Last Man On Earth | by Josh Pray

 

I awoke in my kitchen, naked, bloodied and vomitously sick. I tried to remember the most recent event, but all that I could recall had happened before today. I had almost no recollection of the current day. Or at least what I thought was the current day. How long had I been unconscious, lying naked on my kitchen floor? How had I gotten in this condition in the first place? Why could I not remember anything?

I crawled on my hands and knees in to the bathroom to clean myself up and divine the events preceding my recent awakening. I find I do my best thinking either on the toilet or in the shower. I hoped the room would still have the same clarifying effects on my brain. I left a thin trail of blood along the hardwood floor of my apartment. It looked as if a snail had been murdered. My body ached all over.

 I used the sink to help myself stand, and rubbed and blinked my eyes back in to focus. My blurry gaze was representative of the unfocused state my brain was in. Finally I caught a clear glimpse of myself. There was blood over my entire head, but no cut to be found. I searched my body but found no evidence of a wound or any violence. Shaking the cobwebs from my brain, I searched desperately for answers. Nothing added up. In all twenty three years of my life I have certainly woken up naked, amnesiac and bloodied, but each time was usually due to alcohol.

Devoid of any physical ailments, but certainly suffering from something mental, I decided it was in my best interest to seek immediate help for safe measures. I dressed and dialed for emergency. This began a long journey of my own that would impact the entire world and its future.

The medics arrived to find me wearing my best pajamas, curled up on my bed. A baby blue matching top and bottom and blue winter tuke for my head was all that was clean. The first medic, a woman, slowly approached me and asked what my name was and if I had any pain.

“I don’t know what happened or what is wrong with me. I think I may have a tumor or something.”

“Okay. Let’s get an IV set up and get you on the stretcher,” she said half to me, half to her partner, another woman.

The two women in their forties seemed to have missed the 1980s a little too much and were hoping for a comeback. Their bouffant hair, high-waisted jeans and white shoes almost hurt my eyes. What an atrocity. But they were here to help so I kept my mouth shut. The youngest looking of the two placed the IV quite deftly in to the back of my left hand. It took the summoned strength of both the women to get me off my bed and on to the stretcher. Partially because I was so physically drained. Mostly because I was heavier than these two living time capsules combined. They loaded my rolling bed with its cumbersome weight in to the back of the ambulance, and we screamed our way down the back roads and to the nearest hospital. All the while they interviewed me about how I hurt myself and how come they could not find any wounds, I was only half listening. With the little brain function that was left, I was trying to answer my own questions.

We arrived at the hospital, and I had never been so afraid in my life. I truly thought I had died. I was not sure when it happened or if the entire time I was actually dead, but I was never so sure as when I rolled through the emergency doors.

“Oh my God,” I blurted out loud, “am I in Heaven?” Unaware how preposterous I sounded and with more than a few medical drugs coursing through my veins, embarrassing phrases like that one soon became my epithet.

“No, no,” the EMT chuckled as she placed a hand on my shoulder. “We are just going to get some pictures of your head.”

That sounded oddly non-technical for a paramedic to say. ‘Pictures of my head’?  Was I a five year old? Was I not afforded the luxury of big-people terms like CAT scan or even X-ray? I let it slide. I was in no shape to argue.

Even with that lay explanation about not being dead and my itinerary for the next few hours being verbally shoved at me, I could not help but look around and think I was in my own personal Heaven. Namely for the fact that there were women everywhere. Women EMTs, women nurses, women patients, women doctors, even women janitors. That realization became increasingly secondary to the way they were looking at me. They all seemed curious to get a glimpse of me and often craned their necks around a corner or over a desktop or stole a glimpse out of the corner of their eye as they passed my bed. I began to grow uneasy.

The white curtain slid open with a shrill whistle as the doctress stepped through and grabbed my chart. She was in what appeared to be her middle thirties, average height, blonde with glasses and those bead-chains that grandmothers wear to take their glasses off and put them on during a rousing game of Canasta. Her hair looked windblown, and her blue eyes seemed older than the rest of her body. Ruby red nails tipped her slender fingers, and a ring adorned the majority of all ten digits.

 Without looking at me she asked out loud, “What do we have here?” Something made her stop before finishing her sentence. Her face froze as she stared down at my chart. Something had grabbed her attention. I hoped it was not something bad. I had not even taken my ‘head pictures’ yet so I doubted it was too serious.

