Entropy

Entropy

By Warrington Williams

03/4/23

Later that night, we were standing on the north end of Pawleys Island looking at a dull red glow in the sky over what used to be Myrtle Beach.

"As I see it, God is a careless son of a bitch, and you just like to watch. So, just do any damn thing you want with me."

Those were her final words to me. She wasn't angry, upset, or being melodramatic; it was a simple observation along the lines of 'You are wearing a plaid shirt.'

Mercy was never her strong suit.

We had grown up together, our mothers bonded in alcoholism. We were both only “only children” from our mothers, and I was the only male in our strange little world. They probably found it convenient to dump Bonnie and me into a pairing neither of us would have chosen on our own. At least, they more-or-less knew where to find us. We took some solace in this arrangement, but we didn't look away from the truth of it either.

My mother claimed my father was killed in Afghanistan in 2010 at about the same time I was born. I was never able to verify that story, but survivor benefit checks were a constant in my life. Bonnie's story was roughly the same. In 2009, her father was killed in a plane crash in the Philippines, where he served as an "advisor" for the PAC.

We lived on Pawleys Island, a well-established South Carolina beach town. Every afternoon, our mothers would sit on the screened porch of Bonnie's home, watching the tide come in while getting profoundly drunk. This wasn't as painful as it might sound. Various men came and went, and petty dramas came and went with them.

We had the perfect freedom of being inconvenient children, and we were not afraid to use that freedom.

5/29/2023 Memorial Day

We picked our way across the narrow band of sand dunes that bordered Atlantic Avenue and the beach. We spread out a blanket hidden on the beach side of the dunes, perhaps forty yards behind our mothers.

That day, I supposed, to honor American dead, they had moved the party across the road.

The bright white Arabian Shemagh Wrap (she incorrectly called it a burnoose) on my mother's head flapped in the loud wind. She wore sunglasses, a tired one-piece bathing suit, with flaccid flesh escaping on the edges, and mismatched flip-flops. She thought the headgear was hilarious. I don't remember what Bonnie's mother wore. At least, they were very cheerful that day.

Bonnie and I enjoyed spying on our mothers.

But, times were changing for Bonnie and me. Our childish groping was morphing into serious lust.

"Tonight is the night," she said to me there in the dunes, "They will pass out around ten. Come over and I'll be in the cabana annex."

I was thirteen, and she was fourteen.

We clung to that bond off and on for the rest of her life. After we went off to separate colleges, other lovers and spouses came through our lives, but when either of us wanted or needed it, we would meet at some motel or at our homes while the cat was away. My only reservation was it felt a bit incestuous.

I've wondered if our lives revolved around these little illicit rendezvous or if they were just footnotes to our professions and marriages. It really didn't matter then and it damn sure doesn't matter now. Bonnie dug deeply into academia, becoming an anthropologist. She frequently traveled to exotic and sparsely populated areas all over the world; she specialized in the historical evolution of social mores. Bonnie dug deeply into primitive people's heads and hearts.

I had majored in Mechanical Engineering and minored in sociology. My work gradually morphed into writing about the impacts of modern life on social structures and how better engineering might help.

As we moved into middle age, we continued our interludes as we dated and/or married other people. I won't argue the morality of our arrangement; we were just working with what we had.

Maybe in another life, maybe if our world could have maintained some semblance of normalcy, we would probably have maintained our corrupt little charade until we got too tired, but the clock was ticking on life as we knew it.

Here are the last emails we exchanged before everything fell apart: (She never responded to my last one.)

07/04/2047

Fr: B@BnC52923

To: C@BnC52923 

Re: Brazil

Happy 4th, Bwana:

I'm getting too old for field work (like this, anyway); I believe every mosquito in South America bit me today. My bite marks have bite marks of their own. I'm in the State of Rondônia in south-central Brazil hot on the trail of a Wari' tribe, a supposedly reformed branch of cannibals.

I have a crooked guide claiming he can get me in to see a cannibalistic dining ritual of beloved relatives who have left the building. I have to move fast because the Wari' do not have refrigeration.

Professionally speaking, this ritual is very important to me. It is also illegal. No significant fieldwork has been done on the Wari's since the 1960s. I'll never get another chance like this again.

I think about you whenever I'm getting into dodgy situations. I guess I'll have to be more careful. It's not like you can walk out in the middle of a hard-hitting nationally televised interview, jump on a plane and save my plump little ass from the crocodiles and/or locals.

My guide calls himself "Malandro" (I haven't let on that I can speak Portuguese) and he is having great fun with our little expedition. If I return, I'll tell you all about it.

(I have to pause this email for now; we are in a tributary to the Madeira River which is turning into a swamp. The crew needs me to get out of the way as we work our way through).

Twenty-two hours later: I am a different person than I was yesterday. I will have to tell you the specifics when I see you, but for now consider this: The Wari' practice endo-cannabilism and no longer eat just anybody.

BTW- I saw you on a TV in the Buenos Aires airport when we got off the plane. They were smart enough to have the volume off, and you still looked hot. You might consider muting all of your shows, just saying...

You are still the only celebrity I know and have sex with. I suppose we'll have to be more careful on that front too since I am still technically married to #3. He is a good boy, but totally unprepared for life with me. Perhaps we can meet in Miami on my way home?

And would you consider wearing a gag? I'm thinking early December. Please let me know.

I still love you.

The girl who just won't go away

07/06/2047

Fr: C@BnC52923

To: B@BnC52923  

Re: Brazil

Good to hear from you!

