extirpation
by Adam Neville
maws, new york. college town. soulless, as far as i know. aside from myself. littered with stucco and cement and asphalt and brick buildings now alive with crawling mold. nestled next to luscious mountains, their curves nurturing cool zephyrs and ghost-pale deer and flame red foxes as quick as a whisper. these children of the land, free now to paw closer and closer to the asphalt even during dawn.
it was always beautiful here. but i think in the wake of it all, it’s become nothing short of mesmerizing. i don’t care to name what ‘it’ is. the impulse to name and control has faded. i don’t have to make sense of everything anymore.
when i dangle my feet over the edge of the arts building, i am accompanied by a murder of crows eager to flaunt their newest treasures.
when i stand in the center of the parking lot and close my eyes and take many deep breaths, i inhale and exhale with the same heaving rhythm of the moonlit stag.
when i stalk the hollows of the town beyond the campus, the foxes do not skitter away from their looting as though they were guilty. they nip at my cloak and scold me for slacking. today, i say. today, i will finish it. i never do.
i have been slacking for about three months now. it is far too easy in this place to find a lake, clear and still, and lose a morning to its admiration. occasionally, a fish will leap from the water with all the urgency of a student pitifully late to a test, only to be swiftly devoured by a bird of prey. sometimes i root for the prey. sometimes i root for the predator. but in the end, i know it’s meaningless. they’re exactly where they’re supposed to be. their lives and deaths are normal.
when the night falls, i begin my routine. i make my bed. i tidy up my dorm room. i swipe the crumbs and other detritus from my desk. i scrub the desk with pink, grapefruit-scented cleaning spray. i scavenged the cleaner from the on-campus convenience store. i didn’t pay. i drizzle honey over a stale granola bar before i eat it. honey doesn’t expire. i decide that tonight will be different. i have enjoyed a beautiful day. a sweet last meal. i put on makeup and the best clean outfit i have, determined to look beautiful in my last moments of life. i make my way to the street previously known as ‘academic row.’
by the time i arrive, i am usually so tear-stained that i can justify abandoning my mission. everyone is so beautiful in their gold platings; i am sure they would forgive my refusal to be immortalized with runny black mascara. but lately, when i stare into the shining eyes of my former peers and professors, their faces frozen in expressions of joy and consternation and horror, my eyes are dry. if they are a stranger, i try to imagine what they were thinking just before they froze. i try to imagine who they were.
this one was named mari. she was a professor. i guessed her cardigan and sweater were white and cream before they were turned to metal. the calves underneath her skirt were strong—she used to lift, maybe. mid thirties. based on her indisputable hotness, i would guess black studies or geology department. her students would have been head over heels for her, but the etched tablet in front of her makes no mention of infidelity. her sins and her fate read:
EXTRACTION
PREJUDICE
COMPLACENCY
ALL SHALL BE FORGIVEN
ALL SHALL KNOW PEACE
sometimes, when i’m in a particularly dark mood, i walk up and down the row and observe each and every statue’s sins. thus far, i haven’t encountered anyone whose tablet ends with anything other than those last two lines. all shall be forgiven, all shall know peace. i’m almost bored; i have almost no reason to believe mine would be any different. almost. reading my friends’ sins was interesting for a brief moment before i realized they were gone, and i was alone.
i don’t know why i am here. i don’t know why i keep on waking up. everyone is gone now, and i am here wondering how i could possibly catch up with them. how do i manage to enjoy this sumptuous earth? surviving on the carrion of grocery stores and the ambrosia of gas station wine? i’ve tried everything. i talk to them, i try knocking them over, i even tried to take the pants off one. they are all perfect and cold. and here i am. vital and bleeding and pissing and masturbating and living and living and living.
i spent a day in bed reliving every second i could remember about my life. in the wake of my impending doom, i tried to focus on the good parts. times with my mom: playing card games, going to work with her, eating daifuku mochi. she said she was proud of me for performing in my third grade play. she later said it was because she has raised me to be without the shame all of her friends felt as children. times with my aunt: watching television, a birthday cake shaped like a bumblebee she made when i turned eight. i lost my gameboy like three times, and every time she would replace it. i don’t know how she did it with such a tight budget. high school. protest after protest, skipped class after skipped class. bonds of solidarity with comrades who by now have gone to university and turned to gold. friends who i stopped talking to. failed relationships, failed attempts at relationships. failed attempts on my own life. failed exams. missed assignment after missed assignment, missed test after missed test. so much aborted potential. therapy session after therapy session to get me willing to be willing to live. now i am here. willing to be golden. i tried to focus on the good parts. i tried hard not to think about what the tablet would say. about me.
a cervid approached me yesterday in the parking lot. i was screaming, as i have become increasingly inclined to do. his footsteps echoed in the emptiness. massive, with a set of antlers twice as wide as my arm’s length. with each step he took towards me, i felt my screaming get louder and louder. i begged him to still my heart and silence my thoughts. when he got close enough to take the shot, i hung my head and knelt. i realized how indulgent it is to beg.
____________________________________________________________________________
Before it all, the days went by like the rushing of a creek.
Wake up at 11:00AM, exactly at the time my first class starts. Welp. Look at my alarm clock. A larm clock looks back. Unplug the alarm clock from its outlet, close my eyes, and nestle back into sleep. Why worry about Introduction to Global Change Biology? Too cozy. Get the notes later. Maybe get the notes from a friend. Lie to myself; mentally commit to meeting with my professor. Have ominous nightmares about some sort of apocalypse or a fight with a friend or being in middle school again. Forget ‘em.