“Something wrong, doctor?” I asked, hesitantly.

She looked up with a Cheshire cat smile and a coy look. “Nothing at all. You’re perfect.” She stated, all the while not averting her gaze that had now locked on to my eyes. Her finger slowly traced the outline of the clipboard as she spoke.  

I became uncomfortable with the way she was looking at me. “Well that sounds like good news. What about my head? How come I can’t remember anything that happened today?” I sat more upright, feeling better due to the drugs I had been receiving for quite some time now.   

“Oh, your head is just fine,” she dismissed with a surprisingly breathy voice. She moved along the side of the bed toward me and pressed the outside of her hip against the railing. “I’m more worried about your shoulders. You look very tense.” She bit softly on her lower lip.

I gasped for breath. Was this all a joke? Was someone trying to play a trick on me? Was there a hidden camera somewhere? It is not everyday a doctor makes a pass at me so blatantly. I must be in Heaven. “Well, you are the doctor,” I conceded.  

I swiveled so my back was to her and she began to rub my shoulders very gently. “You know, we haven’t had a patient in here that looks like you for a few days now. What a pity.”

I was not sure what to make of such a comment. I am no Don Juan. I cocked my head so she could hear my question and I could hear her answer, “What does that mean?”

Suddenly a female voice broke in from behind the curtain, “Michelle, we have a flatliner. Come quick.”

She ran out of my room so quickly I almost fell backwards off the bed. It was not Heaven after all.

A few hours later I was rolled in to get my CAT scan. A young redhead told me to fold my arms and lie still until they pulled me out.

“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt,” She told me.

Of course not, I thought to myself. You are just taking a picture. Why would she say such a thing?

When my results came back, another doctor came in to tell me about them and then release me. Another blonde doctor, maybe in her fifties. Somewhat overweight, but by no means chunky. Her oversized hoop earrings and black glasses set off her shiny hair and pale skin. How come I had never heard of this hospital before? I would be cutting fingers off every day to get in here if I knew that all of the staff was women.

“Mr. Pray,” she said, almost as if she did not believe I was a man, putting an emphasis on the -ter in my title.

“Yes, ma’m?”

“Your mental health is fine, but I am thinking you should have someone keep an eye on you for a few days, just to be safe.”

She turned around to take my CAT scan off the board. When she returned to face me, I swear another button had been undone from the top of her shirt. Noticing me noticing her exposure, she offered, “I could swing by your place to check up on you. Maybe you could take me to dinner for my troubles?”

I have never had this much luck in my life.

“Well that is very nice of you, but I have some friends and family that can make sure I stay healthy. Thank you though.”

“If you change your mind, call me.”  She slid her business card across her lips then placed it gently in to my trembling hand.

“Yes, ma’am,” I stammered.

I dressed myself and headed for the exit. As I walked out, every woman’s head turned to catch a glimpse of me. Never was such a huge fuss made about such an average guy. I was still not convinced I was not at least in some sort of Heaven. Maybe I was in the discount Heaven where everything is still pretty good, but not quite perfect. It was too hot outside. My body still ached slightly. Some things fell short. It was like buying the dollar store brand of cereal that does not have as many marshmallows or as much sugar.

I hopped on a bus back to my place and was greeted by yet another peculiar sight: A woman bus driver with a busload of women. Albeit these were not all swimsuit models, but they were women no less. I have never felt so uncomfortable with all those eyes glaring at me. I swear some of them were actually licking their lips. Of course it sounds like every man’s dream to have no competition at all and to have the attention of every woman in town. But this was not my dream. Not anymore at least. Too much of a good thing can be bad. Case in point, I could not sit down without having my personal bubble immediately popped and invaded by every triple X rated XX that could jam herself in a seat. I wanted some time to figure everything out, most notably where all this newfound attention was coming from. I realized I was not going to be allowed that precious thinking time as long as I am in public.

I was getting cat calls the whole ride home. I could not look up. What a cruel twist of fate for any man to suffer.

“Hey, cutie. Where you going?”

“I like those pants.”

“You smell real nice.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

There was no shame in these women. What happened while I was asleep?

When I reached my apartment, I left the bus followed by a wave of disappointed sighs. I had to call around and get some information. I called my college roommate to see if he also had befallen such fortuitous circumstances. His phone rang and rang. No answer.

