[Short Story] After the End

I turned off the TV and headed to the back of my house to where my bed awaited me. I understood what they were saying on the news. It was no longer some weirdo in front of the Supermart accosting me with a sign that proclaimed 'The End Is Near,' this was the actual moment. No more clever theological discussions, and no more political issues. All the issues were about to disappear forever.

THE APOCALYPSE.

The words screamed inside my head. I've always been a bit weird. While most kids were playing soccer in the schoolyard, I was sitting in the sandbox pondering the end of civilization and reading books on survival. A queer kind of neurosis that wouldn't ever really allow me to do anything with my life. After all, if the end were to come, what difference would it make? And now I had heard the words on the lips of talking heads.

I grabbed an extra blanket and spread it out on my bed. Most of my life has been a sleepless dream. Insomnia comes in many forms, and I've experienced them all at one time or another. But I was tired and knew that I would have no troubles falling asleep. As I slowly undressed, I began thinking of all that would be gone in the morning.

No more Mrs. Lafiter and her morning routine. Every morning at 6:05 regardless of the weather, she's out on our quiet suburban street, walking her dog. The past 6 years since I'd first moved there, had seen me waking way too early after little sleep, to the sounds of that damned dog. A smile crossed my lips to think that would not happen tomorrow. Mrs. Lafiter would be gone forever. For that matter so would that poodle-dachshund thing.

My second grade teacher had once overheard me talking about the end to myself. As you may have guessed, I was bullied quite a bit. At the moment I being listened in on, I was fantasizing about all the bullies in my world dying. Simple childish way of lashing out. My mother came to take me home early that day. As we drove home in our old mercury cougar station wagon, she didn't say a word to me. In fact no one did the rest of the day. We ate dinner in silence. In the morning we resumed as if nothing had happened. I just inherently understood, that this was something for me to be more careful about in the future.

Reginald Peterson lived three doors down from me. I thought of him as I slipped on a stained white t-shirt. Reggie as my neighbors called him, was a bully like the ones I grew up with. I remember one day I saw him beating on a child half his size. The eyes were pleading to me for help. I stepped in, and Reggie ran off afraid. I've never thought bullies running away was cowardice. More strategic. I saved a boy that day from further hurt, but I had opened the door to a lot of pranks. Flaming bags and toilet paper rolls became an everyday part of life. Reginald Peterson, he would now be gone too.

So would all the rest of my neighbors. Those who whispered rumors when I walked by. Who talked over fences and parked cars, discussing my eccentricities as if I couldn't hear them. But I heard. I knew their laughter. Soon, silence would prevail upon the earth.

I closed my eyes. An image of a thousand butterflies filled my head. When I was 16 my parents took me to mexico for a festival that celebrated the arrival of the Monarch Butterflies. I had learned in science about the path they take to migrate each year. It was fascinating to me, the life and death cycle. My parents saw it as a chance to encourage a more normal behavior in me.

I was dazzled by the site of them fluttering through the sky. A cloud of red and black wings, swirling around within itself. I couldn't quantify it. They weren't a liquid, yet the way they moved, was fluid in the sky. A pool of water swimming through the air, creating tiny eddies of butterflies. I felt drawn to them, the way I sometimes felt when visited the ocean. I wanted to become a part of it. I wanted to join my soul to that liquid.

Sleep came then. I lay in my bed, unaware of the whistling through the sky. The shaking of my house rocked me further and further away. While I dreamed of Mexico and monarchs, I couldn't possibly know that power had gone out all over the city. The fire that sprung up in the forests a mile and a half away and the ground opening up down the middle of Main Street held nothing for me. I slept more soundly then I ever have in my life.

Hours passed, before I awoke. The sound of barking outside my house. I looked at my alarm clock but discovered there was no power. I grabbed my watch from the side table. 6:06 am. I couldn't believe it. That damn dog had survived. It didn't occur to me that I too had survived. I got up quickly and looked out the curtains ready to see what the apocalypse had wrought. What I saw was unbelievable. Hurriedly I got dressed and headed out the front door.

"Howdy Neighbor!" came the cheery salute from Mrs. Lafiter.

I looked around. There was damage everywhere. Several houses were various stages of collapse. At least 3 different cars had large rocks, possibly meteorites, crushing them. There were many cracks and crevices dotted around the street. I saw Reginald Peterson peering into one and pointing out things to a group of smaller children, who were intrigued. Various mothers were scolding them and yelling at them to come back away from the fissures.

"What the hell happened?" I asked Ben Palmer, a local handyman.

"What do you mean 'what happened?' The apocalypse happened," he responded.

"Yes, but why are we still alive?"

"Isn't it wonderful?" Mrs. Palmer jumped in. "I heard it on my husband's old shortwave radio. No casualties."

"Yeah, and not just here. The whole world is shot to hell but no one is dead." This last came from Michelle Edenberg, who held on to the hand of a squirming four year old girl.

"So the end of the world happened and no one died?" I asked aloud, more to myself than anyone else.

"Not yet," Ben answered anyways, "from what they're saying on the shortwave, every nation has been leveled. It's going to take decades to rebuild. Power plants are down all over the world. I'm not even sure how the shortwave is still operating. Must be some generator or something, I guess. I'll tell you what though, everyone's on their own. We're going to have to figure out how to survive."

I smiled, for the first time in my life feeling no dread hanging overhead. More than that, feeling like I had purpose. Like I belonged.

"You're in luck," I said, "I know all about surviving after the end of the world."