The New Normals Chapter 10

Kit, Roland and Elliot all searched for the source of the sudden sound. Across the street and a story above them, a man in a dolphin costume appeared to be tapping his knees subtly as he stood in between two enormous speakers playing Bruce Springstein’s “I’m on Fire.” The face hole of his dolphin costume had been left open enough for him to proudly sport his heart-shaped shades. He looked unquestionably smooth.

“See, he’s got the idea,” Roland pointed out.

As the costumed man stood there coolly tapping his foot, a man in an equally eccentric Narwhal costume joined at his left. At his right now, stood a man in a penguin costume. Both of the dolphin’s new companions wore shades, too, but these were star-shaped. They began tapping their feet along with the laid back groove the dolphin had established.

“This looks rehearsed,” commented Kit.

“It does a bit, doesn’t it,” agreed Roland.

Seconds later, the three costumed men began slowly raising their arms. As they did, a large sign came into view.

“A WORLD RETURNED TO THE ANIMALS,” it read.

“It’s a nice idea, isn’t it,” said Roland as he looked intently at the sign and the three men holding it.

“The sign?” Kit asked. He knew what Roland meant, but asked anyway.

“I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s as good an end as any I suppose.”

“So you do think this is the end?” asked Kit. Elliot looked toward both of them.

“It’s not the one I expected, certainly… but It’s starting to look a bit that way,” he continued.

“Surely it’s not the whole world that’s like this…” trailed in Elliot.

“Not to alarm you, but, do you see the horizon?”

Elliot looked as far into the distance as he could manage. Roland watched the reality dawn in his eyes as he did. The body of water surrounding them had no end in sight.

“I’m calling my sister in San Francisco.” Elliot looked sure of himself. He opened his phone, called the number and waited as he forced a haughty grin. Doubt crept into his smile with each ring. When it had reached her voicemail he turned suddenly and said, “Probably just at work.” He was trying to convince the others just as much as himself.

“Couldn’t get through to my mother in Boston, not even to my two cousins in Philadelphia,” said Molly, choking on her words. She appeared to have been sobbing quietly to herself. Matthew was still entranced by the pandemonium surrounding them but blithely unaware of what any of it might mean.

Josh stood stunned, cold and dripping slightly. He’d said almost nothing since emerging from the ocean surrounding them. The water continued slowly creeping up the slopes of the parking garage, inviting more and more cars to join in on the doom-laden chorus of echoing alarms blaring throughout the city. It provided an oddly beautiful backdrop for the costumed men and their next song, “Human or Dancer.” They looked equal parts purposeful and purposeless.

“You know the movie Titanic?” shot Roland suddenly.

“Is that how you knew that was a DiCaprio sex doll?” asked Kit.

“So you have seen it! Good!”

“You have a thing for disaster movies, huh?”

“I’m a bit of a cinephile. Anyway, you know that scene where they know the ship is going to sink but the musicians continue to play anyway?”

“I see the comparison you’re getting at,” Kit replied.

“Right! But what’s interesting to me is that these three don’t seem the least bit concerned. When the Titanic sunk, it was despairing. At least I assume it was…” Roland trailed off.

“…But this! This is hopeful!” With arms wide, he gestured toward the great, chaotic everything. He watched as the grand, flickering sign for Caesar’s Palace fell unceremoniously into the rising tide. A few seconds later the mock-up, monolithic Eiffel Tower crashed through a Whopper billboard before adjusting its course straight for the Bellagio. A battered and vacant yacht drifted impressively far from its presumed home and now ping ponged haphazardly between the hotels and sky scrapers lining Flamingo Boulevard. Each new collision brought with it a deeply sonorous, (echoing), grand grinding of metal.

“Humans have come very far. It’s impressive sometimes. Blasphemous, but impressive.”

“I didn’t take you for the religious type,”

“Oh, I’m not. I didn’t mean blasphemous toward God exactly. Don’t get me wrong… all of this is very blasphemous toward God. All of the gods. Besides Dionysus maybe. Zeus, Allah, Jehovah… If they exist, I doubt they approve of much of what we’ve created here.”

A dumpster floated past them.

“I meant blasphemous toward the sacred. I don’t think humans are very good for this home of ours.”

At this, Roland nodded toward the three costumed men with a warm smile on his face.

“We should probably move to the roof,” said Kit.

“You’re probably right.”

“Hey all! I know that floor 4 of this parking garage is beginning to feel like a second home,” Roland said aloud, once again to no one’s amusement. “But I say it’s about time to move this party to the roof,” he continued.

“Way ahead of you,” said Elliot, already on his way. As he walked up the slope onto the roof of the parking garage, Elliot wished he had someone to blame for the abrupt shift his day had taken. He made a pronounced effort to avoid the first of the whale craps polka-dotting the building’s roof.

To Kit, the day felt surreal. It’s true he was unused to waking up with the sun; he briefly pondered whether this alone was the reason he’d never gained his footing today. He drifted in and out of conversation as though on autopilot. Many of the words coming out of his own mouth had begun to sound strange to him. He felt almost delirious, but oddly comfortable in his delirium.

Roland took advantage of their new height and approached the three men in animal costumes across the street.

“Hey! Down here!” He waved a friendly wave.

“Ay mate, I think that guy’s talking to us,” muttered the penguin to the dolphin.