I called the rest of my friends to see if anyone could at least remind me about what had happened on this day, or why every woman had turned predator. No answer anywhere.

I turned on the news. The anchorwoman was yammering on about stocks and bonds and the weather. I lay down on the couch to recoup and collect my thoughts. I slowly drifted to sleep with the modicum of the news in the background fading out.

“And in the most shocking news of the week, here and around the world, men everywhere….”

I awoke around ten and it was dark in my place save the blue glow of the television. A ‘Golden Girls’ rerun was playing.  I was fed up with all of these questions and no answers. I went to the one woman that lived close enough and that I felt I could trust. She was a childhood friend and one that I had feelings for. I could never tell her that I had loved her for so long; she was far out of my league. But I decided in this upside down world that exists now, anything can happen. If every other woman in the city wants me, maybe she could change her mind. As I climbed the stairs to her place, I realized even with all the attention I was getting, she was still the only one on my mind.

I knocked twice on the door. She answered dressed in her sweats. “Hey, Becca. How are you?”

She screamed and covered her mouth. Her glass of water dropped to the floor.

“Becca. It’s me.”

“I thought…How…”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, quite scared at her reaction.

“You’re not…you all…”

She could not finish her sentence as she backed slowly in to her own apartment.

I slowly traded steps with her, trying to calm her down.

“What is wrong?” I begged again.

“You’re all supposed to be dead!” At that she tripped over her coffee table, stumbled over backward and passed out cold.

Well that was even less than unhelpful.

I quickly rushed to her side to assess the situation. She was breathing. I called for emergency. The same two women paramedics that had come to my aid were the ones to eventually show up again.

The younger one said with a smile, “Ya know, son, they are supposed to be naked before the roofies kick in. A lot less work for you that way. ”

I was too befuddled to have any witty comeback. Becca’s last words were still buzzing around my head. What did she mean by ‘you all’? Why was I lumped in with that group? Why were we supposed to be dead?

I was not about to go back to the same hospital with all those women falling over themselves to fall over me. That was the last thing I needed Becca to see. I checked my watch: near midnight. I hoped putting this day behind me would help ease my troubled mind. At this point, all I could do was go to sleep and look for answers in the morning.

As I settled in for the night, a strange feeling came over me. I felt as if I was being watched. Not in a scary or creepy way, but in a safe way. Like someone was watching me to make sure I was alright. It made me feel safe as I dozed off. Little did I know that even my dreams would not be safe from questions and delusions.

In my dream, I sat at a one end of a long table dressed in a red sweatsuit with no shoes on as fog wafted about ankle high. Nothing else was around me and I was not in a room or outside. I merely existed in some sort of Purgatory. This was not the most unsettling feature of my new world.

At the other end of the table sat my very own doppelganger. Clad in the exact same suit and looking exactly the way I remember myself looking, this other me acted independently. He looked like me, only he was not me. He was another entity. I began the questioning.

“So what is this place? Nothing?”

“Hardly,” I said to me, “this is my workshop.”

“Who are you?” I asked, not sure of what the answer would be.

“I am your creator, my son. Yaweh. The infinite.  I am God.”

“So God looks like me. That’s empowering.” The gravity of the situation obviously had not sunk in.

“I chose this appearance because it is one you can understand. I am too complex for the human eye to see or the human mind to comprehend. Nothing you know is comparable to what I am. If a human was to see Me, his head would collapse and arms would fall to ashes.” His voice echoed as He spoke and my double’s lips were not in sync with His words.

I gasped.

“No, but that would be crazy, right?” he chuckled. If God created everything, I suppose He created humor too.

“Well why do you need me? What am I doing here?”

“I need you to help me with a project the likes this world has only seen once. I need help with something beyond comprehension. I have chosen you over all of my children to….”

My alarm snapped me out of my sleep and I sat straight up in bed. Had I really just dreamt that I talked to God and that God looked exactly like me? Why would he need me for a project anyway?

Visions of God and I working on a science fair project danced through my head. Maybe we could do a jigsaw together. Maybe I was just crazy.

As I poured a bowl of cereal, I noticed that I had a number of voicemails on my cellphone. I slept right through the ringing. I do not know how God would have reacted if I left his tableside discussion to answer a phone call about my heating bill.

I checked them with a mouth full of Raisin Bran.

