Movie Review: "You've Got Mail", and the Infinite-Tom-Hanks Conspiracy Theory

                Sometimes I miss the 90’s. Not in a waxy, nostalgic way, although that was the period I grew up from a grubby child into a grubby adult. I miss that era in a “the world was marginally less screwed back then” way. It’s nice to look back and think at one point, the most racist person in U.S. politics was probably Newt Gingrich (remember him? No? Good, be glad) and for a brief period, reflect that people actually cared about “Crazy Bones.” What a strange and magical time.

                But there are some things from the 90’s that are very rightly forgotten. Time has rolled over these pockets of evil, steamrolling them into the grease-soaked tapestry of American history. Depressing headlines like the Unabomber, scandals like the Clinton affair which seem quaint to us now, have all faded. But the 90’s serves as a cage for a darker power, an insidious evil that history can never truly erase: Tom Hanks romantic comedies.

                “What?” you might say. “But I loved those!” Sure you did. And that’s fine. But you don’t understand, man. You don’t get it yet. You haven’t seen these movies like I’ve seen them, okay? Let me bring you into my world. Let me show you the face of pure evil.

I didn’t have much cable growing up, so when I discovered Tom Hanks romances were a big deal, I was curious. I’d seen Castaway of course, and Forrest Gump, but that’s about it. Recently went back and watched You’ve Got Mail, to find out what I’d been missing living under a rock all these years. 

What I found was pure nightmare fuel.

             Let’s revisit this movie together. Let’s explore the terrifying, cosmic implications of a world where screenwriters have decided your reality, where Tom Hanks is the only romantic partner you can be with due to cruel fate and lazy screenwriters. Let’s dive into those oily folds under Tom’s weird chin and see what we can uncover.

                Here’s the trailer.

              

                Cute, right? Pure, mid-90’s, “New York is so cool and trendy I hope nothing bad happens to us lol” chuckle-a-minute romance. The email plot is adorably dated, and “Joe and Kathleen” seem like fun, quirky people. Maybe a bit too quirky. You can see the bare bones of the “manic pixie dream girl” archetype in Meg Ryan’s Kathleen, a book shop owner whose nail-biting illicit romance with someone on the new-fangled Internet is bound to cause havoc. And even in this trailer, something in Tom Hanks’ monosyllabic “Joe” seems a bit off. He’s clearly a fun-loving guy, and very quippy. There’s a frame of him riding in a go-cart, playing with some kids you assume might be his:

            

“Oh, Tom Hanks, you scoundrel, you’ve done it again,” you smile as “Mr. Postman” plays jauntily in the background. “There you go, winning audiences’ hearts and minds again, with child-like glee and a twinkle in your—”

                “But he can’t possibly be the Rooftop Killer,” protests Meg Ryan to Steve Zahn, mid-trailer.

                … W-wait, what?

                Let’s dig into the movie. Already a kernel of subliminal unease has nestled deep in your belly, but you ignore it, bury it; you’re just here to have a good time, get a couple laughs. And at first, it seems like that’s all you’re going to get. The opening setup between Hanks and Ryan is a boring montage; their email relationship is shown, and their real-life bookstore rivalry set up. By now you’re probably asking “What the hell is a bookstore?” Well, sonny, long ago there were these physical book shops, and they sold real books, and somehow they made actual money and were profitable. Those days are long behind us now, but the skeletons of titans like Barnes and Noble and Borders Books (I know, too soon) still litter our nation, rotting and festering. And in this world, Tom Hanks runs a very successful “bookstore chain” called Foxbooks, with his best friend, Dave Chappelle—

               

                Really? Dave Chapelle? In what timeline does a great comedian and the living hunk of beef-flank known as Tom Hanks become friends? Let’s just put that aside for now. Trust me, we’ll be coming back to Dave Chapelle in a BIG way. He’s the linchpin here. He ties it all together.

                For now let’s watch and have a sensible chuckle as Meg Ryan and Hanks bounce off each other. Oh look, they’re both with significant others they hate! Okay, that’s a bit sad, but kind of funny. Oh look, Tom Hanks has a couple of little kids as his “aunt” and “uncle” because his ancient grandpa banged a twenty-year-old! That’s… Wow, how zany, how crazy is that? It’s definitely not creepy at all. Nope. Not even a single bit.

               

                Okay, it’s a little creepy. And note how Hanks—excuse me, Joe Fox—starts off his very first meeting with Kathleen by lying to her. “It’s just Joe,” he protests as his little “uncle” tries to give the game away by spelling F-O-X over and over. The pattern of deception will continue for the rest of the film.

