoned the apple core he was munching on earlier. As we walk towards the stairs that will take us to the basement, Elliot suddenly stiffens and holds me still.

A big smile broadens his face as he says, “They’re here.”

He pulls me toward the front door and I follow, not sure if I believe him. When we went outside and there was nothing there, my heart began to pump hard. We had less than five minutes now to get downstairs, there was no time for psychotic breaks from reality. Pick followed us outside as well and I shudder to think he will wander off like he somedays does into the nearby woods, unaware of the imminent danger that we all face. Yet, Pick stood still looking at the sky like Elliot. I stare too, but I see nothing up there.

After what feels like three minutes, I shake Elliot to see some sense, “We don’t have much time Elliot, he’s not coming. No one is coming for us.”

A loud boom could be heard, I covered my eyes in fear of a bright nuclear flash, but none came.

Realizing the false fear as a nuclear flash would precede the sonic boom unlike what movies depict, I open my eyes to see a silver metallic object floating a few feet in the air. It hasn’t changed in fourteen years, since I last saw it. The embarkation platform lowers and a strange child-like creature with a bright and pulsating heart-like area on its body greets us.

It speaks, “Elliot…come…”

Elliot releases me and runs up the ramps to embrace the alien, “I missed you E.T., so much it hurts.”

For a moment staring at their reunion and the joy on Elliot’s face, I feel envy and hatred toward the alien that had captured his heart. Then, I realized that he was nothing to me and I was nothing to him, except friends who shared similar experiences, waiting for another encounter like this one here.

As my mind is lost in thought, another familiar voice booms behind Elliot and E.T., “Get in me Navigator, we got to get out of dodge before I become scrap metal, haha.”

I didn’t need to be told twice; I race up the ramp with Pick following close behind. With Max back in my life, I know I can fix everything that went wrong in the last fourteen years. Save my little brother, save the millions of people suffering and dying, and save the world.