The Holdout Man

2004-05-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

ENTRY#9
The black limousine passes through three security checkpoints before we are able to get out and walk up the steps to the front doors of the converted Spanish Villa. What an absolute paradise! There are fountains in the courtyard, tennis courts, lawn bowling, a driving range, and the whole area is crisscrossed with footpaths lit by black Victorian-era lampposts, glowing red with gaslight. And this is what I can see from the front door. I have not even seen the back yet, nor the front in daylight. This might not be so bad, I find myself thinking. My guard goes back up however, when I see that there are still soldiers all over the place, and that we appear to be under constant surveillance, despite the three checkpoints.
“It’s still a bit humid out, so what do you say we head inside and start the tour there?” Tommy glances at the watch on his left wrist, “roite, we can show you the grounds tomorrow, we just missed daylight,” and without waiting for a reply, he leads us to the great oak doors that are the main entrance. There are guards on either side of the door, one of them is approximately six months pregnant, and they both give Tommy an adoring smile and say Hello Mr. Fornell as he walks past them into the converted villa.
“Ladies,” he says non-chalantly.
Once Tommy passes them, they cast hungry gazes on me, and Gena, sensing my discomfort, growls “Eyes forward, ladies,” and bristles as she walks past them.
As I walk inside, the first thing I notice is the phallic marble fountain that stands about fifteen feet high, and has Old Reliable engraved on the outside of the basin, which is also made of marble. “Old Reliable?” I pose the question on nobody in particular. Tommy looks at the watch on his right wrist and counts down from five, then points at the fountain as he hits zero. Right on cue, the fountain shoots up several quick bursts of water. I count ten of them. “Why ten bursts?” I ask, almost disbelieving that I am seeing this obnoxious center-piece.
“Ten o’clock, mate” Tommy says with a grin.
“Charming”
“Come along then, you’ve got to meet the people who will be your companions here. They’re a lovely bunch really. The absolute salt of the earth”
Tommy leads our motley party down a long hallway with a high arched ceiling, pointing out trivial facts about the architecture and the history of the building, like a tour guide might.
“Further down this hallway,” he says after explaining that the mural to my left was of Hannibal crossing the Alps, “is where the suites of the rest of the men begin. But I’ll wager you want to get an eyeful of some of the wildlife in here, first off,” he says with a wink. “Come on then; this way.” We embark down a hallway that is more like a tunnel, and is made of plastic. Strange glowing lights oscillate behind the translucent plastic walls and a heavy bass beat shakes the floor. Jesus, I think, it’s a Strip Club in a hamster maze!
Tommy stops as we come to the first door “Here is the room of our employee of the month,” He says, winking again. Above the hospital emergency room style sliding doors is a plaque that reads:

WenDDy
The nurse is IN.

“What the hell is this?” I ask, feeling more perplexed than confused.
“This is Wenddy. She will help you with whatever, uh… craving you happen to have between shifts. Gena, could you and Charlotte give us some man space?” Gena and Charlotte walked about twenty paces down the hall. “She’ll also come in to get things moving for you, if you wish, if things aren’t going smashingly well with a client.” My jaw drops open and I stare at him dumbly. “Yup, she’s a pleasure specialist, one of nine we have working here. She’s a nurse, but don’t expect her to be gentle, eh! We also have, in the pleasure-specialist department, an extreemly naughty Catholic school girl, a yummy mommy, or ‘Milf’,” he says as he makes quotation marks with his fingers. “We’ve got an Amazon, a dominatrix, a Japanese love-slave, and my personal favorites, all in one room, the BBR triplets.”
“Huh?”
“Blonde, Brunette, Redhead, sir! Ditzy, Cunning, and one with a fiery-temper! I’ll let you decide which one has what quality,” he says elbowing me in the ribs good-naturedly. “The other two get a little jealous if you pay more attention to one of them, so try and watch that when you get there.”
“Why is Wendy’s name spelled with two D’s?” I ask. My mind is fairly blank and Tommy’s enthusiasm is a little bit creepy.
“Hah! Well, why don’t you go see for yourself? Go on in!” Tommy stiffly leads me to the door, which slides open as soon as we hit the weight sensor. “Come on now, she won’t bite, ya mate! She’s not allowed! The Amazon and the Dominatrix have that exclusive right written in their union contract. Hah, I’m pullin’ ya leg! There’s no union! She might bite ya, heh-heh! Go on, now; you’ll live!” Tommy pushes me inside and I hear the doors slide closed behind me. Wendy, a tall, attractive, blonde young woman in a white skin-tight nurse’s uniform, saunters towards me with a clipboard in her hands and a sheepish grin on her face. “Vat sheems to be ze problemb?” she asks in a throaty voice with a rough Dutch accent
“Um, I’m just taking the tour. My name’s Adam”
“Ah-dam,” she says writing my name on the clipboard, “Vell, all thish papervork can vait for later.” She tosses the clipboard aside. “Ve had bettah get on vith ze examinations, ya?” She grabs the waist of my pants and begins to fumble with them.
“Wait! Stop it! I’m not up for it!” I try to swat her hands away and run, but she is quite strong, and presses me up against the wall, grinning like a hungry predator.
“Now, don’t be a naughty pay-shent. Ish thish a button, or ish there a clashp? Ah! There, I haf got it!” She rips my pants down, giving me an opportunity to scamper free of her grasp.
“Get away from me, you fucking psycho!” I yell as she pursues me behind an ornamental ambulance gurney. I push the wheeled gurney at her, causing her to let out a surprised Ooh! as the gurney catches her in the midsection. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m going to have to ask you to please fucking cease and desist!” Wendy looks sad, and turns her back to me, burying her face in her hands. Her shoulders move up and down as she weeps. “Look, I’m sorry, okay, but I didn’t know what to do!”
“In Holland, no man vould ever reject ze advanshes of a pretty lay-dee”
“Oh, Wendy, look, I didn’t mean to offend you,” I say as I move to her and rub her back supportively.
“Vhy don’t you shink I’m pretty?” She sobs and turns away from my face again.
“That’s not it at all! You’re stunningly pretty, it’s just that I have a…” I do not get to finish the sentence because Wendy has pounced upon me again, kissing me and knocking me to the floor. She rips my shirt off, sending all the buttons flying, and then pins my arms to the floor, before ripping her own shirt off and pressing herself against my chest, licking my ear and biting my neck.
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” I shout.
“Vhy don’t I try being ze pay-shent, ya? I don’t mindt being ze one who opensh up and shaysh ‘ahh’” She begins to work her way down my chest with her mouth, licking sucking, biting, and making little coo-ing noises. Just as her mouth is about to take hold of my erection, I heave her off of me with a mighty thrust and make a beeline for the sliding doors, but they do not open.
“Help, help, let me out!”
“Vhy do you continue to deny yourshelf shese pleasures, Ah-dam”
“You stay away from me!” I say, whirling around. “I don’t want anything to do with you!”
“But you do. I can tell by your shtiff penish”
“Look, Wendy. I’m getting awfully tired of people telling me what I want and don’t want. I know what’s normal for a guy to want, and I know how men are expected to think, and I consider myself a superior creature for not having those wants. I don’t like this world. It isn’t my fantasy, and I’m tired of everyone assuming that it is!”
“Well, that sounds fair. I hope you’ll come visit me sometime. If you get bored, you know.”
“I don’t think I…wait, what the hell happened to your accent?”
“It’s all part of the fantasy,” she says as she buttons up her uniform, “it all adds to the spicy flavor. Here,” she says, throwing me my pants. “I’m sure they’ll be able to fix you up with a new shirt. Go for a powder blue. It would work well with your hair and complexion”
“So, you’re not really hot for me?” I ask, feeling strangely disappointed, as well as relieved.
“You’re kind of cute; I’d certainly enjoy fucking you. But what you just experienced was me doing my job, or trying to. I think you’re a real nice guy. Certainly a lot more down-to-earth than the other men here. They’re all convoluted assholes, truth be known”
“Hmm. I think I will come back. For dinner or something. Is that allowed?”
Wendy grins. “You haven’t been here long, I guess. You can do whatever you want here. You’re the man; you’re the boss”
“Then I’ll come back for dinner tommorow. It’s a date.”
“Hey, don’t tell the Ashcroft cunt that I went out of character”
“It’s our secret”