                Things progress in usual rom-com fashion: Joe and Kathleen continue bonding through the titular emails, baring their souls to each other, “on-line!” Scandalous, right? Not really. This concept wasn’t novel in 1998 when the movie was released. We’re always one “information superhighway” away from the movie collapsing under its own dated weight. But the implications of their bonding—both of them are in a relationship when their “friendship” starts moving really fast—are both morally dubious and saucy enough to hold our interest.

                But then things start to get weird.

                Joe and Kathleen go to a book…event… thingy, where they see each other and Kathleen realizes he’s a Big Corporate Jerk (TM.) Here’s a chance for Hanks/Joe to redeem himself: He could apologize for his earlier lie, and begin his redemption arc. But no, he shits all over Kathleen’s bookstore, insults her as a person and for liking Pride and Prejudice, and stands idle as his own girlfriend flirts with Kathleen’s hipster boyfriend. He later breaks up with her after spending five minutes in an elevator with her, presumably the first time he's ever actually listened to her speak. We begin to understand Joe has issues relating to others. What we don’t realize yet is that Joe is Satan himself, incarnate.

                We will learn, though. By God, we will learn.

                What you need to know is this: 90’s Hollywood was just a slightly less coked-out version of 80’s Hollywood. Even though the whole “corporations are evil” thing was well-established, in 90’s movies, rich people could do no wrong. The wealthy were at the top of filmmaking society, and it would have been rude to lambast them. Also, in the words of Ronald Wright, everyone else considered themselves “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Fact two: Tom Hanks was a golden boy back then. He was right up with Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, in the “zany endearing funny guy” category. The combination of these—Tom Hanks the golden boy, and his wealthy-white-male-character in a 90’s movie—becomes basically unstoppable. He’s a narrative Super Saiyan. He rolls over other characters like an M1 Abrams rolls over sand-castles at the beach.

                Joe goes on to mentor Kathleen in the art of the put-down via AOL, not realizing he’s empowering his enemy. How Shakespearian! This is where Dave Chapelle comes in. Oh Dave, you beautiful bastard, thanks for being in this movie. You are the only thing saving my sanity from Tom Hanks.

Chapelle’s scenes are a breath of fresh air, because he acts as Joe’s moral compass. Observe him trying to get Joe to have basic humanity:

             

                “You don’t feel bad putting her on welfare?” No, Dave. No he doesn’t. Because he’s Tom Hanks. And he's an uncaring monster.

                Now, a few things seem off about this scene, and I’m not talking about the cam-rip quality either. Why is Chapelle friends with Hanks’ character anyway? Presumably, they work together—there’s a line later about Chapelle running the Foxbooks outlet “like a well-oiled machine.” But we never see how they met. They don’t seem to interact much outside the gym and at work: they never get shots at a bar, or play golf, or whatever it is rich people do with their friends. In fact, we never see Chapelle talk to anyone but Hanks, throughout the movie.

                He also doesn’t touch anything.

                Or appear in scenes without Hanks.

                Wait a minute.

               

                Oh my God. OH MY GOD! It’s all starting to come together! Joe’s abusive behavior, his dead-eyed stare. His conspicuous lack of any real friends other than Chapelle. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve stumbled across the first enormous clue to the Hellraiser puzzle-box that is You’ve Got Mail: Chapelle does not exist. He’s Tyler Durden, he’s Harvey the Rabbit. He’s Joe’s imaginary friend.

                Once you realize this, everything else starts to fall into place. At no point in the movie does Chapelle interact with anyone other than Hanks/Joe. No one ever interacts with him either, not even to say hi. Which is very suspicious, as he’s the manager of a huge bookstore and there are several scenes in which he’s in that bookstore. Finally, in the gym scene, people turn their heads to stare at Joe. “Of course they do,” you say, your voice shaking as your mind begins to unravel, “it’s because he’s pissed at Kathleen. He’s being loud and abrasive. Typical Hanks stuff.”

                Wrong. They’re staring at him because he’s talking to himself. Wake up, sheeple!

                The rabbit-hole goes even deeper as we watch, helpless to look away, helpless to stop the emotional carnage. Joe learns that Kathleen is his online paramour, via contrived plot events. Okay, here’s his chance: time for him to open up to her IRL, yeah? Maybe apologize for ruining her bookstore’s business and give her a loan or something to foster good old capitalist competition?

                Absolutely not. He agrees to meet with her and then proceeds to dupe her and torment her psychologically, turning her existence into a horrible farce as her business dissolves, her friends disappear from all future scenes and the sweaty-faced goblin known as Tom Hanks capers around the ruins of her life, cackling.

                You have to see this shit to believe it (and bear with me, because Blogspot doesn't play nice with "timed" YouTube URLs.) Specifically, check out this scene in the diner, the first time they’ve met after Joe’s discovered they’re secretly Internet pals, and after he’s roundly mocked her for planning to meet an anonymous “friend” with a rose and a copy of her favorite book. She drives him to the next table, goes to get out her hand mirror to touch-up, and…

                Oh no. No, NO.