Hey, Josh, it’s Cindy from across the hall. My lightbulb burst and I need help fixing it…”

“Josh, it’s Jeaneane. I was hoping you could come fix my door. It seems to have…”

“Hey there. My name is Victoria and I am new in the building. I was hoping you could show me around.”

The messages went on and on like that. I thought it was odd for so many women to call and ask for help with such innocuous tasks around the house. I figured the more people I talked to, the more answers I would get. I started at Cindy’s apartment across the hall. I only knocked once before she opened the door. It seemed as if she was waiting for me.

“Come on in,” she offered.

“Thanks. How is everything?”

“Oh just fine,” Cindy beamed. “I can see you are doing just fine too.” She looked me up and down.

“I suppose I could be worse.” I wanted to get her bulb fixed quickly so I could ask her what she knew about my own circumstance. “So just the bulb, right?”

She did not respond, but only stared at my chest.

“Cindy? You need your bulb fixed, right?”

She snapped back to reality. “Yes.” She dragged the last ‘s’ out like Kaa. I grabbed a bulb from her counter and she handed me a step stool.

As I stepped up toward the ceiling, I felt her much too close to me and devouring my body with her eyes. I quickly finished the task, and on my way down felt a hand grab my buttocks. Naturally I jumped at the stimulus, but my recoil did not remove the hand. Finally stepping on to the floor, Cindy and I were now chest to chest. I was frozen. I did not know what would happen next.

She grabbed me by the shirt collar and tried to pull me in for a kiss, but I pulled back and we both tumbled over the stepladder. An epic battle of Greco Roman style wrestling broke out, and although I was in a much higher weight class, her strength and determination were immense.  Beyond flattered but still with a sense of dignity, I tried to extricate myself from the situation with as much couth as possible. Utterances of “Please” and “I’m sorry, I can’t” did not deter this mini molester from her onslaught.

Finally untangling myself from our limbs, I put the kitchen table between us and tried to explain my misgivings.

“I’m sorry, Cindy. I can’t do this. There is another…” Before I could finish my sentence and explain my feelings for Becca, she was hurtling across the table like some crazed ex-wrestler reliving the glory days in his own house. Luckily I dodged her and ran in to the living room, knocking over end tables and lamps in the process to slow her down. She circled around and cut me off before I could reach the door. We were both panting for far different reasons. I was scared for my life; she was wracked with what looked like lust. Finally I decided enough was enough and bulldozed my way over her and bounded out the door like a nimble behemoth. I felt guilty treating her like a penny on a railroad track, but it had to be done.

I made my way up to the third floor to help Jeaneane with her door. I was dreading the outcome of that situation. I doubted things could have gotten worse, though.

I knocked twice and waited a few moments for her to answer. From behind the door, she yelled, “Come on in, it’s too hard to open from the inside.” I pushed open the door violently, expecting a lot of resistance from the hinges. What I got was no resistance at all, and tumbled in to the apartment head over heels, breaking off the door handle. When I looked up, I realized things could have gotten worse, and did.

The apartment was lit by only candles and Teddy Pendergass was the only voice I heard. I got up off my knees and stood in her living room, dumbfounded at the sight of her in lingerie spread out on a fainting couch. I was sensing a pattern.

“Jeaneane, I thought I was here to fix the door,” I asked as I held up the handle staring at her, mouth agape.

“Oh that can wait. Right now I have another problem.”

I was not about to allow this situation get to the same degree of craziness I had just been through. “Jeaneane, I can’t do this. There is a girl I am in love with…”  With that she hopped up and wrapped her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. Her small, athletic frame supported itself completely as I raised my arms to show I had no intention of going any further.

I had to get her off of me, but she clung to me like I was the last pint of ice cream on a lonely Saturday night. I finally pried her from me and bolted out the broken door and headed for the stairs. I had egregiously underestimated this woman’s determination. I turned just in time to see her emerge from the darkness of her apartment like a lioness chasing down a wildebeest. Her hair and sheer nightgown blew wildly in the wind created by her sprint. Her visage had changed from want to need. I was scared to think about not only about how she would feel if I got away, but what would happen to me if I did not. The last thing I remember is turning forward only to see a staircase in front of me and a weight landing on my back.

I regained consciousness in an ambulance with the now ubiquitous paramedics staring down at me.

“You just can’t stay out of trouble, huh, kid?” The most senior of the two questioned.

I smiled weakly and passed back out.

