The King of What's Left

By Addy Crowell

The world was silent, the ash covering everything eating the sound as soon as it was birthed into the world. I walked down the main street of what remained of my home town, the street that I used to take to high school, and then to work. What once was lined with clumps of wildflowers and unmowed grass was now frozen in a smooth, perfect, even white. Even my footsteps did little to disturb it.

I stepped inside the open doorway of house number 925, Collander Street. The living room was a snapshot of a small family sitting on a couch, watching TV. I looked at the faces of each one in turn. Mary, Gabby, and Johnathon Fox. I had known them in high school. Mary was a friend of mine, for a couple years at least. She was an artistic girl. I had a crush on her. The feeling was not reciprocated. It rarely was.

I went up the stairs to the second floor, but each door was sealed shut by the ash. What I was looking for could not be here. I sighed and exited the house and continued on the street. I looked up at the trees, huge oaks and ashes and walnuts that I used to climb as a kid. They looked like the pictures of bleached, dead coral you see on the news. Skeletal and reaching.

I was about to enter the next house when the silence and stillness was broken briefly by a shadow dark against the pallid world far down one of the side roads. I walked leisurely down the pale avenue towards the restaurant owned by the old couple that lived next door to us. It was a small breakfast diner type place. Really good pancakes. When I pushed open the door—–someone had cracked the otherwise perfect ash entering it—–there were still people sitting at the tables, eggs and coffee and things all in place where they would have been any other Sunday morning. I ducked under a waitress carrying a platter, and briefly looked into the kitchen. I listened, but could hear nothing. So I moved on.

The park was exactly how I remembered it: wide open field, three baseball diamonds, the church we attended behind a copse of trees, and an elaborate wooden playground which sparkled like a whitewashed Disney palace in the sun. Children frozen in play littered the structure, some looking off to the east and pointing. On the baseball diamonds and in the fields, adults shielded their eyes, looking like statues in a military cemetary saluting the fallen. I stood atop the hill looking over the entirety of the park, but still could still not see what I was searching for. I sighed and continued on.

Further from the center of town, I walked around cars stuck in the street. I didn’t know what color they were. They were all the same matte silver now. I passed by a pickup truck piled high with furniture and other household items, and glanced in the bed, but didn’t find anything. Other trucks and even cars stuffed too full were stopped in the road. A few had their doors open, the driver or passenger stuck with their mouth open staring back towards town. Not too far away there were sometimes statues of people running full tilt, car abandoned.

On the side of the road there was a four or five car pileup that looked like an abstract snow sculpture. There were no first responder vehicles in sight, and the traffic seemed to flow around it like a river flowing around a bank in winter, the curves of the snow and ice making it look like an old photograph. There were a few gas stations out here among the cornfields bristling like giant pale hedgehogs embedded in the earth. There were people caught outside them with armfuls of likely stolen goods, the shelves largely bare. I thought a couple people had been caught dancing, until I noticed there was a box of beer between them. I stared at it for a while, baffled how people could fight over something like that. Why did they care so much?

I moved on anyways. What I was looking for wasn’t there. Past the infinite legions of corn and the hulking corpse of a combine mid-harvest, I came across another church. There was a convoy of cars here all fused to the road, people ducking down, arms above their heads, shielding each other. Like a statue carved by Rodin. The cross at the top shone in the early afternoon sun, almost gold in its splendor. This would be where I would find what I was looking for.

I entered through the large front doors, passing by women caught mid-scream, children hugging at their parents, people shielding others to no avail. I twisted around them, careful never to disturb their pristine condition. Further in the church I heard a noise and continued towards it. In the sanctuary, people prayed. A man stood on a chair he had dragged to the front with his arms outstretched, looking very similar to the Christ hanging on the wall behind him. Another man had been caught climbing the steps, an arm outstretched, grasping for the preaching man. Even in the end they held onto their beliefs, as if that could protect them. I continued.

It was in a meeting-room in the older wing of the church that I found what I was looking for. The game was up.

“You can come out now,” I said. My voice did not echo, eaten greedily by the ash. “There’s no use hiding.”

Gabriel Sanchez stood up slowly from where he was hiding behind an overturned table. His hands were up in a placating gesture. His shirt was covered in white streaks and sweatstains, and his breathing spoke to our long pursuit.

“Very good,” I said.

“Albert, please—--” he began. He was a very out of shape man. A people-pleaser and overall just dull. How strange that someone so low as him could cause such damage.

“Why are you running?” I asked. I used the same voice I used with my kids when they misbehaved. Let him feel small.

“Albert what the hell has gotten into you?” he asked. I raised my hand and he flinched.

“Things change so fast,” I said, and took a step closer. “They change too fast. One minute you’re in a position to climb the ranks of your company. The next you’re a street vagabond. Why do things change so much? What’s wrong with things staying as they are?”

Gabriel took a step back. His face was slick with sweat and his arms were shaking. “Albert, please, we- we’re friends. We’ve always been friends. Why are you doing this?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Yes, we’ve always been friends. And I think we will remain friends a very long time.”

He chuckled, a nervous, disgusting laugh. Why, of all people, did he get to stay? But I was tossed to the side?

“You should stop running,” I said. “What do you hope to achieve? Don’t you want things to be good forever?”

“Things aren’t good, Albert. Look around you. Look what you’ve done!”

I looked at the room, taking in every perfect detail of the meeting room, from the CRTV in the corner, to the tables, to the people ducking and covering by the wall. All perfect and pristine in their preservation under the shining pallor of the ash. I smiled.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, and turned back to Gabriel. “Isn’t it splendid? Now, things never have to change. The world keeps spinning, but we can forever be here, together. Isn’t that gorgeous?”

“That’s insane,” Gabriel sputtered. “You aren’t preserving anything! You’re destroying it! Making a facade of what you knew!”

“I am preserving everything,” I responded calmly. “Now, nothing has to change. Look at it. Every curve and angle and motion, kept frozen. Untouchable by the ravages of time. I don’t have to hurt ever again. My life will never be turned upside down by damn market shifts, or meddling bastards, or anyone or anything else. Nothing has to ever change again.” I looked him in the eye. “Don’t you want to stay like this forever?”

“No! I don’t, Albert!”

“Pity.”

I snapped my fingers, and a plume of ash jetted from my hand. Albert coughed and tried to scream, but it was too late. When the ash settled again, all that was left was an alabaster sculpture. Our conversation, recorded for all eternity. I smiled. That was the last one. The last holdout against the inevitable. Maybe I should have asked him what he was so scared of. But it wouldn’t matter. I knew what had to be done, and I did it. I was the only one with the strength to do so.

I walked back to the main street, back to the center of town, and climbed the hill of ash that stood there. The side effect of my initial efforts at my little project. I stood at the top, and looked around, turning in a slow circle. As far as the eye could see, the town of Mud Creek was perfect, pristine white, sparkling subtly in the blazing light of the immortal sun. Finally. Everything was perfect.

Finally, nothing would ever have to change.