                ... AHHHH!

               ....... AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

                Dude, what the fuck?? As the movie progresses, Hanks progresses further and further away from being a goofy rich playboy and more into looking like a psychopathic stalker. Here he is forcing his way into her apartment after she specifically asks him to leave:

                Joe Fox? More like Joe Bates.

                Dude, no! No, dude!! Consent is a THING, Tom Hanks! No means NO! Also, you’re always sweaty! Always! No woman would even want to even be NEAR you in temperatures over thirty degrees Fahrenheit, which I have to assume is your normal body temperature because you’re a terrifying cold-hearted lizard person!

                Here he is knocking on the window of a café she’s in, ostensibly because he followed her there:

                "HELLO, CLARICE."

                And here he is lurking in the depths of the creepy bachelor boat he’s living in, gloating over his laptop like a high-tech Buffalo Bill:

                "These machines let me monitor her heartbeat as she sleeps."

                Really, this series of clips summarizes everything you need to know about “Joe Fox” in this movie, but then you guys wouldn’t get to watch my sanity unravel from viewing this turd in action, would you? Listen: Joe is a dead-faced, calculating creeper who continually harasses Kathleen for the rest of the runtime. Here he is totally fucking with her after Kathleen, now single because of the wedges Joe has driven into her life, has dared to ask if he’s married or not:

                "Ha ha, watch me destroy her self-esteem until she wants to be with me! Isn't this fun?"

                Is it all coming together now? Is it starting to click for you? IS IT??

               

                Okay, so maybe I’m over-analyzing this. Maybe I’m reading too deeply into what is really a sweet, well-intentioned film about a rich book mogul slowly convincing (read: coercing) a woman into being his girlfriend. The fact that he plays psychological mind-games on her is weird and unforgivable, but maybe there's a deleted scene where she slaps him for it, or at least gives him a taste of his own medicine. Maybe. Oh, and for the whole movie, I’m supposed to accept that Meg Ryan's character is somehow dumb enough not to realize until the final scene that this gas-lighting, boat-dwelling lunatic is messing with her, playing her like a damn fiddle. It’s maddening to watch: you feel like you’re going crazy. “How did people miss this?” you scream to the uncaring skies, tearing at your hair. “Tom Hanks can’t even act! He just walks around being Tom Hanks!” Your mind reels, rejecting the reality of the film.

                Because doing the alternative—deeming Joe’s behavior acceptable—just doesn’t sit right. I get it, this was a different time, these things were seen as romantic, even if you can practically hear Joe sharpening his skinning-knives in the background. SHHK, SHHK. But I like to think we’ve moved past that and can leave this movie safely in the past, where it be… wait, what's that? There are MORE movies like this? How many more? And how many of them star Meg Ryan?!

               

                This… this goes far deeper than I imagined. It’s like a Tom Hanks multiverse, where no matter what she does, Meg Ryan is never safe from the sweaty palms of Joe Fox. The mind games and the forced romances unfold again and again, across infinite timelines, an endless fractal-construct of cherubic Tom Hanks faces slowly spiraling through time and space. What was wrong with the nineties? My God, what did we unleash back then?

                Tune in next week, as I over-analyze Joe Vs. the Volcano!

               

"Alt-History Sunday Sneak Peek"

This is the intro to an unfinished short story about temporal terrorism, set in the Bush years for maximum chuckles. I'm still working on the ending.

I also have a new novel in the works--haven't sold my first one yet, of course, but stay tuned!

-Paul

 

                On September 11, 2001, federal agents arrested a group of terrorists whose hijacking plan would have brought down the Twin Towers. This operation was conducted with little fanfare, the perpetrators were locked away, and few newspapers even bothered with a front page splash about the plot. The CIA and FBI had done their jobs and the threat of Al-Queda was contained; as far as the media was concerned, there wasn’t really much to report.

                On September 12, radical eco-terrorists from the future set off a device in the middle of Times Square. This device directly linked New York City with a period in the late Cretaceous, sixty-seven million years in the past. This “temporal link” erased whole entire neighborhoods, including portions of the Bronx and Queens and much of upper Manhattan. The fabric of space-time was permanently shredded in the region, and the rips spread quickly, replacing parts of upstate New York and nearby New Jersey with vast swathes of jungle. Carnage, confusion and panic were widespread, and the National Guard was mobilized. By the time that President Bush declared a national state of emergency, several thousand people had died: many were shunted into the past when the Link was activated, and countless were injured by prehistoric creatures. Many of these were carnivores, suddenly and violently introduced to an environment they did not understand. They reacted aggressively, seeing the intrusion of human beings and skyscrapers as an assault on their territories.

