Everyone Says That at the End of the World

by Owen Egerton

  Who hath placed peace in thy borders and filleth thee with the fat of corn.

  Hayden was sitting in the wooden pews of the chapel among thirty of the brothers. Each brother held a book with the words of the chants. One had been loaned to Hayden. Occasionally, seemingly at random, all the monks would stand, cross themselves, and bow low toward the altar. At first Hayden had tried to keep up, follow the words, stand and bow. But after half an hour he grew restless.

  Who sendeth forth his speech to the earth. His word runneth swiftly.

  It was warm in the chapel. Too warm. And the chanting never stopped.

  He scattereth mists like ashes . . . He sendeth hail like crumbs . . .

  Hayden’s lungs tightened. The smell of sweat-soaked wool filled his chest.

  Who shall stand before the face of his cold?

  The chanting burrowed into his head.

  He shall send out his word . . . and shall melt them . . .

  Too hot. Too close in here. Too many words.

  He shall breathe and the waters shall run . . .

  Hayden rose to his feet to leave. As he stood, so did all the monks. They crossed themselves and bowed as Hayden shuffled past and out the door.

  The desert air felt cool and clean. He took deep breaths. The first stars of the night were appearing above the monastery. Hayden paced back and forth in front of the chapel doors. He could still hear the sounds of chanting, but not the words.

  Was this why these men were here? Living mad lives on the banks of a poison river? Words they’ve chosen to believe?

  Hayden was an actor, and like all actors he did not trust words.

  The more he stood waiting, the more stars he watched shimmer into view, the angrier he became. The sky was filled with stars when Brendan finally walked from the chapel. On seeing Hayden, Brendan smiled but said nothing. He started walking across the yard. Hayden followed and moved to his side.

  “Do you know what I know?” Hayden asked. The monk shrugged. Hayden continued, “I know that writers control the world. Always have and always will. It’s slow, because they have to wait for things to sink in. TV writers are faster. TV, movies, blogs, Twitter. Before that it was novels, before that plays, before that songs, before that Bibles. All writers. I’ve met them, Brendan. Stay the hell away from them. They’ll make you cry. Or laugh. Laugh out loud. Or make you think something or another thing. But they don’t actually think it. They don’t actually believe it. They’re not crying.”

  Brendan said nothing. Hayden went on.

  “Once at a charity event, I read these lines from a teleprompter all about humanity overcoming the greatest challenges, all about shining in our darkest hours. I got weepy reading it. On a commercial break I found the writer by the coffee stand. He had poured out all the sweeteners. A pile of Sweet’N Low, a pile of Splenda, a pile of Equal. He was adding them in pinches to his coffee. I told him I loved his words. He smirked. He smirked at me. He said to me, ‘It’s a job, huh? Nice tears, though. Nice touch. That’ll get ’em.’”

  They arrived at the long building where Hayden had first met Brother Brendan. Brendan opened the door and walked in. Hayden followed.

  “See? He lied. He didn’t believe it, but he knew how to make me believe it.”

  Brendan sat in one of the chairs that had once surrounded the table. “But you wanted to believe it,” he said.

  “So?” Hayden said, walking in circles around the room. “I want to believe I’m not an asshole. Doesn’t make it true.”

  Hayden plunked down across from the monk. Brendan reached out and touched Hayden’s nose.

  “Friend,” Brendan said. “I have seen whales crash through the desert floor from the ocean beneath. I have come eye to eye with sage grasshoppers. I have touched fire, held it in my hand, and hid it in my heart. I have shared riddles with angels. I have tasted dew gathered from the first tree on the third day.”

  “Yes, but Brendan, you’re crazy.” Hayden paused a second to see if this had offended him. It didn’t seem to, so he went on. “None of that was real. I want reality.”

  “The real world hides under reality. You have to lose all of it to get a taste of any of it.”

  “I can’t believe that—”

  “Stop trying to believe. Just have faith.”

  “I don’t know how,” Hayden said.

  “Right now, stand up, and walk out. Go into the desert. You’ll meet Jesus. Follow him.”

