Playlist for the Apocalypse

Chapter 4: Live and Let Die

JONATHAN

Jonathan wanted to yell, he wanted to scream, he wanted to pound his fists against the concrete and break down in tears, but all he could do was stare at the darkened sky in silence. At this point he could no longer tell if the numbness in his legs was from lack of circulation or the cold, but he knew he only had himself to blame.

"So, this is how it ends," he thought, "stupidly trapped beneath a chunk of wood."

He'd been fixing his makeshift antenna when lightning had struck and felled the corner of the greenhouse. He'd leapt from the structure mere moments before the lightning made impact, narrowly avoiding certain death, but now he wasn't so sure he had. He flexed his leg muscles beneath the debris and instantly regretted the action as a jolt of fresh pain shot through his body. Despite its futility, he tried again to lift the weight. The wood slipped beneath his fingers and no matter how hard he pushed; it didn't budge. He wiped the water and blood from his brow to keep it from stinging his eyes.

"Idiot, Idiot, Idiot." He chided himself as he felt around for anything within arm's reach.

The glass from the greenhouse walls bit at his arms but he continued to search until eventually his fingers found their way to a jagged piece of wood. He risked stretching towards it and an involuntary grunt escaped his lips. The wood turned out to be a thin scrap of the collapsed planter box. It made a better splint than jack, but nevertheless, he wedged it beneath the beam and attempted to lift but all he managed to do was snap the useless twig in half. Frustrated, he threw the pieces aside. The sky rumbled and despite himself, Jonathan felt something in his chest tighten. A choking feeling set into his throat, and he reached up to pull the wet collar of his shirt away from his neck. His entire body seemed to forget that it was freezing and soon his skin felt so hot that he was sweating. The pressure in his throat began to grow. Somehow, he'd forgotten the natural rhythm of his breathing. The beam was pressing on his ribs too hard. He couldn't get enough air. The rain was choking him. He couldn't breathe.

The phobia had first emerged just after his 7th birthday. Vancouver thunderstorms were rare and when they did occur, they were typically very weak, but that summer there was an especially bad storm. The lightning had been too bright, the thunder too loud and the whole experience, terrifyingly unusual for the west coast. Jonathan had buried himself under his bed and refused to come out. His mother had been at work and his father, recently returned from his tour, had not known what to do or say to the screaming child. Frustrated with Jonathan's antics, he'd had taken his young son by the arm and roughly dragged him out from under the bed into the car. Jonathan had squeezed his eyes shut the entire ride, but the sounds of the rushing wind, booming thunder and rain slamming against the window had overwhelmed his senses. Even with his hands clamped over his ears he could still hear his father's shouting. Upon arriving at his mother's office, his father had marched him out of the car and hauled him, kicking and screaming, up the elevator. His father had presented him before his mother, demanding she deal with the situation.

"He's crying, Eleanor!" His father had roared over the storm, "He's giving me a damn migraine, which is not what I need right now! It's a thunderstorm, god damn it, the kid is pathetic!"

Eleanor had looked up from her computer screen slowly, a neutral expression on her face. She'd offered his father an aspirin from her desk and then wrapped Jonathan in her coat. Though he was getting too old to be carried, she'd lifted him up and brought him to the greenhouse on the roof.

"See?" She'd said, "it's amazing really, you just have to see the beauty in it. Look, Jonny. Don't you see why I love it up here? The lightning brightens up the whole sky and the thunder is like music."

He'd pressed his face into her blazer, stubbornly ignoring her words and refusing to see. But his mother, thankfully, had patience for him. She'd gently set him down beside her and placed a pair of headphones over his ears. Then she'd cued up a playlist of her favourite songs and they stayed that way until the storm passed. 

Since then, sudden loud sounds still made his chest feel tight and caused him to forget how to breathe normally, but music had been his solace. When they'd moved, bouncing from base to base, music had always been there for him to drown out the noise. All the shouts and screams that filled his homelife and the vicious words that filled his school days, melted away with the click of a button. When his mother finally put her foot down and the two of them were able to establish roots, he'd had the greenhouse to escape to. It had been his permanent haven. A place where he could do what he liked, away from the prying eyes of those who would never understand. It was a bit cliché of him to choose the rooftop but maybe a part of him loved that there was some cinematic tradition in that. Never would he have imagined that the very place he felt safest would be where he'd meet his end. As the rain continued to fall steadily, Jonathan found himself in the clutches of despair.

"Help," he whispered, his voice so small he felt as though he were a child again, hiding under his bed waiting for his mother to rescue him. The difference was this time he knew no one was coming.

"Stop" he told himself, forcing himself to take slower breaths and push the panic from his mind, "Stop it. This is pathetic."

He could feel the barrel of his gun pressing into the side of his hip, pinned against his body by the beam. Ironic.He choked out a laugh that tasted like blood. He'd never bothered carrying one with him usually, but now, the one time he'd done so, it would be as useless as he felt. Fear was a strong emotion and if the soulless or worse a lost soul somehow found their way through the locked gate, he knew he'd be done for. His vision was blurry, and his head had started to throb. The dampness of his clothes had turned warm, sticky and wet.

"That's my blood," He suddenly realized, "that's a lot of my blood." The soulless would be the end of him if he didn't die from his injuries first. It was pathetic. He was pathetic. He'd hidden like a coward, and he would die as such. He should have gone straight home after work, hell he'd have been better off if he went to the stupid colony social, so what if his father was there?

Thunder shook the rooftop. Jonathan could feel his heart hammering in his chest, his breaths were still coming in rapid irregular gasps despite his efforts to control them. His hands were shaking.

"Help," Even as he spoke the word, he knew he didn't deserve what he was asking for. His body felt numb with fear and he gave the beam another half-hearted shove, but his limbs felt heavy and tired. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

"It's okay," he said to the sky, repeating the mantra that had kept him going for longer than he cared to admit, "nothing matters." 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Nothing matters. 

It was true after all. There was no one left who would mourn him. There was no one left who truly knew him or cared enough to try. And wasn't that what it was all about? Didn't Robin Williams say that in Dead Poet's Society? "Poetry, Beauty, Romance, Love— these are what we stay alive for." Jonathan didn't have any of that in his life. Not anymore. He'd always looked to movies and music to glean some kind of road map to what he was supposed to do with the time he'd been given, but since the world ended, he felt like he couldn't do anything... perhaps maybe he just didn't know where to start. Perhaps that was the most tragic part of the whole thing. Not the storm, not the pain, just that fact that everyone else seemed to get it and he just didn't. Now he would never get the chance. He'd spent too long waiting for life to happen that he'd missed the opportunity to seize it. 

There was nothing more he could do but to resign himself to his inevitable fate.

 "I'm going to die." He whispered. He'd hidden his emotions for longer than he could remember but here in the throes of a storm and isolated alone on the roof, he had nothing more to hide.