Free The Cecilia Paradox: Short Story by John Mantooth

THE CECILIA PARADOX
    We’ve been underground for 193 days when Henry sends his only begotten son, Ralph, to save us.
    Ralph’s like eighteen and wears two big, diamond studs in each ear. He’s got a beard and long Jesus hair. His breath reeks of tuna fish, and don’t let him touch you because his hands smell like they’ve been places hands are not necessarily meant to go. Once, when I made the mistake of giving him a high five after my team won the New World Relay Race for a Better Tomorrow, my hand smelled like ass for hours.
    There are only six of us. Survivors, that is. Or dumbasses. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. In order of how much I like them, they are
    Cecilia
    Theresa
    Frank
    Theo
    Marjorie.
    I hate Marjorie.
    All of us signed up for some government survey. It paid
one thousand dollars, which is pretty good money, or was pretty good money. Now money is something you wipe your ass with when Dominic forgets to refill the toilet paper dispenser. Oh yeah, Dominic’s the custodian/muscle down here.
    So Ralph trots around all day, speaking in parables and turning water into wine—“You have to use your imagination!” he says when Theresa points out it still looks like water after he’s muttered some mumbo jumbo over it—and raising little roaches from the dead. The roach thing is almost cool. After touching them with some holy water, he slides them across the concrete floor, and it’s almost as if they scurry, but their legs aren’t moving.
    “So when’s the big man going to show?” Frank wants to know. I like Frank all right, but he’s a man, so I have to rate Cecilia and Theresa in front of him. Frank is the vocal leader of a group who believes this is all fake and we’re on a reality show.
    “But how can it be a reality show if it’s all fake?” I ask.
    “Exactly,” he says. “One day one of us is going out that door and when we do, we’ll see that everybody in the real world has got their damned TV’s tuned to channel 3, laughing their asses off.”
    The others either pretty much agree with him (Theo, Theresa, and Marjorie) or pretty much think the whole concept is bogus (me). Cecilia doesn’t really have an opinion.
    She just likes to sleep around.
    I love Cecilia.
    So what do you do when you go to an underground room that smells like an abandoned whorehouse/methlab and a screen comes down showing you footage of your family dying from some airborne disease? What do you do when the screen switches and shows people all over the place dying the same way? What do you do when it looks real? More real than any of the movies? What do you do when a disembodied voice named Henry—who tells you right up front you should call him God—announces the old world is over and the new one has just begun? What do you do when he tells you, anyone may leave at anytime, the door is unlocked, but by doing so, you will be sacrificing his free gift of salvation and you will choke to death like the rest of the world he has chosen to forsake? What then?
    Long answer: you agonize about the door, the world outside, the family that may or may not be dead, depending on how much technology this asshole has. You debate the merits of worshipping Henry (he is after all the man in charge) versus raging against him, and end up with a passive-aggressive stance, much like how a surly seventh grader would treat his pre-algebra teacher. You try to hook up with the girls. You fail. You meet Cecilia. You screw her twice before you find out she did Dominic four times and Theo (he’s missing an arm) once. You fall into an emotional abyss, driven to the depths by grief and guilt. Cecilia comes by and makes you feel better with a blowjob. You love Cecilia and think how you and she will run away through that door together someday and whatever is there—good, bad, ugly—you’ll find it together.
    Short answer: nothing.
    Originally there were eight of us. Sharon died when Henry showed her the footage of her son gagging