Memories of the Old World and the New

Billy was sleeping alone on the streets of the City, lying atop something soft. Alex had left him a few hours ago to pursue their own goals. Story of his life, Billy supposed. Not that he thought about such things all the time, Billy told himself. He had better things to think about such as killing a CEO, which nowadays seemed like killing the ghost of a king. Billy pondered the implications of that metaphor for a bit. After all, there seemed to be no CEOs left outside of the City walls. Indeed, there seemed to be only the one within. Billy often wondered about whatever happened to those CEOs that seemed to be everywhere when he was a baby. One night, two or so years back, he and Cate discussed this very topic. It might have even been the night she left. Then again, that was so long ago. It’s all a bit of a haze now.

“You ever wonder what happened,” asked Cate wistfully as the full moon shined through clouds, which cried frozen tears.

“Well,” mused Billy without really thinking through what he was about to say, “I suppose they all died horribly since that’s what the police are wont to do.”

“I mean about the rest of the world.”

“Oh that. Well, I’m sure it’s still puttering about, people living their lives and whatnot. Life, as they say, finds a way.” Billy had that smug look on his face that thought such a line would be pithy enough to end the conversation whereas Cate was looking a tad bit annoyed, a face Billy was growing all too accustomed with. “B-but I suppose there’s more too it than that…”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Cate said without supposing a damn thing. “Take billionaires for example. They used to be all the rage before we were kids. Nowadays, you’re more likely to see a jabberwocky than a billionaire.” (This was in reference to the pair having seen a jabberwocky flying in the snowy sky with a screaming person in its mouth less than an hour before.)

“Maybe we sacred them off.”

“Unlikely. When I was a kid, my uncle would tell stories of the billionaires. They would have these meetings where they’d talk about how they were going to make even more money. They’d buy armies with their money. Some even owned slaves. Not just human ones. They enslaved deer! I don’t think beings of such power could be killed by something as simple as us.” The prospect of something being able to enslave deer, even at a time when Billy had never seen one, frightened the young lad.

“S-so what happened to the rest of them?”

“I dunno. When I asked my uncle, he’d just…” Cate moved her hands in a way she thought meant something, “look away before talking about something else. Back then, I think there were like five or six. Nowadays, there’s only one left.”

“So, what’s your point? You usually have one with these sorts of questions.” Cate gave Billy a look of bitterness seen mostly when a minor flaw is pointed out by someone less clever than they are.

“My point is that the world outside needed billionaires. Without them, it’s falling apart.”

“Come now,” Billy said with a nervous laugh, “no one group of people could ever be able to control all those Jabberwockies and Skin-Walkers and Spiders and Deer. Besides, you can’t just tie things together like that. Just because something goes away, it doesn’t mean the bad things happen. I mean… if I were to cough right now, would the snow stop?”

“I suppose not…”

“Well, there you have it.” Billy then proceeded to cough. Not so much to prove a point, but because being stuck in the cold night while it’s snowing in a southwest City tends to make one feel sick. As if the universe existed solely to spite him, the snow stopped. “Err… Have you ever been to the outside world?”

“Course not!” Cate said to spare Billy’s ego. “Have you heard the stories? They have all these vicious gangs and thieves and such who’ll butcher us if we ever left. You hear about those two girls who left the city?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, they found their bodies in a ditch a few miles from the limits.” Cate then preceded to hand Billy a drawing of the bodies. The image was a bit scratchy. There were certainly bones in the picture, though they could be anyone’s.

“Which one’s the red head and which the black?” But before Billy could remember the answer, the Sasquatch he was resting on stood up. In the Sasquatch’s defense, he was terrified by the sudden realization that the squishy rock it was wearing as a hat was, in actuality, a sentient being. There was a period of silence as the two looked at one another in complete shock and confusion with a twinge of “OH GOD, IT’S GOING TO EAT ME!”

Finally, the Sasquatch said, “…You’re not going to eat me… are you?” At first, Billy thought he spoke in a Scottish accent. As he thought about it, the voice sounded more like an American doing an impersonation of a Scotsman, and a good one at that. What Billy couldn’t tell was whether or not the eight foot tall Sasquatch, with hands large enough to crush a head and feet that were relatively well fit for such a height (which was contrary to what people said of Sasquatches as having the feet of a 15 foot man), was taking the piss.

“…No?”

“Are you sure? I mean, I’m relieved that you don’t and all, but I heard you eat deer, so…”

“ARE YOU INSANE!” exclaimed Billy as if someone had casually suggested dancing naked on the moon. “Have you seen their fucking teeth? I still have nightmares because of the fucking teeth. What kind of idiot would eat a deer?”

“…Someone more terrifying than a deer.” 

“…You find humans terrifying?”

“Oh-ho-ho-ho, no. I’ve been around humans for millennia. People, while not my favorite animal on the planet, tend to be…” It took him a moment before the word came to him, at which point a stupid grin came onto his face. “Mercurial! Mercurial in nature, that’s what you are. And yet, when it comes to holdouts like you city folk… I’ve been around enough apocalypses to know things get violent towards the end.”

“The apocalypse?”

“Oh yes, this whole place has the stench of it on it. You more so than some.”

“Me? B-but I’m nobody special. I mean, I’ve been thinking about killing-” Billy stopped himself before he could finish that sentence. It was as if the words were forcing him to speak them aloud. The Sasquatch simply smiled with his teeth bare. It was a friendly smile, much like the smile a tiger makes to a small child before critiquing his darkly humorous snowmen.

“Well,” laughed the Sasquatch, “I suppose everybody thinks about killing from time to time. Doesn’t mean they actually do it. Was it anyone important?”