                The photograph summarizing the madness, taken by war correspondent Steve McCurry, shows an Allosaurus rearing its head over Central Park. Its taloned foot presses down on a police cruiser, and NYPD officers are firing their sidearms at the animal. The serrated teeth of its massive jaws are bearing down on the officers, all of whom would lose their lives that day trying to secure the nearby boroughs.

                It goes without saying that the Link defined a generation, changed the face of the earth, so on and so forth. The terrorist’s ultimatum—an immediate end to carbon emissions, under threat of further devices being detonated—were ignored, and Operation Home Front was begun to exterminate the dinosaurs and find the people responsible. Over the next decade, hundreds would be arrested on suspicion of harboring temporal fugitives, and the fledgling President would be impeached after he authorized the use of nerve gas on “contested” (read: rioting) areas of New York City. The damage to time’s fabric continued to unfold, spreading from state to state, churning out regions and animals from bygone eras into America’s terrified streets.

                Some fortified their homes. Many simply packed their things and ran.

                Jim Conway’s family drove right into that shit.

In Defense of Cheesy Monster Movies

               Everybody hates thinkpieces. Periodically, the blogs and publications I follow get a bad case of the ol’ self-righteousness: some ancient evangelical urge bubbles up, and a navel-gazing pundit waddles onto a soapbox and announces This Is The Way It Is! Deal With It, Scrubs!!!! They’ve got the answer to Current Social Problem XYZ, you see, and if you just reblog their position enough, you too can be enlightened… Such intellectual monkey-spanking is endemic—when you run a blog, it’s very easy to go groping for that soapbox, and tell yourself the world just doesn’t get it, maaan. And your two-and-a-half followers might happily back you up with an echo chamber where you never have to be wrong or uncomfortable.

                I’d rather direct my energies towards something a less topical. We’re all sick of topical shit right now—even the supporters of His Oiliness the Cheeto (short may he reign, senile and debauched) are worn out from all their sieg-heiling. So let’s focus on something a little less current-events, and a little more ridiculous. I’m talking about cheesy, shitty monster movies. The absolute shittiest. I'm talking The Crawling Eyeball, Human Centipede XXVIII level stuff.

                The genre’s had a revival, recently. Godzilla and King Kong are lumbering slowly back into theaters, and Toho itself—the company who created Big G in the first place—has stretched its muscles with the excellent Shin-Gojira, 50% horror-Godzilla and 50% men in suits arguing over noodles. Legendary Pictures is brewing up a Pacific Rim sequel, and nerds like me couldn’t be happier. Meanwhile, my family and girlfriend remain totally confused by these schlock-fests. “They’re so juvenile,” a homemade straw-man hypothetically might say. “Why do you watch that junk?”

                Well, there’s nostalgia, to begin with. The things you enjoyed in childhood never quite go away, and men in rubber monster-suits beating the crap out of each other was one of my first passions. But I think there’s a deeper pull towards high-lactose thrills like “Matango” and “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.” There’s a dweebish joy to these movies, but also a cultural story, the evolution of the fireside tale into something new and strange. Once upon a time, these monsters scared the crap out of audiences: it seems impossible , but the original clay-motion “Lost World” adaptation convinced people the director had filmed real dinosaurs. And the famous “War of the Worlds” radio adaptation in the 30’s sent hysterical families rushing to lock their doors. We may laugh now, but in a world of “fake news” and paranoid travel bans, these reactions start to make a sort of sense. People jump when they see the boogeyman, and they even jump when they think there's a boogeyman. Or there might be. Our ape-like instinct runs deep, and it teaches us to keep out the menace, the outsider. The monster.

                Monsters have power. They stand in for things, neatly slipping into the role of the scapegoat, the Antichrist, the menacing foreigner. They take the slings and arrows of our natural xenophobia and terror of the unknown—and that's a good thing. If we didn’t have entertainment to soak up our fears and paranoia, the world would be a whole lot worse. We'd go to witch burnings instead of movie theaters, for starters. Even the original Godzilla film was a manifestation of fear: fear of atomic power. A beast rises from human mistakes, and burns mankind. If you go back further, you find the precursors--the werewolf who became Kong, the dragon who became Godzilla. Their power didn’t dry up and go away when we started telling our stories with film projectors—if anything, they got stronger.

                “Cheesy” monster movies are an inversion of this kind of fear. They take the unknown, the terrifying, the cosmic force that stomps buildings... and turn it endearing, almost goofy. They break down the invading evil into something digestible and sane. When Ultraman punches a bug-eyed alien, we cheer, or we laugh. (Or, if you're not me, you turn off the TV and wonder how that station stays in business doing Ultraman reruns. Which is a pretty legitimate question.) The dust settles, and the monster has been neutered by defeat. It can’t hurt us, and this is why B-movies will always make money. The plentiful fears of the modern world have been condensed in these films, locked away on the screen. The monster appears, terrorizes, but is then swiftly dealt with by the Army. Or wild-haired scientists. Or heroes in spandex.