2004-05-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

ENTRY #8
I sit up with a jolt as I realize the train has stopped. I look out the window and see the moon shining off the small white-capped waves of the Pacific Ocean in the background; we have arrived in Puerto Vallarta. In the foreground, there is a police barricade and a throng of women pushing and shoving to get to the front off the mob, and chanting “We want Adam” repeatedly.
Charlotte appears to my left as I am looking out the window on my right, and sighs lamentably, “No matter how hard we try to keep arrivals a secret, someone always leaks the name”.
“Maybe it was you,” I say without turning my head.
“Seems you didn’t get enough sleep, Mr Abrahams. Not to worry, though; the exercise you’ll be doing puts most men to sleep immediately afterwards”
“Good to hear that the old stereotypes haven’t gone the way of their subjects”
“On your feet,” she replies, unlocking my handcuffs.
I am led off of the train towards a waiting black limousine. As soon as I step out of the train door however, it is Beatlemania all over again, as the crowd of women begin to jump up and down and scream hysterically. I even look somewhat like a Beatle at this point; while I was unconscious after falling off the hospital ledge I had been dressed in a rather sharp blue pinstriped suit, my hair had been washed and brushed, though it turned curly at the ends as it always has, and I had been given a shave. I felt like a blond Paul McCartney. “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” I shout at them in my best Liverpuddlian accent, as I am rushed into the waiting limo. Charlotte gets in after me, and the door closes as the car speeds away, leaving the hysterical groupies in its dust.
Inside the car, is a fit man in a black suit with short black hair and an easy smile, and an older woman in a red blouse with olive skin, piercing green eyes and white hair. She also has a red hindu marking on her forehead. “Who the fuck are you two?” I ask.
“Glad to finally meet you, mate,” says the man in an Australian accent, “my name’s Tommy Fornell, and this lovely lady to me right is Evgenia Ashcroft.”
“Welcome to Puerto Vallarta, Mr Abrahams,” Gina says cordially. She has no discernable accent. “I am the Director of Omega Alpha, and Tommy is the Union representative of the men of OandA”
“Local 001, heh-heh-heh.”
“Yeah, charmed. That was some welcome wagon back there. Did you two set that up to get my motor running?”
“I’m afraid not, Adam,” says Evgenia, “do you mind if I call you Adam?”
“No Gena, that’s fine”
“We can’t very well hide that train, and there’s only ever a police barricade up for one reason.”
“So you find a lot of men frozen in ice, then? This train comes in a couple times a week, does it?”
“Of course not. You’re the first man we’ve ever found frozen in ice, of course. There’s a lot of hype surrounding your arrival, you know. Partly, I think, it’s your name.”
“My name?”
“You’ve got a hell of a biblical name, you know”
“Thank you”
“People are hopeful that you’ll be able to produce male offspring that are more resilient to Jealous Sweetheart. Sadly, most of our men died in the last mutation. I was lucky enough to be immune to that strain as well” Tommy was grinning vacantly as he said this.
“How many of you are there now?”
“You would be number twelve. You’re the second-youngest, too, which I think adds to the hype.”
“Twelve, huh? That’s a hell of a biblical number, Tommy”
“Believe the hype, mate”
“Well I would, if not for the fact that I am resolved to be abstinent for the rest of my life”
“Come on, mate. These ladies we’ll introduce you to, well, you’d be crazy to pass them up.”
“Sorry ‘mate’, but I’m in love. I promised someone my fidelity and honor, and I aim to keep them intact. I’ll have as many babies as you like, as long as Nicole is the mother”
“You’ve had a long day, Adam,” says Evgenia, “why don’t we discuss everything tommorow. We’re going to Omega Alpha, as I’m sure someone has told and we should concentrate on getting you comfortable and on a proper diet before pressuring you into anything.”
“Aren’t I being held in Omega Alpha against my will? Why don’t you want to pressure me? Is that where your scruples begin?”
“You may not feel like being there, but be reasonable, sir. You saw that reception at the train station. Do you really think it’s safe for you to be out in society? We don’t have to have different agendas, Adam. Saving your species is a noble and honorable thing to do. Nicole would understand.”
“Still, I’d like to talk it over with her”
“We’ll see what we can do. I suppose someone has also told you that she is still frozen. Well, that’s true. The government is deciding whether it wants to commit the resources to unfreezing her. But we may be able to speed up that process- to convince them that bringing her back to life is the right thing to do.”
For the first time since I had been brought back to life, I actually feel like smiling. “I’d like that very much, Evgenia”
“Gena, please”
“Gena. I really hope I can trust you.”
“I have only my own honor and nobility to offer, but I pledge that to you. I will be honest with you, and I will fight for what you want, for Nicole. And I’ll keep you informed every step of the way.”

