jamieproctor.ca

Once upon a time, there was a small chick who had been named Chicken Little by very unimaginative (though kind) parents. And one day as that chick scratched in the dirt, pecking for seed, she felt a tremendous thump on her skull.
“OW DAMNIT SHIT” said Chicken Little. She looked up, up, up and saw that she’d been pecking under an oak tree.
“Ah!” said Chicken Little. “Must’ve been an acorn.”
Then she looked back down and on the ground before her little feet was a frozen, gnarled chunk of what looked for all the world like solidified water vapour.
“Well,” said Chicken Little, “that’s one hypothesis shot down.”

Chicken Little had been told by her parents to come to them if she ever encountered a problem.
So she did, with her little frozen bit of… stuff.
“And where did this happen, dear?” asked her mother.
“By the ol’ oak tree,” said Chicken Little.
“Seems pretty straightforward to me,” said her father. “Acorn whacked you on the noggin.”
“It’s out of season for acorns, and what was this doing on the ground next to me then?” asked Chicken Little.
“Out of season happens. What else do you think it could be? And this thing is probably just an icicle that someone’s kids kept in a freezer for a midsummer snack. You worry too much, Chicken Little. Go back outside and goof around.”
Which Chicken Little did do, because she listened to her parents. But she kept an eye on the sky. That bump had really hurt.

Time moved on and Chicken Little was forced to move with it. She grew up and got bigger, yet somehow remained small – and therefore, Chicken Little. The burden was shouldered with as much stoicism as she could muster. In the meantime she spent her days wandering around the farm pecking seeds with her coworkers.
“OW DAMNIT SHIT” screamed out Henny Penny.
“What’s wrong what’s wrong?” asked Chicken Little.
“This thing bounced off my head!”
And lo and behold, there in Henny Penny’s palm lay another chunk of cold, frozen vapour.
“That’s not an acorn,” said Chicken Little.
“No shit Sherlock,” said Henny Penny. “Who told you?”
“My parents,” muttered Chicken Little. “Listen, I’ve seen this happen before. Why don’t we get it to a meteorologist? They know about things that drop out of the sky.”
“You do it,” said Henny Penny. “I’m finding a damned aspirin.”
So Chicken Little took the chunk of stuff to the local meteorologist, Ducky Lucky, and was told that they were a bit busy but in a few years they’d get around to publishing a study.
“Alright,” said Chicken Little. “I can wait.”

Chicken Little didn’t mean to be a liar; her parents had raised her to believe that just wasn’t nice. But when two more bits of…whatever it was almost hit her…
…and three more bounced off the coop while she was sleeping….
…and a really nasty sharp one almost brained poor Cocky Locky…
Well.
What could she do but bring them all in?
“You’re filling up my fridge,” complained Ducky Lucky.
“Sorry,” said Chicken Little. “But this is starting to look a little concerning.”
“Right, right,” said Ducky Lucky. “Point made. I’m working on it.”
“Right, right,” said Chicken Little.
“Right, right,” said Ducky Lucky.
“Right,” said Chicken Little.
And a chunk of the stuff bounced off Ducky Lucky’s head.

It looked different these days. Bits of weird…blue were tangled up in it, like flies in spiderwebs.
They were getting more common every week. People didn’t even save them anymore, and nobody went outdoors without umbrellas. Turkey Lurkey had found a good thick hard hat, making him much the envy of the farm.
Chicken Little’s phone rang as she was home, shaking splinters off her umbrella.
“Hello?”
“It’s Ducky Lucky. Listen, I don’t want to alarm you, but this looks like a solid chunk of cumulus, mixed with big honkin’ lumps of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen and also odd swathes consisting of nothing but robins-egg-blue.”
“Say again?”
“Bits of the sky are falling off. Within the next little while the whole thing’ll be gone”
“Uh. Should we do something about it?”
“Seems likely. We could go tell the king.”
“What’s the king going to do about this?”
“Maybe turn off the giant laser he’s been pointing at the sky for the past decade?”
“Oh. Yes.”