                There is, of course, a dangerous flipside to this.

                When we take the monster and break it down to a punchline, we forget why we feared it. The werewolf has not gone away; in fact, he seems stronger than ever. The werewolf is the betrayer, the cannibal. He is mugger, the office shooter, the lurking terrorist. Each day we are told to See Something, Say Something, and yes—I’m returning to politics. Sorry, not sorry. The parallels are too strong. Our president practically postures with a silver revolver every day, insisting only he can save us from the werewolf among us. And people totally buy it. "Watch for the mutant!" he crows, shaking an orange fist. "Watch for the heretic! Keep those torches ready!" He defies the Other. And we eat that up. We always have.

                We’ve forgotten that the monstrous is fiction. People do horrible things, but not because they're inhuman: they do them because at some point the fragile network of human decency has failed them, and allows them to behave this way. But that level of responsibility as a species is too much for us: we much prefer to see evil as the face of the monster, the face of something alien, and therefore outside our responsibility. There is no longer a division between the xenophobia we direct at our screens, subconsciously, and the xenophobia raging in our own lives. The walls of unreality have been unable to contain the monster-hunters: they have stormed the voting booths, the online forums, the talk shows. Our rubber and CGI “cultural pinatas” have all been beaten to shit, and can take no more; they have failed us.

                But still I hunt for secondhand "Gamera" DVDs, stockpile the history of imaginary beasts in my brain, and write stories about the Creeping Brain-Eater from Venus. Why? Because the monster itself still provides a focus for fear, an escape, softening the blow of the real world’s monsters. And the cheesier the escape, the better. These stories also remind you to be cautious when real horror and fear creep in: once you are familiar with the fake monsters, it becomes easier to handle the real ones with logic and patience. "To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." I don't think Lao Tzu was talking about the comfortable sanity that comes from indulging in kitschy kaiju movies, but he might as well have been. And he's not wrong.

                We have to control the monster in some way, or he controls us.

The Retcon

                “I used to be a hero.” I cleared my throat. “Well, a sidekick, technically. That’s the first step towards recovery, right? Admitting you had a problem.” There were quiet chuckles from the group around me, but the laughter didn’t reach their eyes. Under the ceiling bulb, in our circle of folding chairs, we looked like a bunch of monks in bright, trendy clothing. “You guys knew my mentor—Cellular Man. Re-shaped his own cells to shapeshift, fight crime, the whole routine.” I stared through my fingers at the floor. “Guess he thought having a ‘sidekick of color’ would pad out his resume, or something. Whatever his reasons, he hired me, and we made a good team. With my plant powers and his cell control, we changed the world—for the better.” I sighed. “He called me ‘Verdant Lass,’ and it stuck. Worst goddamned sidekick name in the…” I paused. “Sorry.”

                “Don’t apologize,” said the guy across from me, Toby Wires—aka Wire-Lad. Used to be, he could control metal cables. Why just metal cables? We never found out. Of course, now all he controlled were lattes, as a barista. “We’re not an ‘example’ anymore, Shawna. You don’t have to worry about the code of morals—you can speak freely.”

                “Right you are, fucker!” More laughter, and this time I saw some genuine smiles. “Damn, it feels good to curse. One good thing about the Rewrite, we finally get to act like people.”

                “Represent!” said Gamma Gal, pumping a fist.

                Toby put out a hand. “Okay, come on. Let the girl finish.”

                “Anyway, I’m no different than you guys. I still miss my old life. After…” I swallowed. The cement floor seemed to spin underneath me, as I tried to reconcile reality with who I used to be. The thing I used to care about. “After the Rewrite, when we ended up here, I went to see Cellular Man. A lot of heroes, they couldn’t deal with the loss of their powers. The villains were fine—they ran off to run governments, work on Wall Street, they fit right in. But Cellular Man…” I swallowed. I could still see the blood.

Every day, tried to wash it away, but it wouldn’t go. Out, damned spot, out. It was everywhere, staining my clothes, my sheets. But taking that horror and putting it into words was beyond me. “He tried to shapeshift… without powers,” I said, my voice shaking. “He cut off… pieces of himself, stapled or stitched them onto other body parts. It was…” I couldn’t finish. My throat was closing up. Toby got up, brought me a glass of water, and I choked it down. I found his hand on my shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” I said, a little more fiercely than I’d intended. A couple ex-sidekicks winced. I must have looked a mess; eyes streaming, hair akimbo. But I needed to finish the story. All our lives had been cut short—I deserved that much. “I need this.”

“Okay.” He sat down.

