My Boyfriend Destroyed the Earth! As a Valentine's Present!

This week, we're all trying to put up a short, Valentine's related story on the blog. I was flummoxed as to what I could possibly put up. Because this is not my best topic. But when I read Briane Pagel's hand written story early in the week... I fell in love with it, and decided it would be awesome to tell the same story from the POV of the object of the mad doctor's affections.

I wanted to do it all in the style that Briane did his, but time got away from me. So I had to write the story on this post, then sketch out a few quick scenes in the 20 minutes or so I had before I just had to go to bed. As always, grandiose plans, shoddy execution.

Regardless, I've got what I got. If you want context, please go read his story first. Then come back to this one. Enjoy.

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IF YOU'VE FOUND THIS NOTEBOOK and you aren’t a crazy mad-scientist that’s hell bent on turning me into your personal sex-slave, then have I got a story for you. I know why the world ended.

 Hi. My name’s Cindy. And this, is a story about a boy. It’s not every day that a girl meets a fella that has more doctorates than he’s had girlfriends. But, then again, not many people have met Dr. Awful.

And in case you’re curious, that isn’t a nickname, his actual name is Awful. He said his immigrant grandparents stepped off the ship upon arriving in America and took one look at the statue of liberty and were full of awe. Or, they were Awe-full. In their broken English, they’d decided to change their name to Awful. By the time they figured out what it meant, they’d already been given Social Security numbers, had jobs, lives, and decided not to worry about it.

 So, it was probably his destiny to destroy us all.

 When we met, he was standing in the park, hands in his pockets, and looking like someone just kicked his puppy. It was a warm, summer afternoon, and he had the faint smell of ozone about him. You know it, kind of that burnt rubber scent that makes you think there’s just been an electrical fire. He was staring at this device he had in front of him, sort of like an old fashioned moon-shining still and moon lander. As I approached, the smell grew stronger, I think it was embedded into the pores of his skin. It comes out of his sweat, like someone that’s eaten too much garlic.

 “Are you okay?” I asked.

 He didn’t look at me, but shrugged his shoulders without removing his hands from his pockets. “Just testing something. It didn’t work.”

 “That sucks.”

 He nodded.

“Better luck next time then,” I said. “Oh, you’ve got a valve lying in the grass, maybe it fell off.”

 He went from despair to elation as it dawned on them that he’d not manufactured a dud, he’d just not assembled it correctly. That time, that first time we met, I’ve played it over in my head a thousand times since then. He never saw me, not even one time. He looked at his feet, at his machine, at the sky. Not at me. It was odd, as he was odd. Strange man.

 A week later, I was at my office, I’m a sales woman for a small healthcare company that manufactures catheters. These are novel devices, as they are lubricated with a proprietary compound that is as close to frictionless as any that science has ever discovered. So slippery that the biggest difficulty was in making the compound not just slide right off the tubing of the device. You know, because it’s too slick to stay on the device.

 They figured it out. It works great, now you jam a fire hose from someone’s throat to their rectum and they’d not even feel it sliding down their esophagus. A real breakthrough.

 Seriously, doctors are impressed.

 So I was there, getting ready to leave the office to hit the road for the day and he was there, just outside the front entrance. Holding a bottle of perfume.

“Hello Cindy,” he said, “I’ve brought you a gift. My ‘thank you’ for rescuing me when we last met.”

Before I could respond, there was a cloud of something in the air. I whiffed, and suddenly, nothing really seemed to matter anymore. Except for him.

My stomach went aflutter and I saw Dr Awful for the very first time. Really saw him. And I loved him for it.

"I've given you something," he said, "something to make you love me."

"I love that you did that," I said.

And that's how it began. Little did either of us know that his homemade date rape drug only worked for a short time. Within days, I was questioning our relationship... within a week I was planning my escape.

I don't know what gave it away, I really don't. But he knew I was up to something. It was when he had me tied to a gurney that he told me he'd make me love him again. I wanted him to understand, to really understand, that he was a monster. So I told him, "Not if you were the last man on earth."

He backed away, shocked, hurt, so much so that he couldn't look at me.

And that's when I escaped. The man didn't even bother locking the door. He was working on something on the other side of the lab he wouldn't look in my direction. Seeing him so hurt, even if he was a monster, made me feel sorry for him. That it was so easy to get out of my restraints made me think he really didn't want me there against my will, or maybe it was because he believed I wouldn't leave him.

Despite myself, I cried as I ran. I dared a single look back as I fled. And I saw him, standing in the doorway of his lab, the door open, watching me run.

A week later he was outside my office again, blowing more perfume in my face. It didn't work this time.

A few weeks after that... things started getting weird. And the world started to go crazy. People were dying, so were animals, plants...

And me. I knew I would be dying soon too. So I began this journal. Just so you would know. It was my boyfriend. He's the one that killed us all. Because of me.

And.... I think I love him for it.