So Chicken Little and Ducky Lucky went door to door throughout the farm with Ducky Lucky’s completed research paper, asking for support and maybe some signatures on a petition or something or anything at all, really.
“This isn’t so bad,” said Turkey Lurkey.
“Oh, leave off,” said Henny Penny. “The king believes in his giant sky laser and I trust him. Anyways my sister works at the giant sky laser.”
“Maybe a big chunk of falling sky hit me on the head,” said Cocky Locky, “but then again, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was just an acorn after all. I want to hear both sides out.”
“Never heard of it,” said Goosey Loosey, “sounds nuts.”
“I’m far too busy providing for my family to care about this even a little,” said Drakey Lakey.
“You’re very enthusiastic, dear,” said Chicken Little’s parents, “but maybe you should just stop worrying about this.”
“Hell with it,” said Ducky Lucky. “I’m going home. I’ll get more data and then we’ll prove this.”
“I’m going to go see the king directly,” said Chicken Little. “Petition or no. Lend me a copy of your papers.”
“Your funeral,” said Ducky Lucky. “And mind your head. It’s really coming down out there.”

It very nearly was Chicken Little’s funeral after all – Ducky Lucky had not exaggerated. The sky was coming down in sheets, and by the time Chicken Little knocked at the door to the king’s palace her umbrella had more holes in it than a pub dartboard.
“Heya,” said Gander Lander. “What do you want?”
“An audience with the king,” said Chicken Little.
“Sure, why not,” said Gander Lander. “Nothing going on right now anyways with all this lousy weather.”
“It’s sort of about that,” said Chicken Little. “The sky seems to be falling.”
Gander Lander rolled his eyes. “Right. Great. Go on in.”
So Chicken Little came into the castle of the king and was escorted to the throneroom and bowed before the chair which the king was dozing on, half asleep, with one hand gripping tightly to the controls of his giant sky laser. The furry scarf around his neck fluttered with his wheezing breath.
“Hello,” said Chicken Little. “I’m here about the sky.”
“The sky is fine.”
“I’m sorry?”
A small little sleek furry head popped up besides the king’s, and Chicken Little saw that his fur scarf wasn’t a scarf after all.
“The sky is fine,” said Foxy Loxy. “There’s no proof at all that anything is wrong with the sky.”
“Bits of it are falling off,” said Chicken Little.
“Nonsense.”
“Here’s one.”
“That’s not real.”
“Yes it is.”
“Is not. Look, we’re at an impasse here, so I say we compromise and say it MIGHT be.”
“It is, and I’ve got forty more and a compiled research study back home.”
Foxy Loxy sighed. “Okay, fine. Maybe the sky’s falling a little. That’s normal. To all things a season, and the sky must occasionally flake bits of itself off. You didn’t think that was the same sky out there all the time, did you? You didn’t think that one sky could last all the way from the beginning of the earth to the dinosaurs to you without a little wear and tear and polish and refurbish, did you? How naïve! Clearly you don’t understand the way the world works.”
“This isn’t normal,” said Chicken Little. “Within the next little while the whole thing’ll be gone.”
“It’s normal.”
“It’s not normal.”
“It’s NATURAL.”
“It’s because of the giant sky laser.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The giant sky laser the king installed, which his hand is currently resting on, which is, at this very moment, actively carving out bits of the sky.”
“Oh, that giant sky laser. I don’t think so.”
“I think so, because this chart shows that we went from no sky falling four years ago to nothing but sky falling right now, and you installed the giant sky laser four and a half years ago.”
“Correlation is not causation,” said Foxy Loxy.
“Yeah, but if you watch the laser you can see chunks of sky fall out at its focal point.”
“Look, what do you want from me?” asked Foxy Loxy in a very cross voice. “Okay fine, it looks like the sky MIGHT be falling; and yes it seems like this MAY have been caused by the king’s sky laser whichIsoldhim, BUT it’s way too late to do anything about it. The sky’s already falling. We might as well just roll with it and reap the benefits of this majestic giant sky laser.”
“There won’t be any sky left by next March,” said Chicken Little.
Foxy Loxy shook his head slowly. “You know,” he said, “I really tried. I really did. But you’re just completely unreasonable, uncivil, and unwilling to compromise. Gander Lander!”
“Yessir?”
“Please politely show her out and totally ignore her.”
“Yeah, no problem.”

As Chicken Little left, the king’s eyes fluttered open. “She gone?” he whispered.
“Yes,” said Foxy Loxy.
“Good. God that was boring. Now, what was this you were saying about TWO giant sky lasers?”

