The story begins with two men discussing what they will do. They are both sitting at an underpass, drinking bottled water and a beer. One is having a smoke. It is unknown at this point what it was that causes their apprehension.
Another portion of the story is in the past, where both of them at two separate respective times taking an elixir that would make them insusceptible to the plague that we eventually will find out they unleashed.
Part of the conflict is that they had been working to create a new type of airborne bacteria or virus or fungus or something that would consume particulate matter in the atmosphere, and would by-produce something that would remove toxins from the air as well as replace the ozone, bit-by-bit.
Something like-
Ozone will also turn cyanides to the one thousand times less toxic cyanates:
CN- + O3 → CNO- + O2
Unfortunately, there was also the danger that they would create something that would flourish in the human system and destroy all life on earth. Under this possibility they created a kill switch. The kill switch turned out to only work on the individual level, not unlike a vaccination. They did not want to raise the suspicions of their benefactors/ funders etc. so they made no mention of the potential dangers of their work. They also chose to speak of it as little as possible to each other. But secretly they each respectively depleted the kill switch serum to vaccinate themselves.
Maybe one of them vaccinated his wife or mother or father or lover or something, but that person committed suicide.
Another portion of the story takes place at other points in their respective timelines- they separate for a short while, a few months, each keeping a diary. One is penitent and regretful and the other blames bad fortune. Both have small discoveries and memories and adventures along the way before they meet back up, months later. One has found out some very important news about their situation (maybe a conspiracy? Maybe they are sterile?) The other has worked out how to generate electricity and etc.
One is disheveled, looks like a wild man, and the other is clean shaven.
After months alone, their embrace is epic.
Phillip: “Oh, you smell like hell!”
Jarrod: “You smell like mangoes!”
Next scene- Jarrod is given a bottle of women’s mango-scented body wash to bathe with as he walks with a slight smile into a bathroom with a towel in hand, the sound of running water in the bkgd.
They become friends again and both work out a theory that some other people may still have yet survived the accident.
Jarrod, on his travels, drove thru a town where he had to get out of his car and find a new one, the dead traffic was too thick and he was also running out of gas. When he gets out to find another car, he is stalked and chased by a ruddy looking male lion. He narrowly escapes with his life. This leads him to go in the opposite direction to the home lab in Ohio in order to figure out what the possibility would be that other humans would live. (The TX facility burned down when a power grid blew during the first month, and 1/3 of the town is ash now)
Then one day, to their surprise, a freight train at full speed goes barreling by the area where they live, taking out abandoned cars and trash as it comes thru.
Now they are left to face a new series of possibilities.
Phillip has the idea to go south and check out the train, Jarrod wants to go north and see where it came from…
NOTES:
Dried milk briquettes are used instead of coal in a boiler.
Starts a fire with a cola can and a candy bar
Starts a fire with some steel wool and a six volt battery
Breaks open a water heater for some water, accidentally opens a gas main
Tries to build a radio at an old radio shack, but cannot
One figures out a way to make a Petri dish
One is very hungry and is trying to find a way to open cans, can’t find a can opener anywhere
While away, Phillip contracts Cryptosporidium from some stagnant water, and is sick for three days…this spurs him to figure out how to re-generate electricity in the town…
Cat Power – I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
-j
April 26, 2006
-
Subscribe
No Comments Yet