  “It’s dark.”

  Brendan nodded.

  “I’ll get lost.”

  Brendan nodded again.

  “And I’ll find Jesus?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Do it anyway.”

  Hayden swallowed. He stood up and walked to the door. He’d rather stay. He’d rather drink more coffee and talk in the warmth. He looked back at Brendan swatting at invisible things flying around his head. Hayden took a deep breath and stepped outside.

  Fooled by time

  RICA USED A can of Campbell’s vegetable soup as her base. She added black pepper from four single-serving pepper packets, a sprig of sage, and lastly, with a flash of inspiration, she sliced an apple into the soup. She mixed it all in the hubcap of the late-model Volvo and balanced it on two stones above the campfire Milton had built from scrub and cedar branches.

  She and Milton sat watching the new flames lick the bottom of the hubcap while Roy sat in the Volvo, the girl re-dressing his wounds.

  Wind whistled through telephone lines. A sad, high-pitched mourning. They had traveled only twenty miles west before Milton, seeing the Marfa Mystery Lights Observation Site, asked Roy to pull over. It was basically a rest stop. A bathroom, a few picnic tables, and a paved platform facing the southwest desert.

  Beside the road, the Observation Site, and a few barbed-wire fences, nothing man-made could be seen. The four set up camp near a concrete picnic table. The sun had been below the horizon for over an hour now. The mountains in the distance loomed like whale shadows against the sea-blue sky.

  Just a little more time, she thought, slowly stirring the contents of the hubcap with a dried branch. She smiled at the phrase. Time. As if she knew anything about time. Time was a prankster, not to be trusted. She patted her belly. Look how time had folded in on itself, squeezed months into days. She knew the baby would come soon. It was as inevitable as a sunrise.

  When she was still, when she let the panic evaporate like sweat from her skin, she could feel her body prepare with the tightening of muscles, the softening of chambers and an excited peace that played in her chest like song. The dance was coming and the hall was being decorated. Her body had never questioned the abrupt jump from four months to seven-plus, never rebelled against time’s trick. Her body simply giggled at the change of date and rearranged its plans. Her mind had not yet caught up. Her mind still clung to panic and reason. How could this be? If time is no longer trustworthy, what’s left to trust?

  She was stirring the soup with the branch and with the other hand slowly rubbing circles on her belly.

  “How’s that baby cooking?” Milton asked from the far side of the fire.

  “Fast,” she said. Milton was warming his hands near the flames, his shoulders curling inward like a fallen leaf. She could see it; he was also approaching the inevitable. Had also been fooled by time.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Tired,” he said, smiling and revealing whitening gums. “And old.”

  “You’re still younger than you’ll ever be.”

  Milton laughed a little. She studied his eyes. Sad but still bright.

  “I’m so sorry, Rica.”

  “You didn’t make this happen.”

  “I thought I had years. More time to do things right.”

  “Everyone says that at the end of the world.” She pushed herself to her feet and walked to Milton. She sat beside him, leaning into his shoulder. She took his hand, cut and bruised from digging through rubb
le.

  “Why save me?” she asked. He looked to her. “Why dig me out of that basement if we’re all going to die?”

  “You know, I think the Floaters have it all wrong. Our problem isn’t madness. It’s our sick dedication to sanity.”

  She frowned. He smiled.

  “Rica, the best things I’ve done have made no sense at all.”

  She smiled and pushed her head to his chest. “I claim you, Milton Post. I claim you as mine.”

  She could feel his chest fill with a deep breath. Feel his body curve into hers.

  “And you, Rica, are mine.”

  Most wonderful man alive

  ROY HAD HIS shirt off. The girl was close, cleaning his wounds with bottled water. The grocery bag had held a small first aid kit. Not much more than some Neosporin and a few gauzes. He had popped two more Vicodin and felt fine.

  She was close and he could smell her. Vanilla and sweat.

  “You’re good at this,” he said.

  She nodded.

  He turned a little to see her face.

  “Head up, please,” she said.

  “Sorry.” He kept his eyes on the Volvo’s dome light. “What’s your name?”

