It first started off with a knock at his door. Ok, it was actually more of a light rapping, but he was still able to hear it. The rapping sound like it was possibly done by a child or maybe a young woman of some sort, but it was definitely not from a man. Especially an angry man. Angry men had much more of a force behind their knocks. John knew this because many angry men have knocked for him before. Many were on his car door after a show because he had said something the angry man at the time had found offensive.
John was a stand up comedian. At least that is what everyone else called him. He called himself an artist. We both called him that. He just said and did whatever he found funny regardless if the other people got it or not. It didnt matter. As long as he could express himself he was happy. At least he was happy until he found out the world was coming to an end. That really put a damper on things for him. Before he had gotten this news he was a rally chipper fellow. The last time I had seen him, after he had gotten the news, he had gone weeks without shaving. Days without showering. Less and less did I see him. Less and less he wanted to hang with me. The last time I saw him, he just held me and told the story of where he had heard the rumor from.
He was at a mall with his friends wasting time and loitering. The mall had been doing some renovations on the southern end and they thought they would wander around the plastic tarps and empty stores for as long as they could before they got caught. John’s friend Paul, who a bit of an asshole, insisted on that they play a game of hide and seek. Because that’s what they do when they are in their twenties. Agreeing to this, the seven ran and hid as John stayed behind to count. He told me that he could hear the scuffling of feet and silent laughs of his mates as they tried to find a spot to hide out in. Skipping numbers and letters, John jumped straight to 100 and began his search. Sifting through the plastic tapestries, John had try to find his friends. He told me he searched for at least twenty minutes without finding anyone. The only thing he had found was a dried up fountain, hit an old lady sitting at it. He described her clothing to be a lot like the clothing a widower wears at a funeral. Solid black dress with a hat and a veil. The veil was thicker than others, because he said he couldn’t even make out her face beneath it.
He walked up to her to see if maybe she had seen any of his friends come by, but before he could as she spoke to him. He remembers everything she said because the first few words she spoke were, “John. The world is going to end. And you can’t stop it.”
He refused to tell me what she said after that, but he made it out to seem like she explained word for word what was going to happen. And I could see in his face he was terrified. He had never shown this side to me before. His expression of fear was the worst type of torture, and the fact that he never explained wht would happen did as well. And when the world finally did end, I never would have guess that I would have made it through and he wouldn’t. I saw the things he refused to tell me about. And I am glad he refused. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. The thought of John and I being torn away from each other. If I had known that that was what the future held for us I would have ran long ago.
But now its after End War, and I have a duty to preserve. The knock at my door was Landel, the cockroach that worked the bar below my office. He wanted to know if I had any clientele coming by, because if not he was going to close up shop. I opened up my desk drawer to check a calendar I left all of my appointment on. Luckily after End War, a local rat mechanic had fixed me up with a set of prosthetic arms he had tinkered with so that my armless shaft of a torso could finally accomplish the tasks I had planned to achieve.
It has been three cycles now since the nuclear sun had set and man was washed from the planet like dirt on a thrush hogs flopsnot. The only memories were ghostly pictures of their previous live. Skeletons of buildings. Rust heaps of what were once cars and trains and planes. The only living things from mans past were the vermon, which were now all roughly the same height. 12 inches. And me, John’s cock. When the old woman had spoke to John at the water fountain, she had blessed me with sentient life after John had come to pass. Devastatingly, I am the only one who remembers Earth before End War.
I flipped through the pages of the calendar and saw I had no appointments. “Close up, nothing is coming through,” I told him. He thanked me and headed out, but before leaving he offered to lend me money if I were ever low on cash. I nodded at Landel as he closed the door behind him. Frm behinf the calendar I pulled out a bottle of Ass Scotch. The stuff was rancid, but strong. And had proven to be thing only thing to help cloud my mind of the life I lived before End War. But Sadly tonight it wasn’t working.
Being the only Cock Detective in New Shitsworth, letalone the only in the world, was hard work. Over the past few months I had been booking less and less jobs because these rat and roach bastards were much more civilized than the humans were. Granted rape was a big thing, and it always had been in the animal kingdom, but murder never happened. And since rape was much easier to solve since you could just trace the scent of the attacker, my detective skills were never needed. The last murder I had solved was the case of a larva orphanage being torched down by what ended up being just a large piece of glass from a building exposed to the sun at the wrong time.
I finished the bottle of Ass Scotch and decided to end it all. Covering my hands in lotion I began to rub my chest. Slow at first, but I increasingly stroked faster and faster. I remembered the soft lips of Laura, the young woman John has last been with before he died. I imagined her tongue, flicking my face ever so softly. I recalled the pressure of her mouth as she sucked on me to please John;s animalistic instinct. As I stroked, My eye filled with tears. I knew my end was near, and it was the best feeling I had felt in a long time.
The found my body the next day, still spasming. My suicide was a shock to many but to those who truly knew me had saw it coming. It tooked them three days to removed the dry crust from the walls. I only know this because I saw them. I was able to see my friends from heaven. As soon as i had arrived I searched for John but as it turns out he had ended up in hell. He had constantly joked that since he was a son of a pastor he would be able to enter freely into Heaven. This wasn’t true. So for the rest of eternity, I told stand up comedy to remember him by. I know he would be proud. And because of this, I stand tall.