2004-04-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

ENTRY#7
About half an hour after I saw the last of the foothills and became bored with the blandness of the prairies, Charlotte comes sauntering back along the aisle of the train with a book in one hand and a bowl of soup, on a plate with crackers, in the other. I had simmered down a little; she had been gone for several hours and I have had time to think about my situation, about Nicole, and what I would be able to do to seek the kind of life that I still want for myself. “Captain Davis, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m sorry that I solicited myself earlier; I’ve just had a very strange couple of days, and I haven’t gotten much sleep lately.” I hope I am coming off as sincere, but it is hard to read this stone-faced captain in front of me. “I was wondering if you know what happened to that Asian cop?”
“I’m afraid that I don’t know what you mean,” she says as she puts the soup and crackers down on the fold-out tray on the back of the seat in front of me, and again unlocks my right arm.
“When I was trying to break out of the hospital yesterday, I stabbed an Asian cop with a needle, and she fell head-first out of a third story window. Is she dead?”
“Your dossier doesn’t mention homicide, and it was updated this morning.”
“So she didn’t die? That’s good,” I say with a meek smile.
“She could have died or she may be alive. If she died, they may not have attributed her death to you. After all, it wouldn’t suit anyone’s interests to have you involved with a criminal trial, would it?”
“Why not? Could I not fertilize the eggs of as many women while a jury was deciding whether or not to take away my liberty? Because as far as I can tell, I’ve already lost that, and I don’t see the difference between prison and Omega-Alpha”
“Hah! What a greener you are!” says Charlotte with the first display of emotion I have seen from her. “I am not at liberty to discuss Omega-Alpha with you, but I can tell you that if there were indeed a hands-on fertility clinic that exists inside OandA, as someone has apparently alleged to you, I can tell you that every man there would probably be as happy as any man has ever been. Furthermore, I believe that once a person with your mentality arrives at such a place, sees the beautiful, athletic, and pathetically submissive women that would be your clients, you would likely fold like a bad poker hand. And once a person in that hypothetical situation gets used to all the sex, he will get bored. Form a union. Try to assert more and more control. They will walk over the women that took such good care of them, and soon the world will be just as it was one hundred years ago. With wars, and famine, glass ceilings, gaps between the rich and the poor. You know why? Because men are all the fucking same, and nothing ever changes in this world.”
Charlotte had been getting more and more heated with every word she said, and by the end of her speech, she has almost shouting, and was spitting each word out as though they were junebugs in her mouth. I decide to prod a little more at the sensitive subject. “Well, you know what, you’re probably right,” I say in a high, disingenuous voice, “it would be awfully selfish of me not to do my part in the re-population of the world. It just isn’t right, the way that it is right now. I bet a lot of women feel alone and vulnerable, and maybe I should be taking comfort in the idea that I will be bringing a bit of joy into their lives.” I stop for a moment and sip a spoonful of soup. “Ooh! That’s good! A world full of women equals culinary excellence, huh? Fantastic. Hopefully, within a few years, the world will be re-populated with enough men and that will allow ladies like yourself to go back to jobs more suitable to your nurturing nature. Man, chicks in the military! I’m shakin’ in my boots, here! Let’s brainstorm here, Charlotte. What could you do? Maybe you could have a quaint little antiques store! Toronto’s a real hotbed for that, you know. Or at least it was when I lived there.”
“First of all, Mr Abrahams, I’m not in the military. There is no military. I work for an agency that is empowered by the Canadian, US, and Mexican governments to provide security for potential threats to North American safety. And don’t be so sure that the world will be re-populated with men in ‘a few years’. Don’t you think that it’s strange that it has been almost seventy years since the eruption of Kick-em-Jenny, and the world still isn’t re-populated by men?”
“I figured the world was full of dykes who don’t like to be penetrated”
“Riigghht… Here,” she says putting down the monstrous book on the seat next to me, “I brought you some light reading to enjoy with your soup. We’ll be in Puerto Vallarta by nightfall. Just holler if you need anything.” With that, she turns and saunters back up the aisle.
I finish most of the soup, and gaze at the endless flat landscape out the window before I decide to look at the book. It is entitled A Look at the Manless World, by Joyce Jameson, and has a photo of the five white tunic-clad women that I recognize as the members of the El-Cat-ah network superimposed into an erupting volcano.
I open the book and begin to read, and after an hour or so, I am in a cold sweat and my head is swimming. My God, I think, what am I doing in this world? This can’t be my world. It is unrecognizable and alien to me, and I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with it. I just want Nicole, and my rock journalism job. I want my father and brother back, all my old friends, even my nosey old landlord. That was reality and this is all a bad dream. Everything I’ve ever loved has fallen away from me, just as I always knew it would, and all I can think about is how angry I am that a had to fall in that crevice and cheat myself out of the ending my life should have had.