“When the police came… the new police, not the kind we used to know, not the bumbling extras who would eat donuts and wait for us to show up… when the cops came, they threw me in a squad car. They were going to pin it on me. I was stupid enough to touch the knives, I tried to pull them out. They had fingerprints…” I focused on breathing, zoned in on a small hole in the concrete. A perforation. “They were convinced I did it. I was done for. And then he came.”

“The Storyteller,” said Toby.

I nodded. “Yes. With his cashmere sweater, and his pipe, and his stupid fucking…” They all blanched. “His… big glasses.” I wasn’t scared of him, not like they were. They all thought he was God, that he could kill any of us at any time, for speaking ill of him. I knew better.

If he’d wanted to kill us, he wouldn’t waste so much time torturing us.

“He walked into the police station. He wrote something on a piece of paper… Taped it to my cell. No one seemed to notice him. And the same officer who’d slammed my nose into the floor, broke it and wouldn’t give me a phone call, that officer opened the cell door. Smiled. Offered me… offered me coffee.” I fingered the crook in my nose where the splint had settled the bone. It still crunched, sometimes, when I poked it. “They said they were sorry, so sorry for the mix-up. That night they arrested some random guy, charged him with Cellular’s murder. Last I heard, he was doing fifty to life.”

Silence, around the ring of pale and frightened faces.

“I came back here. Back to the cul-de-sac, where all of us seem to end up—no matter what jobs we land, no matter who we once were. Villains, heroes, sidekicks, fucking henchmen… We all end up here.” I found I could breathe once more. Some great and awful weight was lifting from my joints, my spine, fleeing my guts like the sudden absence of a tumor. “Someone else moved into Cellular Man’s house, the week after. Like nothing happened.”

“What was on the piece of paper?” This was Remora Boy. He was sucking on a lollipop: slowly, compulsively. His way, I assumed, of dealing with the lack of his suction powers. I couldn’t judge. We all had our own ways of carrying the cross, the weight of a past world, one that had never existed.

“It had this elaborate, cursive handwriting. Very small, very precise. It said… ‘After the gruesome murder at Olympus Circuit Drive, young Shawna was falsely accused, another victim of our flawed criminal justice system. Luckily, a stop-and-frisk caught the real culprit with the victim’s blood and several murder weapons, that very night! Vindication never tasted so sweet.’”

“Our state doesn’t have stop-and-frisk,” said Toby.

“Exactly.” That tiny hole in the concrete seemed to swallow my world, as I delved into the memory, explored its nooks and crannies. Searching for any missing pieces. “There was more.”

They waited.

“‘The good people of Olympus Circuit welcomed her back with open arms.’” I’d kept the paper, pinned it to my fridge, to prove I wasn’t crazy. Memorized it. “‘Soon enough, the terrible act was forgotten, and life returned to normal. Shawna Mason continued her life as a landscaping designer… an ordinary, everyday hero, making the community more beautiful each day.’ And that’s why I came. Because… because no one remembered him. And that wasn’t right.” I broke up a little, and Remora Boy handed me a tissue box. I took it reluctantly, snorted into a Kleenex.

“Anybody got a trash can?”

“Over there,” said Gamma. I threw a mess of mucus and shame into the bin. Stared at the floor again.

“You say this was months ago,” Toby prompted me, softly. “Why now? If he made us forget, why did you need to share this with us now?”

My hands balled into fists. “Because… because I don’t think that’s the only thing he’s made us forget.”

Toby frowned. “What do you mean?”

There was a knock on the door. We all jumped. I knew who it was; I knew what was about to happen. For all we knew, it might have happened a hundred times—because none of us would remember. Not with our lives rewritten out from under our feet every morning.

“I think he’s Rewritten more than just our pasts,” I said, speaking over the sound. “I think he’s messing with us on purpose. Torturing us, building a Purgatory, for something the heroes did. Or something he thinks they did.”

“Shawna,” said Toby, rising, “maybe we shouldn’t—”

“No! Fuck this!” I rose. Pushed my chair in front of the door. The knocking grew louder; I tried to shut it out, tried to think of anything but that sound, my nails digging blood out of my fists. “We can’t let him do this! We were the good guys, damn it! We don’t deserve this!” Remora Boy was crying. The others had pulled away from me; their faces were sheep’s faces, panicked and wild-eyed.

“We have to fight back,” I said, and the knocking grew louder, and I could feel his influence slithering into the room like a fat slash of red ink through our lives. “He’s going to stop us meeting like this. He’s going to make us forget. But we need to hold on. He can’t rewrite everything! There has to be some hole—some way through his powers!”

Toby stepped forward. First I thought he was going to hit me, stop me from bringing the anger of our new God into this room, into our minds. But he just put a hand on my cheek.

“This has happened before,” he said. He was smiling, the genial expression of peace you might see on a saint. Or a martyr. “You gave us a phrase to repeat. A mantra. This time I remembered it.”