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Not sure why. I mean, it’s not MY goldfish. Crazy bitch can’t even ditch me properly – has to leave me with her crap. And her carp.
Heh.
Not like it’s going to miss her though. I mean, what’s its memory again? Thirty seconds? Three? I’ll miss her more than it ever will. Hell, I have to feed myself again.
Speaking of, time to get the oven going. There we go. Fish n chips in thirty minutes. Heh. It’s your cousin!
It looks like it’s glaring at me. Hell, it looks like it’s glaring at EVERYTHING with those eyebrows.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Here you go little idiot buddy. Eat hearty. Dunno how many of these flakes you’re meant to get so have eehhhh a fistful and a half and a third and a little pinch. Don’t eat yourself to death. You do that sometimes, don’t you?
What, does it taste bad? Eat, you moron! You need to eat to stay alive!
Speaking of, I should get dinner going. Oh wait, oven’s already on. Brain like a leaky sieve.
Must be the weather. Or the shouting matches on the phone. Stupid hag should’ve come back when I told her to.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Wait, I already did that. Woops. Don’t want to overfeed you. You can die of that, can’t you?
Well, not my problem. Should be hers’.
Hey, do I smell smoke?
Aw damnit, my fish and chips!
This is your fault, isn’t it? You’re distracting me, aren’t you? Trying to take revenge on me for eating your granduncle? Well fuck you. I’ll eat ‘em burnt, I’ll eat ‘em half-frozen. No fish with its fish brain gonna push me around.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Not really a goldfish though, are you? Too big for that, and kinda shiny. It’s weird. But she called you a goldfish, so a goldfish you are.
Maybe you’re worth something. Could sell you.
Or just eat you. Man, I’m starving. Could use dinner, should turn the oven on and AW DAMNIT it’s BURNING JESUS

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Jeez, she took better care of this thing than me. It’s fat and happy and I’m fat and miserable. Where’s the justice in that? I should just pick this bowl up and throw it out the window. Not like it wants to live all that bad – look at all the food in there! Little bastard hasn’t even eaten since the last time I gave him supper. That’s gratitude for you!
Urgh, it’s dark in here. Wait, is something burning? Hard to breathe.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Right, well I’d better get on that. I can’t even see through all this…smoke?
Fuck, did that crazy witch arson me? Did she sneak back and set a light at my door? I’m choking in this shit!
Screw the fish, I’m opening a window.
Screw the window, I’m breaking it!
With the fish!
Why not!
Up up and!

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish. Wait, why am I holding it?
Weird. Looks like it’s smiling.
Lotta smok in hee

Get onto the sled get onto the sled get onto the sled get onto the sled geT ONTO THE SLED NOW NOW NOW NOW

Great!

There we are, we were! All of us! You can’t listen to that kind of urgency without being commanded, or you get countermanded or commandeered. On! Up! Aboard!
The sleigh was a million cubits tall and five hundred cubits wide and the horses were exactly so. Very proportionate.
“go,” said the man with the extremely confident voice.
And on and on and CRACK and everyone started moving. Inch by inch in tugs, then in short slides, and then on and on and

‘woo,’ said the man with the extremely confident voice.
And everyone else agreed with him, sailing along, gloriously. “WOO!” they said. “WOO-WOO! CHUGGA CHUGGA!”
And why shouldn’t they? They were picking up speed! Over hills and over dales and through towns and over bridges and over houses and over people and on and on and on. Nobody wanted to get off, everyone wanted to get on or at least get out of the way WOOOOOOO! Some people pointed out that the runners were catching fire but they were killjoy pricks and who cared? Take the ramp! Ramp it! Yessssss

I was born around here –>

The sleigh landed with a crunch after the sweet ramp jump and both the runners broke off at the base and started grinding the passengers on the bottom into shreds, which mixed with the snow in a really unsettling and colourful way.
‘better speed up’ said the man with the extremely confident voice.
“YEAY!” hollered everyone who wasn’t being pulped and they picked up their possessions and shoved them into the morass of increasingly desperate bodies beneath them and stamped on ‘em real hard with hands and feet and teeth and furious optimism. “RISING TIDE RISING TIDE WOO WOO WOO”