2004-04-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

ENTRY#6
I wake up with a pounding headache and see that I am moving quickly through a green valley with mountains on either side of me, and find that I am restrained to a plush chair. I look to my left and see other rows of seats, and find they are empty; I seem to be sequestered alone on this car. The train winds its way through the mountains and over streams at a rate that I have never experienced, nor thought possible for travel over-land. It is a nice day, and I try fruitlessly to put all of my concerns about escaping, and about Nicole, out of my mind for a while and just bask in the strangely pretty moment that I find myself in. If Nicole and I were back in Toronto in our house and it was a sunny day like this one, we would climb up on the roof with my guitar, a picnic basket, and a blanket, and I would play Walkin’ After Midnight by Patsy Cline, and Nicole would sing. Then we would have some white wine and make love with the blanket wrapped around us like a tortilla, and then cuddle together and whisper in each others’ ears until it got too cold to stay up there. If the evening was balmy, Nicole would make me pick a constellation, and she, still nude from our lovemaking, would try to mimic it. “Do Vulpecula!” I would say.
“I did The Fox last week! Remember how scratchy I got with you? You don’t want me to do that one. Pick something else.”
“Orion, then.”
“Hah! Pedestrian! A challenge, please,” she would say in a karate-pose, imitating Bruce Lee.
“Very well,” I would say, moving my mouth while I wasn’t talking like the actors in the English-dubbed Godzilla movies, “I challenge you to be Capricornus”
“Ooh, The Goat-Fish! I’ll try”
“Do, or don’t do, there is no try.”
I cannot count the days when Nicole and I did this; there were so many. We could never see the constellations from the city, but we used our imaginations, as we always did to keep ourselves happy. Nicole and I had very few common interests; I was a music journalist, and she a corporate sales manager, but we had similar imaginations, and that allowed us to keep our relationship interesting.
Before we went on that hiking trip, we had a few fights, and there was some tension, because I wanted to take a job in New York, but she was refusing to leave Toronto. Furthermore, my ‘rock journalist’ lifestyle was beginning to wear thin on her nerves; I was coming home later, waking up later, not cleaning the apartment, and barely seeing her through the week. One day I came home and she was crying and packing her clothes into suitcases because one of my female coworkers left a jovial, suggestive message on our answering machine, thinking my girlfriend would get the joke. We got into a big fight, and Nicole told me she couldn’t wait around forever for me to grow up. I calmed her down and promised I would try to change, and we agreed to finally take the trip we had been planning to take to Jasper, Whistler, and Glacier National Park. I packed only two changes of clothes, my toothbrush and razor, and the engagement ring I had bought the morning after that fight. I have never found it easy to think of my life in attachment to any kind of finality, and the prospect of being with one person exclusively for the rest of my life was a daunting one, as I am sure it is for all men. But I loved Nicole, and continue to love her. She not only understands who I am, but she is the type of person who will light a fire under me, propel me into whatever action is necessary for me at the time. She knows my dark secrets, the frightening depths of my black personality, and loves me anyway. I cannot just forget how much she loves me, how much she has seen past in order to be with me. If sacrifice on my part is the only way to bring her back to life, then I am prepared to make any sacrifice necessary.

I decide to find out exactly where we are going, so I holler at the top of my lungs for a minute or so before a tall and slender African-American woman in a tight black pantsuit, with a revolver strapped to her waist, comes toward me with a clipboard and a cup of coffee.
“Rising and shining I see, Mr. Abrahams,” she says good-naturedly, “are you experiencing any discomfort?”
“I’m as comfortable as the next guy who’s strapped to a chair”
“Wonderful. I’m going to make you a deal, double-A. Do you mind if I call you double-A?”
“That’s just what they used to call me at posturing school”
“Well, your throat must be as dry as your wit. The deal, double-A, is that I’ll untie your right hand so that you can grab this cup of coffee and drink it, and in return, you won’t try to escape. Do we have a deal?”
“Does it have cream and sugar, you big nazi?”
“It certainly does, you Arian hypocrite”
“Well then it’s a deal.” The giant beanpole unlocks the handcuff on my right wrist allowing me to take the coffee and indulge in a long sip. The coffee is rich and robust, with just the right amount of sugar.
“What’s your name?” I ask her after a moment of tense silence, which she spent sizing me up with a half smile.
“Captain Davis” she answers slowly, in a sonorous voice, without changing her expression.
“That your Christian name? Captain? God, times sure have changed”
“Charlotte”
“Charlotte Davis?”
“That’s right”
“Well it’s lovely to meet you, Charlotte Davis,” I say with obvious disdain, “where am I going?”
“This train is going to Puerto Vallarta”
“Huh? Am I being sent on vacation, or is that where Omega Alpha is?”
Charlotte just stares at me with that same half-smirk, and doesn’t say a thing or move a muscle; not even to blink.
“I assumed that Omega Alpha would be in the United States. I guess I can’t complain though, can I? A free Mexican vacation! Whoo! Hey, can you bring me a drink with a parasol in it? I was always afraid to order one of those, ‘cause that’s a chick drink back where I’m from and I didn’t want to look like some kinda fruit, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that any more, huh? So this’ to be the epilogue to the quest for freedom and happiness for Adam Abrahams. Not with a bang but a whimper, huh? I guess I should be happy; most guys would kill to be in the position I’m in. Incidentally, Charlotte, are you on the list for Omega Alpha? Because if you are, maybe we could cut your wait short. What do you say? Want to join the 200 mile-an-hour club? You’ve got the key, right?”
“If you don’t want any more coffee, double-A, then I have orders to restrain your right arm again”
“Fine,” I say as I down the last of the coffee, “tastes like it was made with bath water. My compliments to the chef.” Charlotte leans over me, takes the coffee mug, and grabs my wrist with an iron grip, and handcuffs me to the seat again.
“You just sit tight, double-A. I’ll be back with some lunch for you in an hour or so.” With that, she turns and glides out of the car with a walk that doesn’t suit her large proportions. I stare out the window and lament the missed opportunity at not having thrown the ceramic coffee mug at her smirking face.