“I…” The hammering was thicker and now I recognized it for what it was: not a fist on wood, but the sound of a typewriter’s keys, old-fashioned and big as the stars, slamming down into us, changing the script. “What was it?”

“No one can break through the ceiling,” he said and then the Sidekicks decided to disband their quaint little meeting, for the good of all. There would be no more awkward confessions tonight. Because the old world was gone, and it was easier to forget it, let it pass. The comrades hugged, they cried, they ate crackers and cheese and slurped stale water from Toby’s kitchen tap. And then they went home, and fell into a deep, nourishing sleep, forgetting all dreams of returning to the old way. After all, their lives were better now: more meaningful, more human. No more silly costumes, no more playing dice with the fate of the earth. Their toys were broken, but they now had a chance to do real good. Lasting good.

In the quiet of Olympus Drive, there remained only the stillness of night, and the ripe possibilities of a slowly approaching dawn.

I woke up screaming. The scary part was, I didn’t know why.

My throat was raw. My hands were scabbed over with fingernail marks.

             I got out of bed, tried to wash the blood off my hands.

             No one can break through the ceiling.

             There was a note on the fridge.

Life After Arrowhead

                We all remember the world that was. Things like Reagan, New Coke, Walkman, the Ayatollah: all legends. The stories are meaningless, but we hang onto them, clutching them in the cold whispering night. I can taste the mist even, through my duct-tape seals: it has a tangy, metallic flavor that’s vaguely artificial. Someday it will fill my lungs completely, and oh, what a relief that’ll be. Because then the fear will be done with.

                I was a little girl, back when it happened. I’ll never forget the blood, the panic: hunched behind glass, we waited. So much screaming. But that’s over, and I have a purpose now. I’m a runner, a courier between the pockets of humanity that huddle in sealed-off factories and rubberized basements, in the tops of skyscrapers where only the flying things can get you.

                My name is Lupita.

                There’s barely any uppers, in the grocery stores and pharmacies. Decades of scavenging have picked those places clean. Spiders with the faces of men live there now; they've webbed up the leftovers. Good luck getting through that silk; your hands will burn off, and then how will you play your vinyls? So I make my first run of the day without the bennies or caffeine or methamphetamine pounding through my skull, hammering at my heart. I run clean, without a buzz. Maybe it’s for the best: there’s less fear, like this. The anxiety comes from real things.

                My Hazmat suit is patched in a dozen places; it’s a kaleidoscope of color, but they don’t see color, so I’m okay. One of these days, the seals are going to break, and I'll be dinner. I often wonder what’ll get me: whom among the scuttlers and flyers and pre-Cambrian rippers of flesh will do the honors. Some of them have acid venom; others just tear you limb from limb. I’d prefer to get stepped on by a Big One, if I’m honest, or  just fall in a sinkhole. Those deaths are quick, simple. Maybe even fun, if you’re zonked out on blues or reds.

                I wake up in the elementary school. Walls etched with chalk, kerosene lamp glowing. It’s a sturdy place, a leftover of brutalism that’s survived into the aughts, although its students haven’t. They’re still there, mummified little bodies webbed up in classrooms or scattered in the halls. I live in the maintenance shed, attached to the main building by one flimsy door. I open this door and pass by the bodies, like I do every day. I’ve never dreamed of cleaned them up. They’re my friends, Gap Tooth and No Face and Stripped Skin. Besides, moving them would risk attracting attention, releasing old scents that make my neighbors anxious. Excited.

                I sprint down the hall, the mist oozing over the visor of my suit. It’s thinner in here—thinny, you might say. I have a machete today, and that’ll do. Ran out of bullets years ago.

                God, I’m hungry.

                It’s like a dream, hammering down these old tiles and into the street, past the yellow buses with their flat decaying tires and rictus skeins of old mucus. The sky is gone, hidden in gray. The fog coats everything, turning objects into specters that hang half-hidden and lurch from the white as I approach.

It’s quiet. Particles of something unpleasant float, bouncing off the thin plastic of my suit’s visor. Spores, maybe, or a new breed of killer unleashed by Arrowhead. Evolution works fast, on the other side: things come through that were bred in weeks, days, to become perfect killers. Heard a guy say once he’d seen the portal, and it’s nothing but darkness over there, deep todash. I wouldn’t mind that.

                At least in the darkness, you can’t see what’s eating you alive.

                A big scuttler goes by, not fifteen feet away. I freeze; the little ones are blind, but the big ones are clever, smarter than the ‘average bear,’ if you kennit. This one's pretty dumb; its feelers play over my suit, and it gives me a nudge with its pincers, just to see if I’ll run. If I’ll turn out to be food.

                I hold perfectly still, as its sucker-mouthed tongue plays over my arm.