Rise to eat the leftovers from last night’s dinner with the homies. Chug the equivalent of a cup of coffee from the massive bottle on my desk. Journal a bit. Daily gratitude exercise. Prayer for my mother, ‘cause she’s been sick. Declare my intention of doing homework later. Pack my bag. Spend at least an hour picking out an outfit, just enough time to miss my second class in the day. Dress in all black, accentuated with some gold studs on my ears that my grandma gave me. Half the day is practically gone.
Get on my bike. My speaker hangs off a cord around my neck like a chain, booms “Friday I’m In Love.” The melody sparkles, the warm spring sun blankets me, and the weekend awaits.
Rush to my 2:00pm literature class. Bike past acquaintances on the way, smile and wave and almost disembark to catch up. A beautiful stranger smiles when they hear the chorus drop from my speaker.
Get there a few minutes late. Professor M is brilliant and easily distracted. He’s also adorable, with his blazer and belt and chipped tooth. We are the perfect match as teacher and student. We riff about Ishmael for nearly twenty uninterrupted minutes. We talk like we are in a book club, like we are nursing gin and tonics. The conversation dances between bawdy and bourgeois. We pretend like my grade is not sagging from uncompleted essays.
Linger when the class ends. Wait for the crowd of students circling his desk to thin out. And when it is just the two of us, he begins.
“Noah! Glad you stuck around. What do you need?” Professor M asked.
“Just wanted to apologize for not showing up last week. Been busy. Behind in a couple classes. But today’s reading was brilliant. All my late work is coming soon!”
Professor M dusted off the chalkboard and turned to me.
“Listen, don’t worry about the essay. As long as they’re in before the grading period, it will be fine. Get them to me as soon as you can, obviously. But you should prioritize being here. Here, in class, is where the learning really happens. We all see different things in the text. You have brilliant insights, but there’s a cumulative element you’re missing. You have to show up here, with all of us, steadily over time to capture the full meaning.”
“Right… you’re right. Next week. Promise.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. See you Monday, Professor M.”
Leave the class. Kick “Boys Don’t Cry,” up on my speaker. Walk through the hallway, open the double doors, and take in the sunshine. Just across the quad, where the first flowers of the season have begun to bloom, my friends are already plotting on the evening’s activities.
____________________________________________________________________________
i went to class the week after, and professor m wasn’t there.
whatever divine force turned my peers and professors into gold missed me. missed me is actually wishful thinking. there is always the possibility it chose me uniquely to suffer this isolation.
another act of wishful thinking: that i can kill myself. i do not have the nerve to end my own life. it appears nobody—man or beast or god—is going to do it for me. i don’t know what that beast was. two years of studying at suny maws doesn’t make me an expert. i have never been the best student. it is reasonable to doubt my judgment. everyone on this campus has also turned into a statue, so reasoning itself is doubtful. maybe i was asleep when my archeology professor explained about the kind of moose who grow eight feet tall at the shoulder with fur as black as midnight. the kind of moose with antlers so magnificently large and silver they resembled a chalice. dripping liquid gold.
in spite of this flood of absurdity, i am narcissistic enough to imagine a plan. i learned something when i tried to get the beast to end me.
its breath was hot against my curls as i knelt, even from a yards distance. the stench burned like the rum i purchased for a dorm bacchanalia just months ago. each boom of its hooves against the asphalt was accompanied by a dripping sound, so soft it could be the sound of my own teardrops. after a long anticlimax full of sobs, i was incredulous enough to look up.
it paused and stared down at me, gaze imperious. its eyes did not reflect the parking lot or my tearful visage. they were abyssal.
“why is this happening to me? why is everybody gone? why haven’t you fucking killed me yet? why aren’t i a statue? what if i’m the last one on this planet? what if i’m already dead? what if i never get to talk to anyone ever again? what happened to my family? why me? why? what the fuck is going on? what are you?” i asked it one question, and the rest burst from me like a geyser. i didn’t stop for a long while. it was silent as i spoke.
it snorted once. twice. laughing at me, maybe. swiped a hoof against the ground, and bowed its head almost imperceptibly, a bow of neither supplication nor preparation to charge.
it was a pittance.
a gush descended from its antlers, sizzling like champagne and smoking on impact. i recoiled, but i was not fast enough to spare myself from a droplet reaching my left eyebrow, seeping into my left eye. scalding. the pain seared down, i felt it in my teeth. i covered my eye with my left hand. shouted a quick “fuck!” and peered out through my right eye. it took another step towards me, and i found myself clenching my fist and rising. my body wants to fight. my body wants to live.
but the beast was satisfied with its work. it turned around, slowly at first, and then bolted away into the horizon of the southern woods. i wanted to force answers out if it, even if it killed me. i started towards it, and stopped when i noticed the ground bubbling before me.
the splash from its antlers formed two puddles. the left puddle evaporated into a rough spiral, curling and coiling around itself endlessly. the right puddle formed, as though it were alive, into a rough arrow pointing south.
i have decided to judge this as a prophecy. i can wait here forever, and maybe i will be lucky enough to die. but i wager it will be more of the same. more aborted attempts, more rumination on the most familiar unknowns. maybe i won’t find others. maybe i am alone. maybe my family is gone. maybe i am already dead. maybe the cervid was a hallucination, and there is nothing of value south of Maws.
or
I could go south into the uncertainty. I don’t know if my family is dead. They could be waiting for me. There might be medical supplies in the health center I could use to nurse my eye. There might still be a good book or two in the library, tucked away in the networks of glittering fungi. They would be good company for a journey south. And before I go, I might leave an offering at the statues of all my friends and professors. There are so many people in Maws who I am mourning, who I was so lucky to know. I’ll have to leave them behind for now. I won’t let this place slowly digest me.
Maybe there are no answers. Regardless, I will figure out how to live.