2004-04-13T11:17:00.000-07:00

Entry #5
I wake up again from uneasy dreams to find Toni gone and my room still dark. I am overcome with an intense desire to escape this nightmarish place, and so I remove the tubes connected to my genitals and anus and swing my legs out of bed with some difficulty and try to alight gracefully and silently on the floor. My legs don’t hold me, however, and I sprawl on the floor with an unceremonious thump. I wait silently for a moment, listening for signs that the morning nurses have heard me. Once I am sure my movement has not been detected, I pull myself with my hands into a corner behind a big machine and start massaging my legs with my hands for ten minutes or so. I then stretch them out, and draw them into my chest with some difficulty, but as I repeat this exercise it becomes somewhat easier, and after half an hour or so I feel confident enough in the strength of my appendages to try to stand up. I pull myself up using the machine for support, and walk gingerly and painfully over to the door to the room. I peer out the door and see that there are two female police officers, a tiny Asian and a tall blonde Nordic, twenty meters down the hallway drinking coffee and apparently telling amusing anecdotes to one another.
I look around the room and see a washroom door that was concealed from my vantage point when I was on the bed, and make my way towards it. I open the door and see that the room has a window. As I make my way towards the window, I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look horrible, my face all puffy and bruised, and as I am examining myself, I see some black ink on my hospital gown, and find that something is written in the inside of the gown. ‘Ask for me when you get there: Antonia Blake.’ Oh Toni, I think, I can’t fucking go there.
The window slides open easily and I see that I am on the third story of the hospital, and that there are low-rise buildings across the narrow street from where I am situated. I climb out onto the cement ledge, my hospital gown flapping in the wind and in so doing, revealing my backside. My sense of modesty compels me to turn around so that I am facing the street, and I make my way to the corner of the building to my right, hoping to see a drainpipe that I might use to clamber down to the street. When I reach the corner, however, I see that the ledge stops there. I move all the way left, to the other corner, and find that the ledge also stops there. I have been climbing mountains and cliffs as a hobby since I was eighteen, but don’t feel strong enough at the moment to hang off of the ledge and try to make the two and a half story drop onto the lawn and shrubs below. I see that dropping is my only option, however, and begin to psyche myself up for the maneuver.
As I am staring at the ground, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye in the second floor room of the low-rise apartment and, upon looking closer, see I slender blonde woman in a red housecoat jumping up and down in the window. She disappears from the window, but very soon re-appears on the roof and runs to the ledge. I get a strange premonition that she will run straight over the edge of the building like a lemming in an effort to get to me, but she stops and hollers “hello!”
“Look, I’m just getting some fresh air, okay? I’m about to go back inside now, but thanks for your concern!”
“Stay there! I’ll get you a ladder!” she says, not paying any attention to what I’ve said; she is clearly not fooled. A world of few men apparently is not going to provide me with any anonymity, I realize.
The woman in the red housecoat disappears, and I consider going back in the window to figure out a different means of escape, or just to out-wait the crazy red housecoat lady. Even as I am thinking this, I see Caitlin poke her head out the window and declare “Here he is!” to an unseen ally inside the bathroom.
When I feel trapped, I react like a scared animal. Once, when I was a teenager in the late 1990’s, I was attacked by five Ginos from my high school, and managed to win that fight by throwing one of them headfirst into a brick wall, knocking one out with a punch, and breaking the ribs of a third guy with a kick, before grabbing a piece of wood and chasing off the other two, who clearly weren’t going to do anything in the first place, back up the alley with a loud, posturing, kamikaze war cry.
That urgency takes over now and I try to land a karate chop on Caitlin’s windpipe, but she pulls her head inside the window. “I’m going to need some help here!” she says.
I grab the window and shout “Any of you fucking cunts come out here and you’ll get a quick trip to the ground floor!” I shout, spraying saliva all over the windowpane as I slam it closed. I look at the street and I see the woman in the red housecoat sprinting towards the hospital with a giant ladder in her hands, apparently at the time possessing the strength of three men. “Go away! I don’t need any help!”
“Climb down and we can hide out at my place!” she says.
“Seriously, I’m alright! I’m just out here too… oh, you think I’m not serious, Caitlin? I’ll fuck you up unless you close that window!” I say as I see Caitlin try to stick me with a needle, though she is clearly out of range. I grab her wrist and kick her on the elbow with the heel of my left foot, causing her to let out a yelp of pain and drop the needle on the ledge. I pick it up and brandish it at her like a dagger, but she stubbornly tries to grab my leg, so I jab the needle into her arm and press the plunger all the way down. “Hey, if I die, who will work in your fertility clinics?” She swoons a little, and falls back into the bathroom. I am left holding the needle, and I yell “Anyone who comes out here will get this in the eye!” and shut the window.
To my right, the woman in the red housecoat has set up the ladder and has started to climb. I rush over there, and kick the ladder straight out with a mighty thrust. The woman was only on the fifth or sixth rung, and is able to jump off safely, but the ladder falls into the road, hitting a silver car that was driving by. The car screeches to a halt, and three well dressed ladies get out and look angry and shocked, before looking up and seeing me on the ledge. They scream and jump up and down attracting a crowd, and I am reminded of the Beatles video, A Hard Days’ Night, as I see some of them faint and even try to climb the bricks. The woman in the red housecoat grabs the ladder and leans it up on the ledge again. By this point, there are forty or fifty women there, and six of them hold the ladder and beckon me down. “Go away!” I shout. As I am watching the throbbing crowd with a sense of fearful fascination, the tiny Asian cop slides the window open and lunges at my leg with another needle. She gets me in the foot, and I scream and plunge the needle I am holding into her left shoulder. She squeals and smacks her head on the partially opened window and falls head first into the shrubs, probably breaking her neck. The throng of women pays no attention to her, and I begin to feel woozy. I pick the woman in the red housecoat out of the crowd, and jump off the ledge in a swan dive, hoping to crush her like a bug as I hit her. All the women crowd around her though, and the effect is much like a rock singer diving off the stage; I am met with what seems like a thousand hands, and they cushion my fall perfectly. I begin to lose consciousness as I feel the hands tearing my hospital gown to pieces, and grabbing my greasy blond hair, and roughly fondling my genitalia. I give myself up to sleep then, hoping that I will be ripped to shreds by these savage amazons and hoping I will not feel a thing.