                Eventually it gets bored and skitters off. These things have quick metabolisms; it needs to find food quickly, or starve. I wait till it’s a shadow on Green Street, before I start running. My sealed boots go thwap-thwap, thwap-thwap against ancient, cracked concrete.

                My first stop is Wordboy’s house, by the pond. He picked out a nice place, an old mansion type of deal. Lanterns in the drive, lots of windows. He replaced the glass with sheet-metal and the door with a long airlock tunnel, made of duct-taped steel. Must’ve taken him ages to build it, but he’s a smart one. Taught me all my words.

                Wordboy’s in a talking mood. Once he scrubs me off, he invites me inside. I strip off the suit and lie nude on his moth-eaten couch. He doesn’t mind; Wordboy’s gay as lord. No boob has ever turned his gaze. I tell him the bodies are still where they lie, at the school.

                “Good,” he says. “Keep the bastards off your scent. How’s the shed?”

                I tell him it’s fine, though the latrine could use some work. He nods; plumbing is an issue when you can’t churn up earth without attracting hungry mouths. He’s had similar problems, and candles flicker in every corner of his home, masking his scent. One day, I think, this whole place will burn down.

                “Wordboy,” I say, and I ask him—it’s become sort of a joke, you see—I ask him this every time. “Wordboy, when’s it gonna end? When’s the mist going away?”

                He laughs. “When the army comes back, and television comes on, and Project Star Wars is back on the budget.” He’s stooped and his teeth are rotted from eating processed junk to survive, but when he smiles I still see the old professor in him. He waves his empty rifle at the chalkboard in the corner. “Been tracking their migration patterns—south, like always. But slower.”

                I nod. It makes logic. Whatever’s coming through Arrowhead wants to fill the whole world—stuff it to the brim, with teeth and claws and greedy mouths. It hasn’t done that yet, but if the migration’s slow, it must be close. “You think when the mist is everywhere, maybe they’ll move on?”

                He shakes his head. “Never. This ecosystem is too perfect—everything eats everything else on their world, but ours... ours is a free buffet. All you can eat, forever.”

                I throw up my hands. “Wordboy, you don’t give me hope, sai.”

                “I know.” He taps the stock of his Remington. “But we’ll rebuild. We’re a stubborn breed. That’s why I have my books, ken? Someday we’ll build a way to stop them.”

                His arrogance is immense. I roll my eyes. “Sure, sure. And someday I won’t shit in a bucket.”

                “I’m telling you. Things will change.” The worst part is, he really means it. Smart types think they have it all figured out; me, I think with my legs. It’s the only thinking worth doing, when a thousand grasping arms are reaching for your meat. “Someday, Lupe, we’ll fix it. Until then…” And he presents me with a miracle. An unwrapped, still-fresh Twinkie, virginal and yellow in its translucent shell. “Here. For the Hodgson books you brought me.”

                I take it. “Is this… real?”

                “As real as anything from the dead past.” He shrugs. “Tastes better than hydroponic carrots, at least. Try.”

                I do. My body is starved for carbs. I want to save the treasure for later, but I can’t help it: my fingers rip open the wrapper. “It’s beautiful.”

                He laughs. “I’m sure the manufacturers would appreciate your review.”

                My first bite is heavenly: stale, yes, stale as dead skin. But so fluffy, and sugary, and light on my mouth! Melting, on my tongue! My eyes roll, and this time it’s from pleasure. Once my Twinkie-gasm is over, and I lick my fingers clean, I stand. “Can’t stay. Lot of runs before dusk.”

                “I can dig it.” He hugs me, and I hug him back. We aren’t family, or even close friends, but we both understand this need, the need for mutual human contact that’s been lost in the face of the forever-darkness. The sunless earth. “I wish you’d come and stay here.”

                I shake my head. In my stomach, the Twinkie churns nauseously, unrecognized by digestive enzymes. “No. I need to be alone. They smell you, if you gather. That’s how they got Brighton.”

                He sighs. “If we don’t gather, we’re just going to go extinct. Matter of time.”

                I don’t care. I don’t like people. They scare me, because at least with Big Ones and the scuttlers, you know what you’re getting. But faces are hard to understand, and caring is harder. Better to be alone, and safe, with my Atari and my corpses. “I know,” I tell him. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

                He nods. “Well. If you change your mind… I’m here.”

                “Yes.”

                I put on my suit, I pass through the airlock with its mist of ethanol-bleach. My boots hit the pavement and I am running, running, past the lumbering legs of something ten times my size that sweeps the ground with a clawed tentacle. I run past a man-faced spider, fighting with its fellows over the last scraps of a dog’s bones. My feet pound the roads, my face stares blank and gauzy from the fogged-up visor.

                Someday, I think, breathing hard. There’s Twinkie on my breath.

                Someday.