Melissa G. - March 16, 1999

Wish To Disaster

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Part 1.

"Okay, admit it Tim; that was THE best concert we’ve been to...ever." I said trying to convince my best friend that he really did have some fun...I knew he had fun. He just nodded and kept his head down as usual. I mean Hole and Marilyn Manson, what could beat that? Okay maybe that Lollapalooza thing where Courtney Love punched out the lead singer from Babes in Toy Land...but that was way back in 1994...or was it 1995? Either way I would have been only 13 years old. I was still listening to Ace of Base...well everyone else was too. So anyway. It must have been about 2 a.m. and my brother who had just come back from Coney Island High was waiting for us in the parking lot blaring some unheard of band that I’m sure he’d lecture us on as soon as we got inside. I was so hyped about the concert that I didn’t even notice that Tim was depressed...more depressed than usual. Maybe he didn’t take his Zoloft...or maybe he just felt like being a drama king for the night. I just shrugged it off. He’s always moody...he IS a Pisces.

We piled into my brother’s car and as usual he lectured us about his new favorite band, Spoon, and how he used to hang out with them whenever they played in New York. I just rolled my eyes and stared out the window thinking about nothing and everything. Tim hadn’t uttered a word the entire ride home...even if it was a 15 minute ride from Nassau Coliseum to West Hempstead he’d usually say something. Finally I broke down I HAD to know.

"Tim what’s the matter with you? We just left the best concert and you’re sitting there like you just got back from your dog’s funeral or something...what gives?" I asked half smiling. Tim has this really bad habit of never looking into people’s eyes, so when he looked into mine I knew it was serious. Silence. "What is it?" I asked my smile fading into a scowl.

He clenched his teeth and looked down at the bottom of the car. He fidgeted in his seat. "TELL ME!!" I yelled I wanted to climb into the back seat and strangle him, I’m not one for patience.

"...Okay just shut up with the screaming..." he muttered. I almost fell over the side of the seat I was so eager to know. He hung his head down again. "I’m going to get an MRI tomorrow morning...remember when I got hit by that car last October?"

"Yeah..." I trailed off

"Well when I went to the doctor last week he said I might still have some blood clots so I gotta get and MRI..." he said as he ran his hands through his hair in a familiar characteristic gesture. I felt my heart sink into my stomach. I knew him since we were 3 years old...he’s been there for me since I could remember.

"Why didn’t you tell me?!" I felt stupid and selfish at that point.

"It never came up."

That was the end of the conversation. The rest of the car ride was silent. I could see my brother out of the corner of my eye looking at Tim through his rear view mirror. I couldn’t look at Tim. I didn’t know what to think. What’s going to happen to him if they find anything? What’s going to happen to me...without a best friend? I quickly stopped thinking about myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about him though...now what? Silence.

We finally reached Tim’s house on Bedell Terrace about 3 blocks from mine. We muttered our good-byes and then all I could see was his long greasy blonde hair and his front door slamming shut.

"Damn MRI’s. I swear! It’s not fair! Why can’t they just leave it alone?" I cried out in my frustration. I knew how Tim hated doctors..we used to run away from them together...now since the accident he’s been surrounded by them.

"Shut up Meliss he’s lucky he’s getting them I mean it’d be worse if he didn’t." my brother said annoyed at my complaining.

"NO I just wish that...that...." I couldn’t think...

"You don’t even know what you want." my brother sneered.

"I wish that whatever made an MRI work would just stop and then it’d be useless!" I exclaimed, not even knowing if what I had just said even made sense. My brother just scoffed and kept driving. He dropped me off saying something under his breath to the effect of ‘little stupid posers’..or something.

I ran inside my house locking the door behind myself. The house was eerily silent. I just went up to my room thinking nothing of what had happened. I fell asleep..or maybe passed out.

Part 2.

I’ll be one of the first to admit that I can sleep through just about anything, except my alarm clock which I had forgotten to turn off before I had left the morning before. I found it beyond strange when I woke up on my own. My alarm clock hadn’t gone off. ‘what the...’ I wondered to myself. I looked over and saw that the time wasn’t on my alarm clock either. I looked over at my VCR and nothing. ‘Maybe the power’s off’ I though to myself. I got up and looked at my wristwatch it read 1...was it a.m. or p.m.? It couldn’t have been 1 a.m. because I wasn’t even home yet. Now I was completely freaked out. Maybe my watch had stopped working. I jumped out of my bed and looked outside. Darkness. No light. "What is going on?!?!" I finally asked aloud to no one. My heart was beating a good 200 miles an hour. I ran around the house..no one was home. My mom went to work? On a Sunday? I dialed Tim’s number frantically.

"Hello...." someone answered groggily. Tim. Thank God.

"Tim!! What is going on?!" I screamed into the phone.

"Huh? What’s wrong with you? What have you been smoking?! I dunno what you’re talking about...."Tim said in-between yawns.

"UGH! Just get over here! Please?" I begged half in tears.

He finally agreed to come over. By the time he arrived I had managed to ravage my voice from screaming so much. Panic attack? Or overreaction? I coulda been a horror movie star with the bloody screams I gave...guess I just found a good excuse to scream.

