by Caroline Hicok

Even before Karen went to brew a pot of Colombian rebirth, she flipped on the TV news. Only once before had watching the news been the nucleus of her life, with all the other pieces orbiting around it. That was when her son Adam had gone to fight in the Gulf War. She said goodbye for what she was able to resolve might be the last time when he shipped out. She watched round-the-clock reports of the bombings, sitting close enough to put her hands up to the screen where the bloodied Iraqis or Israelis appeared -- running, crying, or most horribly, looking at the camera with an accusing but humbled speechlessness. Every memory of that winter was inextricably linked to those faces. The day Adam returned from the war was one of quiet celebration. Her pleasure in his return lacked the relief that made the welcome of a mother who had held on to her son's memory so overwhelming. Still, she was pleased at his resurrection.

Now he was dead. Her son lived to be the last man on the planet by three days. Two months ago, a virus that begins its degenerative assault on the body through the Y-chromosome had touched down like no natural disaster since the plagues of Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of men died every day as Karen watched with her hands up to the TV. The structure and organization of the news reports became more and more unfamiliar until finally most stations had adopted 24-hour broadcasts of female reporters running through the streets, jostling their cameras in every direction to record what havoc the death of all men had wreaked. The banks, congressional buildings, military bases, and prisons lay crumbled like the molted skin of a snake. Fortunately, the schools and hospitals were able to remain open. The special focus of the latter had become safeguarding pregnant women and the new-found immunization that meant hope for the race would be revived with the birth of the first male.

In the meantime, the social structure of the human race had to be rebuilt. As the last living male, Karen's son Adam had been the provisional leader of the world for three days. The cameras were there recording his death as they had been when he had caused the deaths of others. When his last breath left his mouth without speaking the unknown words that would somehow make it all better, the cameras turned their lenses on Karen. The eyes of the world had focused on her ever since as if being the mother of the last man alive somehow gave her authority. Karen didn't think they really believed that. They just hadn't known where else to look. Either way, Karen had hastily been nominated as one of the two US delegates to the assembly gathering in Den Hague, and in the panic that dictated a frantic passing of the buck, Karen found herself chairman of the delegation.

Karen switched off the TV and dumped out the cup still full of coffee. She got in the car and pointed it in the direction of the grocery store to get something to eat for the flight. She carefully dug through the apples and oranges. The apples were rotten, so she discarded them and selected the best of the oranges. She meant to pick out some sandwich meat, but before she could, she lost her desire to shop. Instead she waved at the young girl approaching her with a helpful look on her face and left the store with the oranges in her hand, dropping off an old sweater in the donation box on her way out. Two months before Karen had made a doctor's appointment for that day to renew her hormone prescription, but her doctor was dead, so she headed for her husband's church. There was no pastor minister anymore, but there were always a handful of women meeting there to comfort each other. Karen had been there several times since the men had died. The women just sat there weeping, hugging, and praying. The Spirit must have possessed Ms. Goodman that day because she went to the podium and began reading the Book of Judges. She stopped after Chapter 13, and interpreted for the others. "If we obey God in all things as we have before, He will send a leader to guide us through this confusion." When Ms. Goodman finished, Karen left as she had left the grocery store before.

Karen heard "...must rebuild our infrastructure" but it only roused her from her thoughts for a moment. She focused on the woman, but instead of hearing her words, she looked at her face and saw the fear. Karen imagined her hooked up to an IV of fear, the slow drip of it just enough to dull her senses. She turned her eyes to the next face, and saw most were even more distracted. They each looked at the others like a crazed person in a fun house: confused by all the disturbing, twisting images; turning from one to the other in search of one with that clear, serene surface. These women did not know how to see themselves without a mirror, and there were no true ones to be found. Sounds with tones of importance roused her again. She heard agreements of "Well, I remember how this was done," and "I still know how to do that."

An overweight woman in a shapeless department store suit stood up and said she had an undergraduate degree in finance and that she thought she remembered how currency is created and controlled. "Ve should be able to reconstruct a healthy monetary unit. Danks to ze abolition of social programs in Germany, ze economy has been booming, and I have learned much. So long as we remember to forget about velfare, vorker's compensation, free health care..." Karen tuned her out and focused only on the unnatural red of the woman's lipstick until she heard a new voice adopt that same assertive tone with a more booming volume.

"...four years of expertise as a battalion commander, Bachelor's Degree in History from the US Military Academy at West Point, Master's Degree from the Army War College. I am a trained strategist and remember..." It was then that the ripple of murmurs built to a giant Tower of Babel as each woman declared to and over her neighbors all the things she knew how to do the old way. Karen blocked her out as she had blocked out the rest of the convention. Each night she lay sleepless in the hotel rehearsing what she would stand up and say in the morning. Each morning the words climbed further down in her throat as she listened to the confident plans of the others.

After two months, all that was left was for the delegates to sign the Constitution they had made and to propose a memorial. A young woman with bleached blonde hair and two-inch heels stood up and argued for an obelisk. "I have always admired Washington's monument as the most outstanding erection in memory of greatness." No dissent was expressed against an obelisk, and the women agreed to begin construction of it the following day. In the morning, the second American delegate found Karen lifeless in the hotel room they shared. An empty bottle of estrogen pills lay at her feet. Upon some investigation, however, the women were able to discern that this was not the cause of death. Karen had strangled herself with her own hands. It was not difficult for the assembly to decide what should be done. The women were all needed to dig the foundation of the monument, and they didn't want to waste time with little things when there was so much work to do. So they buried Karen in its cavity, and she lies there to this day.