(Or maybe here?)
“We could probably fix the runners if we slowed down or maybe even stopped” said some joyless fuck who was shoved under the sleigh to many cheers and the applause of all. The whole thing jerked as they went under and a few hanger-ons went flying and hit trees which fell over and stopped living just like everything else.
The sky was curdling like, shit, month-old milk or something? Or clotted cream. Rotten cream cheese? Fuck, who knew! Blood was filling the air and it was getting hard to tell if it was from the spray below or the sky was starting to blizzard it. Also the air was getting colder. Started to boil in your mouth like it was a tea kettle.
KABOOM the left horse’s heart POPPED out of its CHEST just like THAT and shot into the snow like an artillery shell, detonating red snow in a mushroom cloud. The other horse staggered and wheezed and each leg ran in a different direction before the sleigh caught it and barrelled it forwards as it kicked in the air.
Aaaaaaiiiiiiiieieeeeeeeee went the wind, just the wind. Everyone underfoot was extremely quiet, even as the sleigh accelerated. Wow that was a big hill we were headed for. Covered in rocks.
“RAMP IT RAMP IT RAMP IT TAKE US HIGH!” shouted everyone on top and dang they were hard to hear now.
And as the winds circled into a screaming cyclone and the warm slush of bloody snow lapped around my ankles, I found myself saying aloud “maybe we should do something else? Or stop?”

Immediately five hundred eyes were looking at me and I wished I hadn’t said anything because they all belonged to the man with the extremely confident voice, who picked me up in the palm of his brain and said
‘no. you idiot clown moron why would you think these stupid things. you will live out your life as an insignificant component of this extremely unsubtle blind idiot’s metaphor and you will learn to like it.’

“Oh good,” I said. Felt way better after that. Good to know where you stand, especially when you’re ankle deep in ribcages and torn debris. And then the runners caught my foot and dragged me under, where I died very slowly and painfully alongside everyone else who hadn’t already been turned into slushee material.

We were three blocks from the apartments when Mike sprained his ankle. There was a lot of ankle to sprain; Mike was six foot four and not dainty – the ankle had seen some shit in its time, and was built for it. So when it crumpled under him he dropped mouth open, already starting to wail.
“Leave him,” said Joel.
“What?” goggled Simon.
“He’ll slow us down. Like this, he’s a distraction. They’ll come to him and leave us alone. Keep walking.”
“But we can’t leave him,” whined Simon feebly.
Joel pointed his pistol at him. “One,” he said.
“C’mooon.”
“Two.”
“Ohokayfine.”
We left Mike there. And we didn’t look back.

The sky above was the colour of flatulent gods. Thunder let ‘er rip some miles away, but there was no rain, just this godawful sweaty air that smelled like rotten toast.
“I’m hungwy,” said little Ellie.
“There, there,” said Ellie’s mother. I didn’t know her name, but she looked like Ellie’s mother would. The same big damp eyes and the trembling limbs.
“Will they geddus?”
“No, no, no” soothed Ellie’s mother. “We’re safe now. We’re just going to go for a little walk.”
“You two shut up,” said Joel. “You’ll attract attention.”
“She’s-”
Joel pointed his pistol at her. “One,” he said.
Ellie learned faster than Simon.

Two more blocks and we hid in the shadow of a dumpster, staring at the intersection. Eight lanes of open air, making us sitting ducks – so said Joel, who was also the entire and only reason any of us were alive right now. We listened.
“I say we cut the kid’s throat and let ‘em bleed out a hunnerd yards back and across the road,” said gimlet-eyed Garry. His adam’s apple was flexing and rippling like a wrestler’s arms behind his camo-print jacket, and he fondled the barrel of his rifle in a very unseemly way as he spoke.
“Wouldn’t work,” said Joel. “Street’s too narrow to avoid attention.”
“Why don’t you all uhhhh….stay here…and I’ll uh. Go ahead and get aw get help, get help, that’s what I said, I’m sure of it,” said shifty Jenny, who’d already soaked through both her shirts and her jacket with terror sweat.
Joel pointed his pistol at her. “One,” he said.
“Oh jeez that’s not necessary,” simpered Simon.
“Two.”
Jenny collapsed to the ground in blubbering terror and pissed herself.
“Good. Now, here’s what we’ll do-”
“Aw, poor Jenny,” said Simon, and he bent over and helped her up and slammed the nearest parked car with his ass, sending its alarm off full-force.
“Fuckshitlizardspit!” hooted Garry. He pointed his gun around wildly and fired at anything moving.
“Go!” ordered Joel. And we all went, except for Simon, poor stupid, well-meaning, innocent, naïve, dead-man-walking Simon, who was wedged ass-first in the parked car, wailing hysterically and doomed.
“Oh that’s not good,” I said.
“Works out for the best,” said Joel. “He was going to do something stupid sooner or later. This just means he didn’t take anyone else down with him. Being soft out here gets people killed.”
“Augh!” said Ellie’s mother.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Stubbed my toe!”
“Look at me,” said Joel. When she looked at him he bashed her in the head with the butt of his pistol. She fell over, swearing.
“Leave her. Kid, if you try and follow us I will shoot you.”
“Huh?” said Ellie.
“Kids are dead weight. Slow us down. Stay with your mother, kid. Good luck.”
“Huh?!” said Ellie.
She didn’t follow us though.

