Nuclear, From the God of the Internet
Wendy paced back and forth in her cramped apartment with its vomiting yellow walls and stained carpet. She knocked some books off of a shelf, unread, unable to quell emotions that bit her soul. Running into the kitchen, not six feet away, she threw plates onto the ground, which shattered into a million sharp pieces. Their edges sent a message to her, Can you escape unscarred?
“I can’t take it!” She screamed. She stepped on the glass and let out a wail of pain.
What is there to take? The voice inside her said. You have nothing.
“I do, too, have something, someone. I am loved. My boyfriend loves me.”
He loves your creaking bed, the smell of heavy sweat as you massage his ego under those cheap comforters.
“He doesn’t only want that, I know. He said it. He said it after one month, I love you.
Quick words are impatient.
“You’re always speaking in riddles. I can’t understand you, and I don’t care. He loves me.”
I can’t speak to you bluntly. You wouldn’t pay attention at all then.
“You can’t talk at all! You aren’t real.”
You?
Wendy screamed. She thrust her door open and left it unlocked as she slipped under the rain. Orange lights exposed her shadow, halos around them from the falling water, little dots of distraction.
A tarnished truck hit a puddle of water that splashed Wendy. Drenched, she laughed. Turning to the puddle, she hopped right in and jumped like a little girl.
“I’m free. I’m free. I’m free!” She chanted. An immense power seemed to take over her body. The world around her blurred.
“What?” She shivered.
In front of her, a traffic light appeared.
Red.
Where did that come from? Wendy asked herself. The sun began to rise in the west, odd, gently lighting the world, the rain slithering down into the drains like an enchanted snake.
She saw Jacob, her beau, by the pole. When their eyes locked, his mouth parted. Sounds came out of the opening, sounds she’d never heard from a mortal man.
“Jacob? Are you okay?” Wendy asked.
Jacob flapped his arms up and down and a wind picked up. It quickly moved her hair, not like a caress, not like the hand of a lover.
Jacob.
She ran toward him, launching herself at the body with a firm concentration.
She reached out.
He punched her.
Wendy fell to the ground. A burst of hatred exploded from her body, and she jumped up and began to beat harder and harder. He bit the body, she scratched the body, and she felt a sharp pain in her arm.
Wendy slowly drifted into the world. She felt numb and detached. Despite that, she looked around.
The walls caged her in a room. A woman sat in a chair, a quite beautiful woman, the kind who never aged. Her long silver hair outshined her scrubs.
Wendy groaned then attempted to sit up.
Nothing.
She tried again.
Around her body, thick straps held her to the bed, suffocating her tolerance. Her messy curly hair accompanied her face. Wendy shook her head back and forth, and she struggled against the strong…
The person spoke, “Wendy, hun, don’t get too excited.”
The voice calmed her, a harmony in her day of chaos.
“Wher-?”
“You’re in the hospital, hun. I’m nurse Nancy, and I will be sitting with you for the night. We need to monitor your condition.”
“What condition?” A fog dropped over Wendy’s consciousness.
“Calm down,” said Nurse Nancy. “It will all be okay. We’re here to help you.”
Wendy sat back, slightly more relaxed, kind words a rarity in her world. She tried to remember what happened. Images came to the surface, a man struggled. She thought it had been Jacob, so sure, but as she scanned her memory, she saw it as the face of a much older man, not old. In the vision, she screamed at that voice, that awful voice. Out of the mouth of the stranger, she heard, “Bitch, what are you doing?”
Not Jacob.
Not the voice.
A man in a lab coat opened the door and walked into the room. Like Nurse Nancy, he boasted a head of grey hair, attractive in his own way.
“Wendy Snik, do you know why you’re here.”
“An accident?”
“No, you beat up a man in the street. You yelled at voices. What did they say to you?” His face expressed sympathy.
“I only hear one voice, not voices.”
“Okay, what is the voice saying now?” He asked, gently twisting his pen.
“She’s gone.”
“Did she tell you to hurt the man?” The doctor coaxed.
“She told me I had nothing.”
“What does that mean?
I don’t know.
“She speaks in riddles. I can never understand what she wants. She talks to me, blah, blah, and teases me.”
“What was your childhood like?”
Wendy paused.
“Go on, hun,” Nurse Nancy urged.
“I, um, I don’t have parents. I was raised by my grandma. She drank a lot, and she yelled at me that I was a demon going to Hell. She liked to touch me at night. She called it, ‘her medicine” and would lick her fingers like one does a Birthday cake.” Wendy was amazed by how easily the words came to her, how much she could tell these wonderful people. She went on for an hour.