2004-03-31T17:01:00.000-08:00

ENTRY #4
Just as I saw my brother to weak to tend his bonsai garden, keeling over and wailing in deliria, I feel a body beside mine, and am able to open my eyes and detect the brown hair and nurse’s uniform of Toni, the night nurse.
“What time is it?” I ask softly.
“Oh, you’re awake!” says Toni with a mix of surprise and disappointment in her voice. “It’s 2:45. I was hoping to just lie next to you while you slept. I’ve never slept next to a man, but I’ve read about it and it sounds really nice.” Toni nuzzles her face into my neck and makes little happy sighs of contentment.
“You’ve never had a boyfriend?”
“Are you kidding? That’s like saying…… Oh, wait. They haven’t gotten to that part, huh. No Adam, I’ve never had a boyfriend. You’re only the second man I’ve ever gotten to touch.”
“Who was the first?”
“Before I tell you this you need to promise me two things.” She says, sitting up and looking at me gravely.
“Okay”
“Seriously, Adam, this is no joke”
“I said I promise”
“Okay. You can’t let anyone know that you’re aware of anything I tell you.”
“Okay, what’s the second thing?”
“Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Oh, God”
“I won’t come on to you again, I promise. Unless, of course, that’s what you want,” she says, looking at me hopefully.
“Certainly not. Anyway, won’t you get caught if you sleep here?”
“I’ll set the alarm on my watch. Come on, please?”
“Um, sure”
“Okay, the first man I ever slept with was called Horatio. He’s one of the men at Omega Alpha. Do you know what that is?”
“No. Is it like Mensa?”
“Hah! Far from it. The men there are about as intelligent as roadkill. Omega Alpha is the North American fertility clinic. They’ll bring you there soon, I’m sure. Anyway, there’s a three-year waiting list and…”
“Wait a minute. I’m going to work at a fertility clinic? This is the first I’ve heard of it”
“The doctors are preaching tact. They’re waiting for the right time to tell you, what with you being frozen in ice for this long, and the fact you have a girlfriend”
“I’m not so sure Nicole would want me working in a fertility clinic. And I’m not sure I would want that either.”
“Why would you not want that? Your job would be to make love twice a day with beautiful women! A different one each time, and they’re screened! The women that go there prepare for three years for that half hour of sex by taking classes in man-pleasing, yoga for flexibility, intense aerobics for stamina, the whole shebang! They even have classes now that women can take to make their moans sound more musical. It’s turning out to be a very popular class, because these women can keep a video of the encounter for a little extra cost.”
“Kind of like the Polaroids of people on roller-coasters at amusement parks you can get?”
“Hee-hee. You’re funny,” she chuckles, “most women treat it almost as a religious experience. But there are others who get the video to play for their friends when they have them over for dinner. Some women get soooo jealous! ‘Ohhh, look at his face!’ ‘You’re on fire!’ ‘Look at him shake!’, ‘Wow, you are sooo lucky’. It’s pretty lame, really.”
“I bet. I couldn’t be part of that, though.”
“If you’re worried about what Nicole would think, you shouldn’t bother.”
“How’s that?”
“Adam, unthawing you was an expensive and delicate process. They had thirteen of the best doctors on the continent working for almost a week on you. I’m not sure they’re willing to donate those same resources to Nicole, her being a woman and all”
“What?!”
“It makes sense economically, don’t you think? Why would they unthaw and re-animate another woman in a world of almost two billion females? It’s simply not prudent.”
“Toni, you’ve got to be shitting me.”
“Don’t use bad language, please.”
“Oh, fuck you! Am I offending your virgin ears? Don’t you realize that I just found out the love of my life is as good as dead? And you’re worried about my language, you filthy, selfish, lecherous cunt! Fuck off with your prudent logic and Victorian linguistic sensibilities!” Toni looks at me with big frightened eyes and starts to sob. I have never, as long as I have lived, been able to maintain a head of steam in the face of a female in tears, and now is certainly no different. I soften acutely and spend ten minutes or so consoling her. I have my arms around her, telling her that she’s not selfish, and that I understood how she would want to come into my room to make love, and how that didn’t make her a whore, and how I thought it was plain for all to see that she was a smart, hard working, beautiful and interesting person. She tells me that it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that people are so lonely these days with nobody to tell them what they’ve got going for them, and how it’s not fair that she doesn’t have anybody to hold onto at night, and how it’s unfair that she’s fallen in love with me so easily, and feels pathetic. I am angry at myself then. I have always felt like I needed to be the bigger person in any situation, and I am ashamed that I lost my temper. After all, if what Toni tells me is accurate, I have the choice of riding a gravy train for the rest of my life. Upon realizing this, I kiss her on her forehead, lie back with her cuddled in my arms, and finally, at the sound of her rhythmic breathing, drift off to sleep.