  “Ami,” she said to his shoulder.

  “I’m Roy.”

  “I know,” she said. “I have your poster above my bed.”

  “Must be an old poster.”

  She was cleaning his neck now, the sting causing Roy to flinch. She pressed gauze against him.

  “That one is still bleeding.”

  “It’ll stop,” he said, though he wasn’t sure that was true. He felt like a cracked cup, life slowly but surely leaking out.

  Ami leaned back and rubbed her knees. Roy could see her face now, though hair hid her eyes.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” he said, clapping his hands together. “What do I owe you?”

  “I think you’re wonderful,” Ami said, eyes on her feet.

  Roy kept his hands palm to palm and smiled. “Because I called you Doctor?” he asked.

  “I’ve always thought you were wonderful.” She looked up at Roy, her eyes peeking from behind her bangs. “Most wonderful man alive.”

  “Well, there’s been a Rapture,” he said. “All the good men are taken.”

  Ami laughed, a young, unafraid laugh. It happened to be the most wonderful noise Roy had ever heard.

  Old-fashioned prayer

  THE FOUR GATHERED around the small fire, gulping soup from used cans. They ate quickly at first, then slowed as the hunger pangs eased. Above them the sky changed to darker blues, and clouds floated by like shadow continents. In the gaps between clouds, the moonless sky was alive with starlight.

  “The soup is perfect,” Roy said, slurping another swallow. “It tastes like something. Like Earth.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. I couldn’t place it. But that is it. The way Earth should taste.” Milton said.

  “You might be tasting actual dirt,” Rica said. “But I’m glad you like it.”

  For a few moments, they ate in silence.

  “It’s quiet,” Ami said.

  “No insects,” Milton said, poking at the fire with a stick. “They’ve left.”

  “Left?” Roy asked.

  “They worked for the Floaters. Janitorial mainly. Cockroaches, it turns out, are the clean freaks on Earth. We’ve had clean all wrong. We’ve had most things wrong.” He threw the stick into the fire. He looked at his hand in the light. It was spotted and loose. “Most of the bacteria has left, too. Some stayed. Things will still rot, just more slowly.”

  “What are Floaters?” Ami asked.

  The others hesitated. Finally Roy answered. “Caretakers, Ami,” he said. “A bit like angels.”

  She nodded. “My mother was obsessed with angels,” she said. “Had them hanging all over the house, on her keychain, on checks.” She laughed a little and paused. “She’s gone, I imagine. Dad, too.”

  Once again the group fell silent.

  “I wonder how my parents are,” Rica said into the flames.

  “I’m older than my father ever was now,” Milton mumbled to himself. “That’s weird.”

  “How about you, Roy?” Rica asked. “Any family out there?”

  “Nobody,” Roy said. “My grandfather died shortly after I offered to throw him a funeral. Haven’t seen my father in years.”

  The four sat in silence for a long while, gazing at the failing flames. Rica palmed her belly, feeling a tiny foot pressing upward.

  It grew cooler, the sage-scented wind carrying hints of mountain air. Above them clouds dissolved to reveal more stars than she could remember seeing. With a sky that large and the warm earth below her, Rica found it hard to believe the world would end tomorrow, or ever. She watched the coals grow cooler and wondered if worlds grew cool as well. If existence faded like heat.

  Roy tossed another branch onto the fire, sending sparks flying.

  Rica looked up, off into the desert. She saw the lights first. Three off-white lights, like headlights, but fuzzier, appeared miles to the west. A fourth joined.

  “Look at that.”

  The lights skipped along the horizon, playfully darting around each other. Sometimes zipping vertically and other times slowly bouncing up and down.

  “What are they?” Rica asked.

  “The mystery lights,” Ami said. “People see them all the time. Drive out here just to watch them. They say they’re ghosts or UFOs or something. No one knows.”

  “I’ve seen them before,” Rica, remembering as she spoke. “When my family moved to Texas. I was a kid. I remember standing with my dad. It must have been around here.”

  “They look friendly, don’t they?” Roy said.

  “They look kind,” Milton said.