“Well, it seems like you had a very traumatic life. We’re going to give you some medicine, let you rest a few days, then send you home.”
Over the next few days, Wendy remained in a daze. She sat in a chair and slept for half of the day, and when she finished resting she played a game of checkers. She lost every time.
“You’ve gotta win one,” a scratched up Sarah said.
“I’m a bitch. We never win one.” It came from her mouth before she could stop.
Sarah laughed. “Of course, a female dog in heat could never win.” Sarah walked away from the game, leaving the checkers in their place.
Wendy’s heart thumped, and she understood.
“Well, Wendy, you are doing great. How do you feel about going home?” The old doctor asked.
“I think I am ready.”
“Then let’s get back to life!” He went away and came back at noon with her clothing in a bag, nicely washed.
Wendy walked down the street. That’s when it occurred to her that she did not possess any money, and she couldn’t buy a bus ticket. Her apartment existed on the other side of town, too far to walk to.
“Hey, man?” She asked. “Do you have five dollars?”
“Do I look like a man?” The hoarse voice came out.
“I’m, sorry, I’m…”
“A woman, and it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
“i’m…”
“I’m a woman, too,” and she knocked Wendy to the ground. With this action, came the memories of childhood. A bad event caused them to boil up. Feelings caused tears to fall down her face.
I am not loved.
It took Wendy a moment, and then she got up, pulled her tight jeans up, a bit tighter from the hospital food, too indulged.
I’ll walk home. I don’t care.
She passed a nice restaurant, serving the good people of society. A homeless many sat outside reading a book. Wendy inspected the cover, The Time Machine. She took a step back. Since when did homeless people sit outside and read the classics?
“Hey, you got a dollar?” He asked.
“I don’t even have one for myself, sorry.”
“Well, here, you can have one of mine.” The old man was dressed in dirty rags, his face whipped with an eternity of punishment.
“That’s okay, I’m sorry.” Wendy shook with nervous guilt.
“Sorry for what? We’ve got to make it in this world together,” he replied. He stood up and put a five-dollar bill in her back pocket.
“The trade has been made.” Wendy jumped back but couldn’t bring herself to insult the generous man. He smiled with absent teeth.
She walked until she found a bus stop and paid the money the man gave to her. She rested her head back, making her mind thoughtless.
When she arrived at the apartment, she saw the glass on the floor. It asked her to come forward and dare to challenge it. The light accented the striking parts.
A ding came from her computer.
Weird, she thought. She forgot the bottle of pills from the doctor were snugged into her back pocket. When she remembered, she realized she hadn’t taken them since the afternoon.
No, the voice told her.
Wendy cussed. She was back, of course.
Wendy sat down at the dirty laptop and opened the window. The news came up. Children dead in a terrorist attack, a man robbed at church, a man robbing a church, a woman died of an overdose.
I hate this world, she told herself. The pills were wearing off.
I need to take them!
No, the voice said.
“That’s it!”
She opened her blog, and she ranted and raved about the world, about the man, about how she had been failed, about the lack of love. She put a picture of a spraying skunk as her blog’s cover page with the title, “You Wreak, World!”
At first, only her friends, “hit her up” as the blog called it. Then strangers came and came. Wendy enjoyed the attention. They shared her agony and frustration. Rage leaked into comments.
“Why are homeless men reading classics?”
“Why are people in the diner not giving money to the poor and just enjoying their lives while others’ suffer? Why?”
“Why would a beggar give his money to the better off?”
The blog exploded with comments and hits.
Suddenly, the screen on the television turned on to the news.
“This just in, people are rebelling. They are torching buildings. They are keying people’s cars. They demand justice! The mayor is activating… No, wait!”
“Yes!” Wendy screamed. The world would pay for its injustice.
“Mail Hail,” her computer said.
What? Wendy asked.
She moved to the computer again. There was a message from someone called, “Jon Postel.”
Who is that? She wanted to open it, or something inside her wanted to open it, had to, no choice.
“Hello, I am the digital soul of Jon Postel, the god of the internet. I knew I found the right person to blog, experienced and an influencer, the right spell. Good job!”
Wendy tilted her head. Then words began to write themselves.
“The greatest accomplishment of humanity is death.”
Outside, a bright light began to grow.
She became nothing, no memory to hold onto, along with the human race.
After the nuclear bombs dropped then clouds cleared, the stars twinkled in the sky again, no longer covered by light or pollution.
We won.