"What the hell’s going on? It’s one o’clock in the afternoon and it’s pitch black out. My appointment got cancel cause the MRI machine doesn’t work. My mom’s freakin out too...her car ain’t workin’ I don’t get it. There’s no gas in my mom’s tank...like it just disappeared...Maybe I’m just trippin’ on some really bad acid. I dunno Meliss but this is too weird for me."

Then it hit me. It felt like a slap in the face. This is all my fault. I didn’t want Tim to go for the MRI. Oh my God. I burst into tears. Tim just raised his eyebrow. "What’d I miss?"

I told him the whole story about my wish. His jaw hit the floor.

"Wait does all this have to do with all the other strange...stuff..going on?" he asked. I just shrugged. Like I’m going to know.

I tried to go on the Internet and find out what all these things had in common while Tim tried to get the TV to work...but it didn’t. My computer didn’t even work...the entire memory was erased. I thought I was going to have a nervous break down. "MY PHYSICS LAB WAS SAVED ON THAT MAN!!!!" I screamed I started to cry. "What is this?! Have we been bombed or what?" I asked in exasperation. I banged my head on my desk. My compass fell off the top shelf nearly giving me another dent...as if I need more than I already had from birth. I picked it up. It usually pointed in toward my door to indicate north but now...it pointed to my window, which was opposite it. I shook it. Nothing. The compass wasn’t working the way it should . I showed it to Tim. He just gave me a funny look as if to say ‘so what’.

"It’s working backwards. That’s weird. I remember that like my physics teacher did this experiment that when he took away magnetism all sorts of weird stuff started to happen to the compass..." I said staring at the compass.

"C’mon Meliss this is coming from you? No offense but you’re like failing physics..." Tim said smirking.

"No I’m serious." I said

"Okay let’s say you’re right. There’s no magnetism. Then that’d mean that there’s no radio waves or anything...." he went over to my stereo and turned it on. No sound. He paled. "Ummm okay so now what?" he asked. I shrugged.

We wandered outside. It was pitch dark out but I felt my skin getting hot. It’s the middle of March and felt like July. I guess without magnetism to protect us...there’s no way to defend ourselves from radiation ...a shiver ran through my spine. I quickly shrugged off the idea of cancer eating us alive within weeks or something.

"Look!" Tim exclaimed pointing up the sky. A bird looked as if to be flying in circles.

"I guess the bird has no sense of direction now ... buggin’..." I mumbled in a daze. I felt like crying. It’s all my fault. The streets were desolate. Guess we’re the only stupid ones walking around getting eaten alive by radiation. ‘Maybe they’re all already dead...’ I thought do tend to be a bit paranoid so I just put that thought aside with the rest of them. Tim gazed at everything.

"My generator!" exclaimed out of nowhere.

"Huh? You have a generator? Since when?" I sneered.

"Since you asked if I had one and I said no." he laughed.

"Eww! This isn’t funny! We could be dying right now! Let’s go to your house and see this so called generator." I said.

We went to his house. It seemed like weeks before we got there.

His mother was inside pacing back and forth frantically.

"Tim nothing works here! Not even the dumb camera is broken! What is going on? For the first time wish your father wasn’t in California only on Long Island do these things happen. Not in Washington State. We should have stayed there. You too Melissa." she said nervously taking a long drag off her cigarettes. Okay if that radiation from space doesn’t kill her those cigarettes will. I just smiled politely like a dumb mute. I’m not too fond of her...God help me if we’re the last people left on earth.

"No generator...?" Tim asked quietly.

"Generator? We don’t have a generator. The O’Neil’s generator doesn’t work even if we did have one it wouldn’t work." she said.

I tried not to laugh in his face...that can wait.

"It’s hot as he--(Tim’s mom gave him A LOOK)...ummm never mind. Mom can you turn up the A/C?"

"I tried there’s no electricity…no energy NOTHING." his mom said smacking the back of his head.

"Oh yeah..."

"You burn out."

"Shut up Meliss."

Then the phone rang. Tim’s mom picked it up. She didn’t talk much. She just stared at Tim, who had a blank look on his face.

She hung up the phone and lit another cigarette. "Tim c’mere." he wandered over to her. "That was the doctor. He just finished looking at some pictures of your brain. There’s something wrong honey. They think it’s because the strange things that have been going on in our atmosphere lately..something about magnetism I don’t know but we have to give you a lobotomy. I’m sorry..." Tim just blinked...Silence.

"Honey?"...more silence...

Part 3.

"MELISSA!!! Wake up!" someone yelled...

"Huh?" the room spun…it wasn’t my room. What had just happened? Was I dreaming? No I don’t have corny dreams like that do I? Whoa...

I faced my mom. I couldn’t move...

"What happened to you? You were screaming like a maniac..for days..."

"What? Huh? Wait...What are you talking about? Where am I?"

I sputtered. I was strapped to a bed.

"Bellevue. It’s just until you get better...I don’t know what you and Tim had at that concert." my mom shook her head in disapproval.

A doctor wandered in just as my mom was leaving...I strained my ears...

"The lobotomy is scheduled for Melissa tomorrow and Tim today. Everything’s taken care of." he whispered. My mom nodded and headed out the door.

"Hi. Don’t worry you’ll get out of here soon." he said smiling his fake plastic smile.

‘If only they’d hurry and fix this magnetism problem then we’d get and MRI done and know where to operate...’ he thought

"Don’t be scared we know what we’re doing." he said.