“…the CEO of the Fuzon Corporation.”

“Ah yes,” said the Sasquatch with an air of wistfulness, “the last of the billionaires. Nobody important at all.”

“But… a friend of mine said they were what kept the world from falling apart and without them…”

“Bah! Billionaires just won the game of capitalism, is all. There were no magic to them, no godly powers. Just a bunch of rich people living how they pleased while dancing to the music of everyone else’s screams.”

“So what happened to them?”

“Well, nobody wins the game of Capitalism forever. And once you lose…” There was a poignancy to the silence. The wind howled and the sun began to rise.

“So the world’s going to end,” smiled Billy.

“No. The world already ended,” said the Sasquatch with some mirth. “I told you, the City’s just a holdout. Last one, I believe. Rest of the world already ended and moved on with its life.” Before Billy could ask what he meant, the Sasquatch continued. “The apocalypse happens every now and then. Sometimes there’s a great dieback where the “Great Filter” consumes everyone. Other times, the next generation up and eats the previous ones. And sometimes people just “realize” that whipping others to work the fields because they couldn’t be arsed to do it is a shitty thing to do. To say that the end of the world means the end of everything is, to be quite blunt, egotistical at best. Life is this ever-changing thing. It adapts to the way things are falling apart and works its way into being something new. Once upon a time, Jabberwockies were merely the creation of some poet. The Thin White Duke was a blurred photograph someone posted on the Internet. And dogs used to eat cats. Everything comes out of the woodwork eventually. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“…I suppose,” Billy said with a dejected tone.

“Are you sad because you’re lonely?” The Sasquatch asked unprompted, but with genuine concern.

“No, I- I am not lonely. I just… I just like being alone.”

“Just because you like being alone doesn’t mean you can’t be lonely.” Billy looked into the Sasquatch’s eyes. They were softer than the legends would have him believe. An ocean of existence had washed away in front of them. And yet, there was still room for wonder; still space for silly things like compassion and empathy; still time to try to help someone in need. Billy didn’t know when he started hugging the Sasquatch nor when he stopped. Such is the nature of hugging a Sasquatch. “Don’t feel so lonely now, now do you?”

“A bit lonely.”

“Aye, but less so. Might as well join you on your trip to the Fuzon Head Office. That is where you’re going, right.”

“Yep. Though are you sure? As you said, it’s not that important to the grand scheme of things.”

“And quite right I was. But some Historian with a capital “H” might decide to say that you caused the end of the world by killing the last CEO, and I’d like to walk up to them and bop them on the nose for being a shit.”

“…That’s not a thing that happens, is it?”

“Oh, happens all the time. History, and especially History with a capital “H,” is seventy percent archeology, twenty percent literary analysis, and ten percent fiction. Rarely do all the facts show up in the ruins. My guess is that some jerk will put up some obscure quotes they found lying about to look like a serious examination of history. Might even be in a foreign language to heighten the importance. Probably have a whole tangent about the importance of your father they made up out of whole cloth to make it so that you were “symbolically destined to end the world.” As if the plot was the most important part of the world’s end. But that’s history for you: not what actually happened, but what the teller says happened.” They didn’t talk much for a bit.

“I should have asked sooner, but what’s your name?”

“Sasquatch don’t have names. I’m just Sasquatch or The Sasquatch.”

“Huh. Well, anyways (I’m Billy, by the way.), Sasquatch… what’s the rest of the world like?” It hadn’t occurred to Billy how long it had been since he was outside until the sentence had left his throat. He didn’t much think of his time outside the City, unless someone else prompted him to. The most he had been was three days prior to being locked up, but that was just to take a piss, only to realize he was on the other side of the border.

“Oh, I’d say it’s a lot nicer than this part of it is. Least the bits I’ve been to. They’ve got some natural things going on. Or, at the very least, the creatures of the outside tend to be more willing to let strangers be. People living in tree houses two stories tall, electric wheelchairs powered by the light of the sun and the moon. Some still live in the houses and apartments and what ever other buildings are still standing, but most people tend to be somewhat nomadic. You’ve seen Spiders come and go, have you not?”

“Yes, I’ve been to some of their performances. Haven’t seen a good one though.”

“Ah. Well, whenever you decide to leave the City, go to a Spider’s performance. They’re usually absolutely transcendent out there. Anyways, the outside world tends to get along quite nicely with one another. Some would say that it’s a genuine Utopia.”

“Yeah, well bet you five bucks there’s some evil underneath the surface of the brave new world out there,” Billy snarked a line Cate had once sold him without thinking too much about the implications.

“Oh naturally,” said the Sasquatch much to Billy’s surprise, “but then, the difference between a utopia and a dystopia is the willingness to look for those terrible, sometimes evil, flaws and improve on them. A dystopia is a frozen utopia, as many a Spider and Utopian has told me. In fact, I think I read a book about it once. Shame I can’t remember the name of it. Something… Omelet? …No, probably not. It’ll come to me.”

“If it’s so great there,” said Billy with a little subconscious malice, “why come here?” There was a pause. Billy wondered if the Sasquatch didn’t have a reason for coming here. If he just did things. But that didn’t seem to be within what he saw of his character. Surely such a being as old as the Sasquatch, Billy thought, would think things more carefully that I would. He’s probably playing me along before he inevitably abandons me and goes on his merry-

But before Billy could finish that thought, the Sasquatch gave him a toothy grin. “I was curious as to what happened to the world,” replied the Sasquatch and said nothing more on the matter. Instead, he asked Billy what his last name was, to which Billy smirked.

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