Much of my day has been spent reading a comic book entitled “Y, The Last Man.”
The idea is hardly a new one, but it’s still a rather entertaining story.
The idea in question? Some sort of plague strikes the earth, instantly killing every male on the planet.
Except one.
Actually, it’s two. Y (short for Yorick, but also a reference to the chromosome) is the only surviving human male. The other remaining male is Y’s pet monkey (No, the overt symbolism of a man and a monkey on their own in a world full of women was not lost on me), named Ampersand.
As I said, the basic idea is hardly anything new (Hey, in idle daydreams I was the last man left on earth like at least five times today, and that was before I started reading the comic), but there are some interesting twists, though some of them aren’t so much “twists” as they are logical extensions of the basic idea.
For example, this mysterious plague not only wiped out all of the human males on the planet, it affected the entire animal kingdom (With the obvious exceptions of Y and Ampersand [Y&Ampersand? Y and &?? Y & &???], of course), and actually caused all the sperm in the world to also die, along with any male fetuses that happened to be gestating at the time.
As things stand at present in the story, neither the cause of the plague nor the reason that Y & Ampersand survived have been revealed, though there have been several guesses and possible clues.
Since this is a title published by DC’s “Vertigo” line of books, which has been home to titles such as “The Sandman,” “Preacher,” and “Hellblazer,” and essentially every edgy, dark-themed “adult” comic DC publishes, Y’s life isn’t exactly the kind of cushy never-ending sex-fest that a man might hope for.
In fact, that’s one of the things that set Y apart: despite the fact that he can, he actually has no interest in having such a life.
Okay, so the obvious conclusion is that Y must be gay, right?
Wrong. He’s just very much in love with his girlfriend (and possible fiancée; all hell broke loose before he could actually get an answer from her) who’s stranded on the other side of the world, and he has no interest in betraying his love for her.
So Y is clearly not gay.
He’s just a pussy.
KIDDING! I admire Y’s devotion to his true love (*cough* Total pussy! *cough*), and can only imagine what a hellish torment life must be for him.
Honestly, though, all sarcasm aside, Y’s life isn’t exactly a happy frolic through the Garden of Earthly Delights as he makes his way across an America that has fallen into chaos (Hey, say what you want about how much men suck; the fact of the matter is that the world would fall to pieces if we all just dropped dead without warning and it would take a long time to recover.) in the company of a spy and a geneticist, who might actually be responsible for the death of all the males, in a bid to get to said geneticist’s lab in order to see if the DNA of the only surviving males can help to stave off extinction.
Obviously along the way they have all sorts of wacky (and deadly) misadventures (Or would that be “miss” adventures? Ms. adventures? Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.).
As I said, it’s an entertaining story, and was a good way to while away the afternoon.
The stories of my character Fontaine, whose image has graced Threshold many times, are predicated on a very similar idea, though in the case of Fontaine’s world men are not extinct, there just aren’t nearly as many, and the “plague” that caused the male population to dwindle didn’t result in sudden deaths as it did in “Y.”
This of course gives women much more opportunity to adapt and to step into the roles that more typically had fallen to men, and also rendered some traditionally male occupations obsolete.
Still, Fontaine’s world, much like Y’s, is hardly some sort of estrogen-fueled utopia, and has plenty of strife, especially as women begin to step into roles that they hadn’t expected they would have to, or, more importantly, would choose to.
Of course, in the case of myself and the Fontaine stories, exploring the dynamics of gender roles and the mechanics of rebuilding and maintaining civilization were secondary considerations, as my principal motivation for eliminating most of the male population was to ensure that the stories would have plenty of hot girl on girl action.
As for the rest of my day, I was due for a workout, but felt ill-equipped for the task (read: I was too damn lazy), so I ended up engaging in something of a brief “compromise” workout, which consisted of doing about half of my usual routine and tacking on a brief interval workout on the treadmill.
Something, I suppose, is better than nothing.
I’m not sure what I’ll do this weekend as far as working out goes, since I won’t be working and will therefore have no reason to get up an hour early to head in and make use of the facilities there.
Maybe I’ll engage in another half-assed attempt like today, but more likely I’ll just be totally lazy and not do anything, ultimately failing to get back into any sort of routine until I finally head back to work.
That’s not the plan, but things seldom work out as I plan them, which is why I so seldom make plans…
As for the rest of the day, the other major component of it involved making tacos.
In preparation for such, I picked up the necessary components yesterday morning when I went grocery shopping, including, since I knew the container I had in my refrigerator had long since gone bad, some sour cream.
When I got home from shopping yesterday and after I had tossed the makings of last night’s dinner into the crock pot, I did a bit of cleaning, which included taking out the trash. Since I had bought a replacement container of sour cream, I made sure to finally toss out the old, as I had been neglecting to do for some time.
Today, as I got everything in readiness for my taco dinner, I reached for the sour cream and thought, “Hmm, I didn’t buy ‘Land O’ Lakes’ sour cream yesterday, did I?”
The significance of this question fully dawned on me even before I picked up the container of sour cream and confirmed that I had thrown away the new and kept the old.
At that point I swore a couple of times, but soon realized that it was actually pretty funny and laughed.
I then proceeded to eat my tacos sans sour cream.
Ultimately the day never got any more exciting than that, and there are still 8 days off ahead of me…
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