“Ay bruv, you mind turning it down a bit?” requested the dolphin of the narwhal. The narwhal obliged without saying anything. He walked toward what appeared to be an ipod and with a couple circular motions, the volume had dropped to 40%.

“Did you say something, mate?”

“Just saying hello! I like your guys’ end of the world playlist,” shouted Roland.

“What was that bruv?”

“I like your end of the world playlist!” he yelled a bit more loudly.

“Thank ya! Next we’re playing The Police. I’m thinkin’ ““Nothing But Flowers.””At this, the penguin at his side nudged him. “Ey mate, I thought we agreed on “It’s the End of the World as We Know it” after the Killers.

“Iss a lil played out, but fine. Barry! Play the R.E.M song.” Again, the narwhal obliged happily.

“So you really think it’s the end?” shouted Roland.

“Oy…” the dolphin slowly waddled a 360 in order to survey the damage again.

“Yea, yea I do,” he shouted back, untroubled.

“How bout you, mate?” he muttered, elbowing the penguin at his side.

“Oh yea mate, we’re completely fucked,” he shouted back to Roland as well, equally untroubled.

“Not much use zebatin’ it, I reckon, mate,” chimed in the narwhal now, waddling his way back from the aux chord. Each spoke with distinctive accents, but their dialects all seemed to converge on an overuse of the word “mate.” It bothered Roland that he struggled to identify even just one of these strange accents.

“Got through to me boy in Greece. Ze coast cities got it worse from da sounds of tings,” continued the narwhal in an accent that sounded equal parts Jamaican, French and Spanish.

“Ooof, that’s not hopeful…” Roland said too quietly to be heard.

“Thought zis was the end for us as soon as da rains started… bin thinkin’ these were the end times for awhile now be truthful wit ya.”

“This millennium hasn’t given me a lot of hope either… Always thought that if it ended though, it would be our own doing,” Roland struggled to keep his voice raised loud enough to be heard.

“I had always guessed it would be global warming that would do us in…”

“I’m with ya there mate,” agreed the dolphin.

“Then again, nuclear war was looking like a good possibility for a bit…”

“I hear that mate,” agreed the penguin now.

“Or war period… or cyber attacks, global blackouts, disease…” Kit had quietly decided to rejoin Roland.

“We haven’t had a good pandemic in awhile,”

“I’ve been feeling more and more leery of this whole ‘internet’ thing. I’m with you on that,” Roland welcomed him back.

“I really didn’t think that the end would look anything like this…”

“Me neither mate!” humored the dolphin. Kit was surprised to be overheard. He shot his eyes toward him but found that he had very little to say.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were let down things didn’t turn out a little more… predictably,” observed Roland.

“I guess predictable wouldn’t have been very good either.”

“It’s just — I feel like I’ve wasted so much time worrying about futures that may never come now. It’s anti-climactic.”

“To be suddenly wiped out by something as simple as water?” Roland asked knowing the answer.

“Yeah,”

“It’s all subjective I guess. Dinosaurs didn’t worry much about meteors and then suddenly — no more dinosaurs.”

“At least it was climactic,” said Kit half-seriously.

“I guess meteors are pretty climactic… but there’s really no quantifying these things.” Kit looked contemplative but chose not to reply.

“For what it’s worth, the Titanic was defeated by water.”

“Wasn’t it the iceberg?”

“But it was the Atlantic Ocean really. Even a ship like that is nothing to the vast ocean.”

“You’re not wrong, I guess…”

“To call a ship unsinkable is to tempt the fates. I don’t think people learned very much from that, to tell you the truth.” Roland’s eyes glided vertically up a crumbling skyscraper that stood nearby. Judging from its wobbling, its days towering over that depraved city were drawing to a close.

““The End of the World,” by Skeeter Davis. Another good end of the world song.”” Roland yelled toward the dolphin as “It’s the End of the World as We Know it” drew to a close.

“Ahh didn’t tink of that one mate!”

“Why are you being so blasé about all of this?” Asked Kit wearily.

“I thought we went over this already. None of this really matters.”

“I’m not sure that everyone down there is quite so optimistic about their world being washed away,” said Kit over distant screams. Roland appeared to be getting lost in the bright and somber introductory piano of “The End of the World.”

“Mass extinctions are rarely well-received,” said Roland, as though speaking from experience. The water rose to a foreboding height and the building itself seemed to groan under the colossal pressure of the rising tide. Roland swallowed acceptingly. With the water now slowly flowing up toward the roof of the parking garage, Roland began to succumb to a very primal fear; he looked slightly disarmed but still had the wherewithal to conceal it.

“And even if it’s not something they’re delighted by exactly… that they get to see it at all must be deeply humbling. It’s an improvement from thinking we own the world.”

“If people survive this… they’ll go right back to thinking they own the world.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“You said it yourself, people are very good at adjusting to new normals.”

“Some events are so extreme that they turn everything into a ‘before’ and ‘after.’ I think this may be one of those. I think ‘before’ just ended.” Roland spoke with uncharacteristic solemnity. After a short pause, “I doubt there will be any returning to normal after this,” he continued.

In the short period since its arrival, the ocean outside seemed to have developed an entire tidal system of its own. Waves battered relentlessly against the parking garage until, finally, it crumbled like the sky scraper before it. The city looked grim and the sky above it hopeful. The waters continued to rise and yet the day stood eerily still.

Birds flew quietly overhead and out into the distant horizon.