Back in my empty dream world, I saw myself again, this time sitting in a sand box with my back to me.

“God?” I asked, almost frightened at the answer.

“Come over, my child,” he boomed without turning around.

I circled around to see Him building then demolishing life-size sand sculptures and scribbling madly on a piece of paper.

“Now you know my project. Why I saved you and called you hear.” It was still creepy to talk to myself like that, knowing God was just behind my own eyes.

“Of course,” I lied. I did not want to sound so dumb in front of God. He looked at me from under his brow. I forgot you cannot lie to God. “Sorry. No I have no idea.”

“You are the last man on Earth. I need help creating a new, better model.”

Understandably, this came as a shock. Why would The Infallible need my help?

“The last man on Earth?” I gasped, unable to comprehend such a situation.

“That’s right. We had to fill in some jobs here and there by women that were not the best fit, but it was only for a few days.

That explained why some of the women in the hospital seemed so inept.

“And I sent two of my best angels to watch over you. Every time you had an accident, who were the first ones on the scene?”

I thought it was odd for the two same female paramedics to be at every emergency that I was involved with.

“That’s right,” he whispered as he saw the understanding spread across my eyes.  

But how can I give advice to God? I can barely manage my own life.

He pointed to a place in the sandbox and a chair arose from the dirt. I sat obediently. “The first time I made Man, he was too violent. Always killing, fighting, and hurting. ‘Oh your skin is too dark. You worship a different deity. I want that land.’” He mocked in a falsetto voice with his fists pressed to his cheeks. “It has gotten so far out of hand I needed an overhaul.”

“Well, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a woman help you? I mean, wouldn’t they know what makes a perfect man?” I spoke hesitantly, not wanting to offend the man that created The Great Flood.

“I’m God, not a magician. Have you ever tried to please a woman?”

I shook my head slowly, remembering my one failed relationship vividly.

He scoffed, “Well imagine trying to please 4 billion.” He went back to mocking mode. “’He has to be tall but not too tall. Not too skinny but not too muscle-ly. Smart but not arrogant. Confident but not cocky. Nice but not a pushover.’”

“I see what you mean.”

He continued over my sentence. “’Love cats and dogs and horsies. Be rich but available for his family. Drive a nice car but not a sports car. Love me but not be clingy.’” He stopped and realized he had rambled perhaps too long. He sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “So you can see my dilemma.”

“Well you did women right,” I conceded.

“Yeah that was probably my favorite creation,” He stated as he stared in to the white abyss with a toothy grin on my face. “But that is why I can’t have a Man created by a woman- too impossible- or a Man created by me. Men and women have to be opposite, but complementary. I think if I gave women keys to the factory they would just fashion another woman with a penis,” he chuckled.

I could not help but be struck by God saying the word ‘penis.’ “Well if I were creating Man, I would keep the same model but tweak it a little. Perhaps change some virtues that cannot hurt in excess. More patience and understanding. Turn up the communication level a notch or two also. Most of all, there needs to be compassion. No world can ever be too compassionate. I mean, I can’t keep a plant alive, much less fabricate an entire gender of a specie, but those would be my corrections. I can’t imagine a woman that would disagree with those terms. Understanding is the key to harmony.”

God sat back and rubbed a giant, white beard that had suddenly grown on my borrowed face. “Those sound pretty good. I like to think we make a good team.”

“Well, I learned from the best.” I slapped him on my shoulder then recoiled at my breach of etiquette. Were you supposed to touch God? He was in my body after all. Did he own my body? He did create it. I froze.

“The last man that touched me ended up being the drummer for Def Leppard” He said, very seriously.

Was God really going to take my arm?

A smile shot across His face and he put me in a headlock. “Why are you people so afraid of me? Didn’t you hear I am a loving god?”

He allowed me back up and thanked me for the advice. He told me when I went back, everything would be fine. Then He had me close my eyes and rubbed sand over my eyelids.

I awoke on a stretcher being rolled into the hospital. One of the nurses looked down at me.

“It’s ok, my son. You took a nasty spill and bumped your head. I know you must be a little frightened right now, but it will be fine. I want you to rest. I will take care of everything.”

The only thing better than the news that I was healthy was the sight of the nurse. A sandy-haired man, about my age, staring intently at me with steel blue eyes. I remembered feeling very peaceful as I feel victim to the anesthesia.

What must have been hours later, I awoke in my kitchen.