2004-03-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

ENTRY#3
“Hello, hello, wake up sleepyhead.” Caitlin, the red-haired nurse is bustling about the room with her two assistants, turning on machines and instructing the orderlies on various tasks. “How did we sleep, Mr Abrahams?”
“Well, thank you.”
“Good! We’re going to do some tests on you today to see how you are reacting to the transition from being frozen. You seem to be doing just fine, of course, but we’ll take a closer look and check things out on a cellular level. Then we’re going to have a special guest!”
“Who?”
“A professor from UBC would like to talk to you. She’ll get you all caught up on the last 81 years.”
“Do I get to see Nicole today, Caitlin?”
“We’re still running some tests on her, Mr Abrahams, but I assure you she’ll be fine. You’ll see her as soon as she’s better”
The doctors perform embarrassing and invasive tests on me for several hours. I am happy to accept the shots of morphine that are administered to me every forty minutes or so, and when Caitlin returns to talk to me, I am soaring like an eagle, stoned out of my tree by these needle-bearing hooligans.
“Well then, Mr Abrahams, you are in perfect health! You won’t lose any of your extremities, your sperm count is high, and you should be up on your feet in forty-eight hours!” All the nurses gather around me and give me a rousing ovation of claps and supportive comments.
“Thanks, bay-bah! Thank y’all very much,” I say, doing what I hope is a good Elvis impersonation, “You’ve all been a hunka-hunka great audience.” The impersonation confuses them, and they all silently go back to their machines and clipboards, except for Caitlin, who remains by my bedside.
“Do you have any questions for me before Dr Whaley comes in to talk to you?”
“Yeah. I was wondering, I mean, you know, you seem to know a lot, and I was hoping you could answer a question that’s been bothering me for some time now.”
“You may ask me anything, Mr Abrahams”
“Okay. How do mermaids go to the bathroom?” I snicker loudly, and pound the side of the bed with my fist in a fit of elated hysteria.
“Here,” she says, grabbing a needle from her coat pocket, “this should help you concentrate until the morphine is out of your system.”
“Aw bay-bah, I’m sorry. I’m just havin’ fun, you know”
“We’re very supportive of fun here Mr Abrahams,” she says as she gives me the shot, “Dr Whaley has been very eager to talk to you. She’s been looking forward to seeing you all week!”
The shot brings me down quickly and makes me tired. I am drifting off to sleep when Dr Whaley, a woman of about sixty with jet black hair, clip-clops her way into the room with a young blonde woman who sets up a laptop, projector, and a screen in front of my bed. “Hello Mr Abrahams, I’m doctor Karina Whaley, and this is my one of my graduate students, Orchid Peterson”
“Please, call me Adam,” I say as I shake hands with them, “am I going to get to see a flick? I’ve been enjoying the eggy-wegs they keep giving me for my meals.”
“We need all the protein we can get, don’t we? And yes, we have put together a short presentation for you to help you get acclimatized to the world,” Dr Whaley says pleasantly, “this won’t be easy for you, but try to concentrate, take it all in, and we’ll answer any questions you’ll have just as soon as we’re done.” Orchid turns the lights off in the room and Dr Whaley starts up the projector, revealing a power-point-esque presentation on the projector screen.
“In 2012, work was completed on a bio-weapon called the Jealous Sweetheart virus. It was engineered by U of T Chemical and Biological engineering students and was to be sold to the highest bidder on the black market, as a way of helping the students pay their astronomical tuition. Jealous Sweetheart would attack the Y chromosome, which is of course only found in men”
“Uh-huh.”
“This,” says Dr Whaley as a photo of a bearded man in middle eastern clothing, “is the late Yusuf Islam, formerly a very popular singer/songwriter known as Cat Stevens. Yusuf Islam had a fan club that became very large, and eventually split into two factions, one very peaceful, called ‘It’s All Love’, and one extremist group that saw Yusuf as a man who could talk with God. This group became known as The El-Cat-ah network, and was composed mostly of women”
“I see.”
“The unstable El-Cat-ah network decided to sexually cleanse the world using the Jealous Sweetheart weapon.” Dr Whaley then brought up a video of a slowly erupting volcano in the middle of a body of water. “This,” she went on, “is a video of Kick-‘em-Jenny, which emerged from the Caribbean Sea in 2010. On May thirteenth, 2016, Kick-em-Jenny erupted terribly violently, spraying lava high into the air, and sending thick ash and approximately nine-hundred fluid litres of Jealous Sweetheart into the atmosphere”. My face had gone stark white, and Orchid must have noticed, because she asked me if I wanted them to continue. I say that I do.
“That very day, over one million men in the Caribbean fall ill to a strange disease. All flights to and from the area are shut off in an effort to quarantine the disease. By the end of the week, men all around the world are dying by the millions. The El-Cat-ah network claimed responsibility for the genocide in the video seen here.” A group of five white tunic-clad women sits in a cave, as Cat Stevens’ ‘Wild World’ plays in the background, and a narrator claims responsibilty for the volcano in seven languages. Spanish, Hebrew, English, Arabic, French, Cantonese, and Swahili. “Governments across the globe sequester men away in bomb shelters, hospital basements, biological research facilities, any place where the water and oxygen can be brought in in a controlled state. Their efforts are futile, however, and the virus had infected more than ninety-nine percent of all of earth’s men.” Dr Whaley brings up a video of a mass grave being filled. Bodies are stacked five-high, in a single file, and extend all the way to the horizon in the desert landscape pictured. “This is a ceremony in South Africa. Ceremonies like it are celebrated all through the world”. Dr Whaley brings up a similar video, with the same five women staring at the camera. They are wearing the same white tunics, but they all have a black band around their left arms. The narrator apologizes for the severity and scope of death in Spanish, Hebrew, English, Arabic, French, Cantonese, and Swahili. “The El-Cat-ah network would say in subsequent video releases that they wanted to end war on earth, and that eliminating men was the best way to do that, but when they actually had achieved it, they couldn’t stomach what they had done, and this video was released”. The five white tunic-clad women are shown to me, in their cave, as Cat Stevens’ ‘Father and Son’ plays in the background. A narrator apologizes for what the El-Cat-ah network has done in Spanish, Hebrew, English, Arabic, French, Cantonese, and Swahili, and then the white tunic women all plunge silver letter-openers into their hearts and bleed to death on camera.” The spectacle is too much for me, and I am sick all over the floor. Orchid runs out of the room and returns with Caitlin and two young brunette orderlies who quickly attend to the mess I’ve made. Orchid gathers up the equipment they brought in, and Dr Whaley tell me “we’ll come back tomorrow”, and they beat a hasty retreat.
“Caitlin!” I say, sobbing uncontrollably, “tell me they’re full of shit! Tell me those fucking bitches didn’t do that!”
“Mr Abrahams, I’m sorry that...”
“Oh fuck you! Don’t call me that! If I’m not on a first name basis with you, who will I be friends with, huh? I can’t go down to the pub and hang out with the boys, can I? I can’t join a hockey league to hear the dressing room banter and dirty jokes. You’re not my fucking valet, so don’t call me Mr Abrahams! I beg you.”
“I’m sorry, Adam, but this is the way the world is now, and there’s not a lot anybody can do about it.”
“Look I want to go to sleep. I don’t want to think about this. I don’t want this to be a reality I have to deal with, so can you please just give me something?”
“It’s only 6pm. Are you sure you want to do that to your sleeping schedule?”
I hold out my arm insistently, and Caitlin gives me a shot, but I don’t go under. I close my eyes and I can’t move my face, but in my mind’s eye I see my father and brother sick in our kitchen. I see my nephew David, whose biggest problem used to be his peanut allergy, crying to his mother. I see my grandfather, who was never sick a day in his life, bleeding out his eyes and losing control of his bowels. And I try to scream and let the blackness overtake me, but I am tortured by dreams of strong men growing weak long into the night.

