Free The Man Who Watched the World End by Chris Dietzel Page A

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December 1 6
    Each day my chimney sends smoke billowing into the sky, but each evening Andrew and I are still alone. Some days, I sit at the window, waiting for a truck to enter our neighborhood and save us. Other days, I try not to think about it too much, try instead to focus on whatever movie happens to be playing. Don’t panic , I tell myself over and over. It doesn’t work.
    Each time I need more fuel for the fire, I scurry outside, gather up as many twigs and leaves as I can manage, and then sneak back inside before the animals catch wind of me. The collection does not last long, and I find myself scanning my yard for possible threats before hobbling out and getting another handful. If a bear is out there, or a wolf or a dog, I take apart one of my dining rooms chairs and burn that instead.
    More and m ore of what used to be mine has reverted back to the animals. Already, I’m stuck in my house most days by the predators prowling outside. Recently, though, I have also forsaken my basement. The spiders and snakes rule that portion of my house. It might as well be considered a temperature controlled version of the outdoors, the first part of my house annexed back to the wild.
    When I went down there today, spiders were crawling up and down the handrails and walls. Rats were scurrying from corner to corner. A giant black snake, the body of a full-grown rat still in its belly, lurked in the shadows. In the middle of searching for another book of matches, I felt something tap the back of my head. I didn’t think anything of it at first.
    Then it moved.
    “God damn it!” I yelled.
    I brushed the bug off my skin, then stomped on it over and over. I was out of breath before I stopped smearing it across the floor with my shoe, my violence a threat to the other creatures down there. A moment later, my attention having returned to the open box I knew contained additional matches, healthy heart and lungsli little sp I heard a little chirp by my shoes. A rat was there, nibbling at the laces. That little piece of shit actually looked up at me like I was the inconsiderate one for letting out a yelp. I grabbed the matches and ran back upstairs.
    It would be a cat’s version of heaven if it ever found its way down there. The lucky kitty would have a smorgasbord to last for years.
    I almost burned the entire house to the ground (exaggerating) one day last year trying to lift an old box of Christmas ornaments. Rats had eaten through the box’s corners. When I lifted it, everything in the box emptied through the bottom. The rats, it turned out, had also snacked on the Santa costume my dad wore each year. I was furious and wanted to teach a lesson to everything living down there. Fantasies of taking a blowtorch to the entire area quickly popped into my head. I’ll never lose myself enough, though, to forget Andrew is living on the floor above this madness.
    If the house was big enough, I’d bring everything up from the basement—after disinfecting it and setting off bug bombs—and store it in the living room. The basement door would be boarded up and locked, the little specks of evil trapped down there for the rest of time.
    Dread filled me as the logs in my fireplace started to burn out and I realized a second trip downstairs was necessary. The wood I’ve been putting in the fireplace doesn’t last very long and I’m not fond of scavenging for twigs around my yard while the animals lick their lips. On top of this, I can only burn so much furniture before I feel like this place is no longer my home. Already I’ve burned two chairs, an end table, and a cutting board.
    Substituting m y old baseball cards will keep me from having to go outside as much. The cards, like stocks and bonds, rare art, and antique furniture, are completely worthless now, good for nothing more than sitting in oversized cardboard boxes that take up space in between stacks of photo albums. The players are all dead now, the last game having been