In the bunker is an unsettling world, where we must face our past, present and future selves. A short story by Joanna Kavenna
When I received the invitation, I thought, well, so that's what happened to Guy Matthias. He had retreated, back to his bunker.
It was a long story.
The invitation said:
"GUY MATTHIAS WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO HIS 2013 END OF TIME CHRISTMAS PARTY at THE BUNKER nr ITHACA, New York. Come as you are..."
"The bunker" was not actually near Ithaca – it stood in a lonely valley, further north. Guy bought it in 1999, when he was getting ready for the Y2K Apocalypse. He thought the end would come bang on time, as the new millennium dawned, he actually thought it would all fit neatly into the Gregorian calendar! When the apocalypse didn't fit neatly, and didn't come at all, Guy had a long dark night of the soul but then he emerged full of hope again. He'd just mistimed it. He was wary of the obvious next time around: he decided not to sign up with the Mayans. The year 2012 wasn't in his sights at all. He was going for 2013.
It's like the old adage about crying wolf. He'd cried one apocalypse already. How many times can you cry Certain Doom? I read the invitation over and over and I wondered – was it serious? I couldn't imagine Guy being ironic but if it was genuinely happening I was keen to see it. And 14 years was a long time. Long enough for a person to get really gnawed by the ravenous monster of Ordinary Life, chewed up, spat out again.
I asked my ex-wife if I could take the kids with me and she thought for a few seconds and said no.
"But they might enjoy it," I said.
"I doubt that, Doug."
I set off from my little cockroach palace in Queen's, the exile zone. The back of the car was full of detritus. The car was a symbolic representation of my inner self. My outer self was dressed casually – jeans, a sweater. Come as you are. I had RSVP-ed but received no reply. I drove in thick congested traffic, and then the city ended and I drove through half-forgotten towns, past clapboard houses, Christmas lights slung everywhere like a strange imperative. To celebrate! To worship your half-forgotten Deity! Or, if you were Guy, to herald the New Dawn!
I passed Monticello, a town I'd passed so many times. I went over snow-clad hills, as the sky turned dark blue, deep pink, as the clouds were stained by the dying sun. It was beautiful out there, and I remembered the sharp turn off the road, down a pock-marked track, which jolted the car, through thick enclosing forests.
I was almost there and then I saw the gatehouse, and drew to a halt. Guy had put up a perimeter fence. Of course he had. A crazy paranoiac leopard doesn't change his spots. He just gets more and more of them. Age brings them on. Well, I don't know. Of course, as you age, you realise, the universe really does have it in for you. It's going to bring you down, however many bunkers you build.
I spoke into a metal device, a nasal computer voice coming back at me. "The gate will open. Proceed."
I drove on, along a track which had been cleared of snow. Snow stacked at the edges. Snow piled against the trees. In the dim light the colours had faded to monochrome. I saw, ahead, the house. I remembered – two storeys above ground and three below. It looked like a typical old East Coast house, rickety stairwells, pictures of the ancestors. Then below – it was something else.
There were a few cars already there. No one came out to greet me. Instead, there was a sign which said PARTY – pointing down.
I went down a steep staircase, below the house, into an antechamber. It was whitewashed, sterile, and in the centre was a big box. I tried to lift the lid but it was padlocked. There were no windows in the bunker. One drawback with living underground and defending yourself against societal collapse and potential contamination – it's claustrophobic. It can get you down.
I walked into the next room, which was low-ceilinged, dimly lit.
This was where it got a little weird. I mean, it was already slightly weird, the random invitation, my random decision to accept the random invitation, my solitary journey into nightfall, and the thick forests, and the bunker with no one there to welcome me.
It was on the cusp of weirdness already but then I walked into the next room and I was confronted by myself.
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