2004-03-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

ENTRY#2
“Adam. Adam. Wake up sleepyhead”, a dreamy voice calls me out of my forced slumber, “I was hoping to get some time alone with you”. I open my eyes to discover that a nurse, her name tag declares that she is ‘Toni’, is sitting on top of me with that unmistakable gleam in her eye. The lights are out, and we are indeed alone, and I am overcome with a powerful sense of déjà vu, having had a recurring dream similar to this one very regularly since I was fourteen or so. Unlike in that dream, however, I am extremely disoriented, uncomfortable, and certainly not aroused. “Good, you’re awake. I’m not supposed to be in here,” she says, removing her top and folding it neatly before dropping it to the floor, “but why don’t we keep that our little secret, hmm?”
“No no no. Stop. Wait! What are you doing? Turn on the lights!”
“Shhhhh… Keep your voice down and just relax, sweetie.” Toni takes her hairclips out and shakes her head so that her long brown hair falls around her head and mine, and sets the hairclips down on the orderly table next to the bed. She sits up and begins to undo her bra. “It isn’t my turn for over a year, and you aren’t scheduled to start for another week, but I think we should just get started right now”
“What the fuck? Get off of me! Started at what?”
“Your envious new position, silly. Now I know you don’t want to go into your new job cold, so keep your voice down, lose the robe, and let’s get you some practice, huh?” She removes her bra and hangs it on the coat hook next to the bed.
“Look, Toni, I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re a very pretty girl, but I have a girlfriend, and I love her very much, and my head hurts and I’m really confused, so could you just get off of me and tell me what’s going on?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of time for that later,” she says, kissing my neck and ears, “just sit back and enjoy yourself”.
She reaches down and starts to undo my robe, but I grab her roughly by the wrists, sit up, and shout “stop!” at her. She looks frightened and begins to sob. “Are you fucking crazy? Oh, God. Look, don’t cry, okay? I’m sorry, alright? I’m sorry. I’m not used to being woken up and tempted with sex by pretty girls” I say with a smile.
“If you think I’m pretty,” she whimpers, “why won’t you fuck me?” She pronounces the work with a slight hesitation, but with practice and a fair degree of ceremony in her voice. “Was it the way I kept folding my clothes? They told me in class that men like it when a woman rips off her clothes and throws them wildly across the room, but I wasn’t raised like that; it just seems so unnatural”
“Class? Toni, if this is some sort of joke you’ve got to let me in on it. One minute, I’m hiking in Glacier Park with my girlfriend, the absolute love of my life, and the next minute I’m in a hospital, and everyone’s acting very cryptic about what happened to me. This isn’t a reality show, is it? Where’s Nicole?”
“Nicole’s here in this hospital, and no this isn’t a reality show. Are you sure you don’t want to make love to me? Nobody has to know about it.”
“Look,” I say, grabbing her top from the coat hook and putting it over her shoulders “you’re a gorgeous girl and you’re very sweet, but I’ve screwed up too many relationships this way. Can you please tell me what’s going on”
“I’ll come back tomorrow night during my shift and I’ll tell you everything”
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“If my boss hasn’t gone through the acclimatizing process with you yet, she’ll find out that someone’s come to visit you, and I can’t risk losing my job”
“You were willing to risk you job for sex with a complete stranger, though?”
“For what you could have given me, I would risk anything. Here, take this, it’ll put you to sleep” she said, handing me a pill. And with that, Toni gathered her things and walked out of my room. I took the pill and stared at the ceiling for a minute, as scared and confused as I’ve been in my life, and then I drift off to sleep.

2004-03-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

ENTRY#1
I wake up again in a warm gray room surrounded by concerned and hungry looking women in lab coats. I don’t feel cold anymore, but my throat is parched and I ask for water in a voice that seemed too urgent to be my own. A tall woman with sensible red hair, a warm smile, and a clipboard walks up to me. “Do you know where you are?”
“No, Ma’am.” I answer.
“I’m Caitlin Roger” she says, “what’s your name?”
“Adam Abrahams”
“Adam. Well, you’re very lucky to be alive. You’re in St. Agathe hospital in downtown Vancouver”
“Can I have some more water, please?”
“Of course you may. Now Adam, you’re likely very tired and disoriented, but I wonder if you can tell me what is the last thing you can remember.”
“I was hiking a glacier and taking photos”
“I see. On Mount MacDonald, were you?”
“Yeah. I was camping with my girlfriend. Where is she, anyway?”
“We’ll get to that, Adam. Do you remember anything that happened when you were camping ?”
“We had a fight. We were trudging along in silence and I finished our canteen while we were stopped, and she just snapped at me, was kicking me, calling me selfish… Look, Caitlin, is it? I…“
“Dr. Rogers, if you wouldn’t mind” she says with a smile. The other nurses cast looks at one another that I didn’t understand.
“Dr. Rogers, how did I get here? And where’s Nicole? Why am I in a hospital? I feel a little sick, but why was I taken all the way to Vancouver?” A blonde nurse sticks a needle in my arm. “Ow! Fuck!”
“Adam, you’ve been frozen in a glacier for over eighty years. Nicole and you were found two days ago on what was formerly Mount MacDonald during a water excavation operation.”
I sit there in shocked silence for a minute, before allowing a sly smile to come across my face. “Mm-hmm. Well, what an amazing story! I guess the Prime Minister will want to meet me, huh. Who is Prime Minister in 2084, anyway? Wayne Gretzky’s kids? I bet they’re natural leaders. Look Caitlin, I know my rights, and you can’t just put someone on a reality show without them signing something, so why don’t you cut the shit, bring Nicole in here, and I’ll get out of your hair. Oh, and if this is Nicole’s idea of payback for my anniversary present, please tell her that I already apologized, no further humiliation is warranted.”
“We can’t send Nicole in, I’m afraid. She isn’t revived yet. She is, unfortunately still frozen”
“Mm-hmm. Symbolism, huh? Look Nicole,” I say, looking up into the circular mirror in the upper corner of the room, “I’m sorry that I called you frigid. This isn’t funny, okay? I have work Monday morning”
“I know this is hard on you, Mr. Abrahams. You should rest now. We’ll talk in the morning”
“Forget it! I’m not fucking tired”. But as soon as I say it, I feel a stealthy blackness come from behind my eyes and I don’t even have a chance to react before sleep overcomes me and takes my whole head in a quick coup.