Welcome back to the near-future world of Decima, where the ‘gay gene’ has confered immunity to a devastating global pandemic that killed all of Earth’s heterosexual population…

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It’s been three months since my world changed forever.  I sit here, looking at the trio of white pills within my dish, wondering what I should do next.

Before the Decima Plague, life was easier, or so I kept telling myself. It got much easier when the Goff administration passed the last remaining obstacles to full gay equality, and most of the evangelical and Pentecostal churches finally recognised that was a lost cause.

It meant I could easily compartmentalise my life. Granted, Pentecostal churches still ejected ministers who dallied with men, or ‘disfellowshipped’ unrepentant lesbian or gay parishioners.  Of course, I was more careful. I took paroxetine to suppress my gay desires, and viagra to fake heterosexual ardour. I even managed to reach the evangelical gold standard, and become a husband and father. I don’t think Sarah ever suspected anything, nor did our children,. Bill and Amy.

And then, in 2018, that world came crashing down, forever. And even if I had to take chemical enhancement to fulfill my duties toward Sarah, my permissible life partner, I won’t deny I felt genuine affection for her. It hurt like hell when she perished in the first days of the epidemic. And then there were our children. I felt intense guilt that we had given birth to Bill and Amy to fulfil my own egotistical sense of ‘normal’ masculinity, so that they could be consumed in this malignant turmoil.

So how did I cope? Oh, I buried it. As Decima raged on, my congregation fell before it, and like any good pastor, I was with them when the end came. Two women were left at the end of it, until one day, they didn’t return my calls. I found the letter, indicating that neither was willing to continue their facade, and that amidst the desolation, they had found one another.  And then, when I tried my usual paroxetine and viagra cocktail, exposure to the epidemic had negated the suppressant effects of the paroxetine. I found that my gay desires returned, full force.

I had to face it, then. I hadn’t died because like every other lesbian and gay man on Earth, I possessed the ‘gay gene’ that conferred immunity to the plague on those who possessed it. And ultimately, I found a kindred spirit, a similarly confused big burly Westie truckie named Jim, who was living a schizoid life in Henderson and moonlighting at the saunas in town.

But what can I do now? Given the very real possibility that an American evangelical or fundamentalist biologist may have invented this highly specific virus, I am out of a job. I cannot be a Pentecostal minister any longer, as that line of work has fallen into disfavour in this world, and I’m not sure if I still believe, in any case.  The Labour Shortage and Reconstruction Commission thinks I should retrain as a therapist or counsellor, given my pastoral skills.

However, there is an alternative. You see, some of us are unreconciled to living in this strange new world, and a nihilistic creed called “Christ Zero” has emerged. It goes something like this- Christ died for humanity’s sins, but humanity rejected him, and kept on doing so, so God turned his back on humanity. To refuse to participate in an allegedly ‘inherently’ sinful world like this is an act of defiance, so suicide is okay now. And so, I purchased these four Nembutal tablets.

I come to a decision, or rather, it is made for me. Suddenly, Jim is there, clad only in a towel, which drops to the floor as he crawls across the bed, and we embrace and then the embrace becomes passion, and the passion becomes erotic wrestling as I lose my t-shirt and shorts and as usual, I cry once again in his affection and desire for me.

Next morning, the pills are scattered across the wood of my apartment floor. I get out of bed, collect them in my palm, and flush them down the toilet, tossing the empty bottle into a waste chute for recycling.  The sheet has fallen off Jim, and he is warm and naked in the morning light as I climb back into bed alongside him.

And I am also naked, and will never be ashamed again.