We stopped for breath at the park. I was astounded by the natural beauty of the place, and wondered what strange new shapes it would take now, with nobody to tend it.
“I’m gonna forage for berries,” said Garry. And ten minutes later he turned up with a fistful of rotten crabapples.
“Eat ‘em,” he told us. Joel shoved his into his face without chewing. I fidgeted with mine.
“Now,” said Joel.
“Now?”
“Now. You need the calories or you’ll slow us down.”
I was beginning to think Joel wished he was a racehorse or an Olympic sprinter, but I ate the apple under threat of pistol and we moved on.

“Stick ‘em up,” said Garry.
We turned around. He was pointing his rifle at us, steady-handed, wild-eyed.
“I ain’t going another step with you bozos,” he said. “Pass your packs and get your ass outta my sight. Only the fit survive. I know all about how to dig a trench and piss in it and to scavenge like a raccoon and fight like a bear and howl like a wolf and live like a roach. You’re a soft girl and a dope. You’re gonna get yourselves killed. I’m really just doing the job nature intended.”
He belched twice and threw up, spitting rotten apple cores everywhere. Joel stepped up, bashed him in the head with the butt of his pistol, and took the rifle.
“We move on,” he said authoritatively. “Nobody sleeps until we’re out of the city.”
“Me,” I said.
“What.”
“It’s just me. You and me.”
“Oh,” said Joel. He counted us again. “Right. See, this is what happens when you have to make the hard calls. Don’t fall behind.”
“Okay.”

The bridge was clogged tight with cars. Their lights were on, their engines were breathing warm gases.
“We’ll go over their roofs,” said Joel, slinging the rifle on his back. “Quick hops. Don’t fall behind.”
“Excuse me,” asked a woman, “what the hell are you doing with that gun? And you’re stowing it upside do-”
“Another survivor,” said Joel. “You can come with us or stay here and die, the choice is yours. Don’t fall behind.”
“Die from what?”
“What?” I said. “It’s the end of the world! We all heard it on the radio.”
“Well….sort of,” said the woman. “I mean, yes? But like, it’s more like a moving deadline than a single event.”
“Speak clearly,” said Joel.
I shit myself. From the apple. I tried not to draw attention to it. Joel might think I’d slow us down.
“Stop interrupting me to give instructions; it makes you look like an asshole and slows me down. Look, the world’s not really ending, just getting steadily shittier and shittier until the various structures and institutions of our societies that we think of as fundamental wither and occasionally cease to exist.”
“Who did this?” demanded Joel.
“It’s sort of complicated. A lot of it was burning stuff. I think some of the worst came from methane. Y’know. Cow farts. Too many cheeseburgers.”
Joel’s eyes narrowed. “So… the cows did this.”
“What? No. Well, yes. But only because of everyone else. Including you.”
“Got it,” said Joel, unbuckling his eighth pistol. “Authoritative decision time. The rest of you will have to make it alone. I’ve got to make the hard choices. Don’t follow me, and stay on the left side of the road.”
Then he shot himself eighteen times in the head. I think he just meant to do it once but his finger sort of stuck after the first bullet.
“The left?” I said.
“I think he meant to like… Move with the left-lane traffic closest to you. For safety.”
“Ah. Wow.”
“Yeah. No offense buddy, but I’m gonna call the cops. Maybe stand right here and keep your hands in plain sight and just explain to anyone who asks that you just followed the guy around, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I could do what I was told. Again.

And that just left me, the lone survivor. Standing on the street with a backpack full of granola bars and water bottles and a pretty unattractive sunset that was mostly blocked by big ugly buildings.
Well, uh, I guess that taught me something about the human condition. Maybe?
I mean, maybe I was the real monster.
Or something?

The sun set and I sat there feeling like a dumbass for a good ten minutes before the police arrived. The rest of my evening was really long and boring and I kept waiting for the denouement.

When I woke up the next day, the next year, the next decade, I still was.