  They bumped and jumped, like children with flashlights.

  “I like them,” Rica said.

  Milton reached and touched Rica’s back. She sighed and nuzzled into him. She breathed in as much of him as her lungs could hold. She felt tired and strangely content. He reached a hand around her and let it rest on her belly. Swirl, swirl, swirl went the lights, went the baby. All her fears and worries had no place in this moment. She watched the lights, watched them dance.

  “Milt,” Roy said, a hand on his bandaged neck. “Can’t we just spat away? Can’t you show us?”

  “I don’t know how to show you,” Milton said. “I’m always a passenger, never the driver.”

  “Does anyone survive?” Roy whispered, his eyes reflecting the red flames.

  Milton said nothing.

  “Do you mind if we, I don’t know, pray a little?” Ami asked, her voice quiet. “I know he left us, but still . . . ”

  “I want to pray, too,” Rica said, sitting up.

  “You do?” Milton asked.

  “And I want an old-fashioned prayer,” Rica said. “I want Dear God and amen and closed eyes, okay?”

  “Sure,” Roy said, straightening up and putting one hand out for Rica and another for Ami. Rica took Milton’s and kept one hand on the baby. They closed their eyes. For a minute no one said a word. Then Rica spoke.

  “Dear God,” Rica said. “Thank you for all these things. Thank you for babies and friends.” She paused. “We like being alive.” She paused again, longer this time. “Amen.”

  They stayed still for a few more moments, hand in hand, eyes closed.

  White light beamed through Rica’s closed eyes. She opened them and quickly turned her head with a cry. Low in the horizon in the direction of the mystery lights was a dazzling light—stationary and painfully brilliant, as bright as ten stars. It sizzled, as if a hole had been burned in the firmament.

  “What the fuck is that?” Roy said, shielding his eyes. Like a minute sun, it outshone the other stars and filled the sky with a dusky blue hue.

  “It’s Jesus!” Ami squealed.

  “It’s WR 104,” Milton said.

  “No way,” Roy said. He crawled forward onto his knees. “Are you sure,
Milt?”

  “What’s WR 104?” Rica said. Already the light was fading. She could look directly at the large white ball.

  “It’s a star!” Roy said. “Or, at this point, it was a star. It just collapsed.”

  “It collapsed over seven thousand years ago. Just took a while for the light to reach us,” Milton said quietly. “And the gamma rays.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Ami said.

  “It’s the death of all of us,” Milton said.

  Exploded with white

  JIM EDWARDS WAS driving with the top down and singing any Hank Williams song he could remember. He’d searched the radio, a fancy satellite unit. Nothing for hours, and even then just one station playing the same goddamn song over and over.

  The night was clear and the air warm. The headlights of approaching cars on the two-lane highway whizzed by and Jim savored how nice it was to not need a ride. He was thinking ahead to a late-night breakfast, to bacon and grits and eggs so hot they burned the tongue. That’s how he liked it. Hot! Not too far ahead blazed the sign and lights of a highway truck stop. He’d eat there.

  He downshifted into fourth just to feel the engine. It felt good. Not a bad car. Not American, but not bad.

  A chirp, like a mechanical bird, rang out. On the floorboards by his feet a cell phone rattled.

  “Shit,” Jim said aloud.

  He reached down between his legs, his fingertips just brushing the phone. The Lexus skirted the shoulder, kicking up a spray of gravel.

  “Shit!” He yanked the wheel and straightened the car. The phone continued to chirp.

  He reached down again and grasped the phone.

  “Hayden? That you?” Jim Edwards barked over the wind. An unfamiliar voice gabbled through the line. “What? Who is this? Iola who? Wait.” The man on the phone wouldn’t pause. And with the wind and the man’s accent, Jim Edwards could hardly understand a word.

  “Disaster? What disaster? Wait! Wait! Slow down, son. I’m not Hayden Brock.” Jim Edwards paused, then added, “And I did not kill him. I have a note—oh my God!”

  The dark sky exploded with white light. Just above the horizon in front of Jim shone a new star—a huge star, beaming down on the highway like God’s own flashlight.