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.It would be funny enough for them that every enemy would put down arms for an hour, a sixty-minute truce, in order to enjoy my performance.A fox would sit next to a pit-bull.On its other side would be a pack of cats.Then a bear.All of them would be united by this ridiculous newcomer, grey-haired and wrinkly, that snores during the night, whose tent falls over when the wind brushes against it, whose knife sits unused.The poor old guy would have no chance at all.This animal, whose great, great grandparents used to lie on someone’s living room carpet and sleep all day, has only itself and other 'on.other like-minded dogs to rely on, and yet they thrive in the woods as though the bears and wolves should have taken them more seriously all along.February 4Of all the times people looked to religion for support, none was more important than when the Blocks started appearing: humanity’s future was in doubt.Instead of giving a unified message of comfort, though, each religion stumbled.Some ministers stuck to the same stories they always told, saying it had to be part of God’s greater plan.No one wanted to hear that.Some rabbis continued saying the Lord works in mysterious ways and who were we to question his will? People groaned when they heard this.Some priests told their followers not to question how God works.This brought another round of sighs.The most common reaction was for church, mosque, and temple leaders to throw their hands in the air with exasperation.What kind of joke was being played on them where the end wasn’t approaching with horns sounding from the heavens but with the birth of people who couldn’t hear or say prayers, couldn’t attend church services, couldn’t pass church doctrine to another generation? What were the clergymen supposed to do with these people—they were still God’s children after all.The Blocks didn’t attend mass, they didn’t read the Bible or Koran, they didn’t attend Sunday school.How were the churches supposed to accept the Blocks if they preached that regular people were supposed to do all of those things, all the while knowing Blocks couldn’t do any of them? Some leaders from each religion modified their teachings to accommodate the Blocks, but mostly the religions turned their backs on these people.The Blocks were left to find salvation for themselves.A few clergymen, not satisfied with the speed of their congregation’s discontent, took a proactive approach to alienating themselves from their followers.Some said stupid things (that Blocks didn’t have souls) that enraged every family with a Block child.Seeing as how a hundred percent of the children were Blocks when this outrage was spoken, huge portions of each congregation stopped going to church, quit volunteering their time, and withheld donating a portion of their income.There were people, however, who didn’t care what negative things were said about the Blocks, they simply cared about getting their own ticket to heaven.Other people, people like myself and my parents, saw how concocted these holy men were and stopped paying attention to them.Attendance at churches and temples plummeted.People stopped praying for something to save them or to changeq normal about ve been their circumstances.Religion went from being the second most important social influence in the world (nothing could ever topple the family unit as the most important), to becoming completely irrelevant.I think about how I reacted in those days and about how the people around me reacted.We could have given up and started feeling sorry for ourselves, it would have been understandable to do so—there was a noticeable spike in suicides—but most people, myself included, accepted what was happening and continued on.I played on the neighborhood baseball team until we didn’t have enough players to play anymore.I went on with my life as I would have if there were still kids in the neighborhood.I acted like Andrew would answer me when I asked him questions.Nothing changed just because the minister down the road was one of the first people to leave Camelot in favor of New Orleans.The rest of the neighborhood woke up the next day and continued with their lives just as they had the previous day and just as they would until they passed away or joined the minister at the group community.That was all.A year after the minister left, a family from Michigan moved into his old house, took down the few religious relics that had been left behind, and made it their own home.Life went on.I wish the Johnsons could have remembered that.February 6Without a hope of someone new coming to the neighborhood, I catch myself creating imaginary friends much the way I did when I was four years old.I could go online right now and chat with someone from San Francisco or Dallas, inquire about how they’re doing.Do I really need to see and hear other people going through the same thing, develop a bond with a random someone on a random Saturday, get to know their life and their struggles, just to have them pass away days or weeks later?So I create people that will never have to die.Most of the time these friends are newcomers to Camelot who saw the lines of empty homes on their way to one of the final communities, thought the area looked nice, and decided they would stay for a while.I imagine them being happy to listen to my stories while I prepare dinner.There’s more to making a good meal than pressing a button on the food processor; you still have to get the a nice, quiet neighborhoode about ve been seasoning right and serve it with a nice wine.When I venture down to the basement, these new visitors provide an extra set of eyes to look out for bugs.I prepare a list of things to tell them about while they sort through random boxes like curious kids.“That box? That’s filled with notes I passed my girlfriend in class when we were seniors… That picture? My mom painted it… She was quite the artist.I wish I had more of her paintings.”I don’t actually say these things out loud.When I imagine friends spending the day with me, I think about the conversations we would have but I keep the actual words to myself.If he was alert and could hear my voice, not even Andrew would know I was spending my day talking to people who aren’t there.I do talk to myself as much as I ever have, I can’t help that—I even find myself mumbling these words out loud as I type them—but when I talk to myself, it’s more about acknowledging my thoughts than it is speaking to someone who isn’t really there.I’m left wondering why I would create additional make-believe people in my life, none of whom can talk or provide me with feedback, when I already have Andrew in the other room.Here I am with a brother who’s alive and breathing, has been with me through the worst times, and I could talk to him from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep.I don’t, though.He would never get bored with me or yawn and tell me to give it a rest.Maybe it’s because Andrew already knows all the things that worry me, has already heard all my stories.Looking back, that moment when I went from sharing all my daily concerns with him, to protecting him from them, was the point when I went from feeling like Andrew was helping me carry the hardships to feeling absolutely and completely alone in a wilderness that had grown up around me.Something inside me wants someone new to share these things with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]