If you are reading this, I'm guessing you managed to stay off the menu at the funeral reception. Miami sounds good to me, but I need to get serious here.

 Please, COME HOME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I'm quite certain that America will begin a rapid implosion starting around the 20th of this month. The airlines are already curtailing operations w/out any resumption scheduled and the utility companies are also struggling. Everything directly or indirectly dependent on crude oil is going dark.

 I was making enough money to prepare as much as possible for this over the last couple of years. I had a very secluded bunker/house built on the border of the WaterWheel campus deep in the Appalachian mountains. I was moving there anyway; The university had offered me a job in June which I accepted. 

BTW: I got fired by the network last Monday at the behest of none other than our current POTUS. He felt I was causing "seditious civil unrest." 

Our very lives may depend on living there. If you must, bring #3 along. I'll be nice, I promise. But, get here any way you can. Cut lines, bribe, or perform sexual favors- just find your way to Charlotte ASAP. Call me if you need more money- I expect it will be worthless by September.

It was always going to be you and me.

I backed into a very high-profile position in March of 2034 when I wrote an article predicting the sociological implications of the world "Energy Transition" (AKA running out of crude oil circa 2048.) I self-published on Medium, which was picked up by the New York Times. In those days, we called it "going viral."

I had presented absolutely nothing new. I certainly wasn't the first to write about this easy prediction. The numbers came from the petroleum industry rags, and the social unrest was gleaned from the CDC. I'll never know why it resonated with the public as it did. I went from an obscure sociologist to a TV talking head in under a month. In March of 2043 the Fascist de Jour in the White House even dubbed me as Clyde Quixote because I said snarky things about his windmills. That was five years ago.

Bonnie had married again the previous year and, as usual, told me our secret meetings were done.

In 2047, the shit hit the fan. As predicted, any patch of earth that might have a little oil was getting invaded and/or annexed by other countries. The flow of food into large cities fell to almost nothing. Possible food shortages quickly became actual starvation. The cities burned and attacked themselves, and each other. Industrialized countries were the worst hit.

Almost desperately, I left Atlanta with a large backpack of canned food, fifty-three .45 ACP bullets, and a solar charging array for my E-Bike as the city burned to the ground (again). The trip was difficult.

I was attacked by savages outside Augusta and escaped with a minor knife slash to my right shoulder. In Provence, South Carolina, a group of savage teenagers attacked me at a crossroads I took an arrow in my thigh and shot the archer dead. She was a beautiful child, probably fourteen years old.

I made it to Pawley's Island after a total of ten days. I had forty-two bullets left, but my food supply was intact.

I had not been in touch with Bonnie in the months since the grids collapsed, but I wasn't surprised to find her in her family's beach house. A car, covered by a tarp was parked under the house. At first, we did not speak. She met me at the door and tried to smile. I noticed a pistol in her hand and tried to smile. I reached into my coat pockets and slowly pulled out two cans of Wolf-Brand chili and a can of sliced peaches.

She made a sound, and I asked, "Is it ok to talk now?"

"Yyyeah. Sorry. It's been a couple of days since I've talked."

I walked to her kitchen. "Do you still have gas for your stove?"

Her eyes darted a bit, "Yeah, plenty. He-I topped it off right before everything went crazy."

The kitchen was tiny. I moved some dirty dishes out of the sink and made room in case the chili had gone bad. Both cans opened with no issues. In no time at all, we were scarfing down chili like some sort of delicacy.

After dinner, we relaxed a bit on a sofa in the front room.

"Where is your husband?"

"He is gone."

"Did he go back to Charleston?"

"No there ain't no Charleston anymore. He had people upstate. I expect he's with them now."

I set about unbuttoning her shirt, but she stopped me.

"We got all night. I just want to digest the chili for a bit and snuggle. It's been forever since I've snuggled with anyone."

So, we snuggled and talked for several hours, but every story about friends, lovers, and relatives ended with their deaths or disappearances.

Then, she asked me a strange question, "Clyde, do you remember my email about the Wari' tribes?"

"Sort of, yeah. You said they are Endo-Cannibals or something?"

"Or something," she half-laughed, "They were cannibals, but they were more than that. They were casual about eating their enemies but the government put a stop to that. I said they are Endo-Cannibals; which means that when one of their own dies, they do this huge religious ceremony and some very gross funeral rituals, and at the end, they eat the dearly departed.

"It is completely illegal, so they have to keep it secret."

I didn't respond and she changed the subject.

She pulled away, "Let's take a look at your leg. I still have a pretty good first-aid kit."

We eventually did go to bed, and I took another shot at sex. She was willing but not eager. In the end, I pulled away.

"What's the matter, Clyde?"

"I dunno." It was the first time something had been off between us.

She gently pulled me back onto the bed. She nuzzled my ear and finally stopped when I couldn't respond. Then she lay beside me not touching. We stared at the ceiling.

Finally, "It's the dishes ain't it?"

I choked a bit, "Yeah, I'm afraid so. Where is he?"

"In the trunk of my car. He is starting to spoil. I was gonna bury him tomorrow."

 Later that night, we were standing on the north end of Pawley's Island looking at a dull red glow in the sky over what used to be Myrtle Beach.

"As I see it, God is a careless son of a bitch, and you just like to watch. So, just do any damn thing you want with me."

Those were her final words to me. She wasn't angry, upset, or being melodramatic; It was a simple observation along the lines of 'You are wearing a plaid shirt.'

She pulled her pistol out and shot herself through the temple.

Mercy was never her strong suit.