Everyone Says That at the End of the World

by Owen Egerton

  Hayden only half heard. He was watching Rica, her face a puzzle. She and Milton stood beneath one shower. An ancient one, a new one, and Rica between them.

  “Mr. Brock,” Iola popped his head from the hatch. “The doctor would like to see you right now, please.”

  Hayden glanced once again at Milton, Rica, and the child and made his way to the hatch.

  A narrow ladder brought him to a wide, white room furnished with blue and white pill-shaped pods. It was not as glamorous or as well lit as the television ad, but Hayden recognized it nonetheless.

  “Impressive,” Hayden said.

  “We have a problem,” Dr. Warner said from the center of the room. “Did a quick count and we’re a little short.”

  “How many?” Hayden asked, moving away from the ladder and earshot of the others.

  “Well, your wife should keep the baby with her. Better that way. But outside of that, it’s one person to one pod. By my count, we have one pod too few.”

  The first of the Crabites’ naked legs appeared on the ladder. Hayden turned to Dr. Warner. “Not a word to anyone.”

  In this case it’s true

  THE SHOWER WATER cooled Rica’s feverish skin. She felt alert and awake, but weak. Milton gently washed the blood and sweat from her as she palmed water over the newborn.

  “What are we doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse and tired. “We’re going to bury ourselves alive in the hopes of what? Nothing will be left.”

  She faced Milton, his gray beard dripping.

  “If I told you the worst was to come,” he said. “If I told you you’d suffer. If I told you asking you to live was harder than asking you to die, but your baby, our baby, will live. What would you say?”

  “What do you know, Milton?”

  Milton shook his head, then bent down and kissed the waking child.

  “She is the best humanity has done,” Milton whispered. “A new soul. She is a miracle.”

  “Ah, Milton,” Rica sighed. “Every father thinks his daughter is the best thing to ever happen.”

  “Yes,” Milton said. “But in this case it’s true.”

  Space coffins

  “QUICKLY NOW,” DR. Warner shouted, adjusting a series of knobs along the wall. One by one they came down the ladder and moved to open pods, staring in and sharing questioning glances.

  “Once you’re in and the lid is closed, simply breathe naturally. Your system will slow down and you’ll slip into hibernation,” Dr. Warner explained. “I’ll remove the oxygen from the room itself. Even if the world burns, we’ll be fine. We’ll be sleeping. The pods are hermetically sealed and pressure controlled. Perfectly safe.”

  “Are you sure about this, Doctor?” the teenage Crabite asked, tapping on the blue lid of her pod.

  “I tried it on dogs and monkeys with some very promising results.”

  “Holy crap.” Jim Edwards stood with his hands on his hips. “You’re asking me to climb butt-naked into your space coffin and you’re not even sure it’ll work?”

  Dr. Warner turned with a growl. “Look, you’re standing in the hull of a space shuttle prototype. One that’s been doubly reinforced for stress. Cost me a bundle. Now, by my calculations, 80 percent of the world’s population is dead already. And the rest will be following soon. These ‘space coffins’ are your best and only chance. But if you don’t want it, fine. Get the hell out.”

  Jim Edwards nodded. “Doc, you have my apologies. Let’s do this.”

  Physics, faith, and love

  RICA AND MILTON were last down the ladder. Hayden helped as Rica climbed, then Milton lowered the baby down. He followed, his legs uncertain on the rungs.

  “Your pods are over here,” Hayden said, and led them through the rows of Crabites climbing into their spots.

  “Pleasant dreams,” an older man waved at Hayden.

  “You too, Jim.”

  On the side wall at the end of the room, next to Dr. Warner’s controls, stood the last two Lifepods. Hayden helped Rica climb into hers as Milton cradled the baby.

  Her eyes blinked at him, round and dark. She reached up her tiny hands and tangled her pink fingers in his gray beard. She gave a soft cry.

  Dr. Warner flipped three switches and something in the walls hummed to life.

  “Rica’s lost some blood,” Milton said to Dr. Warner. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”

  “How would I know?” he said, twisting knobs. “I studied engineering. Never even got my degree, truth be told.” He flipped two more switches and the white lights snapped off. Dim yellow emergency lights tinted the room. “And we are ready to go.”

  Milton stepped forward and placed the wriggling newborn against Rica’s chest. She moved the baby’s asking mouth to her breast and looked up at Milton.

  “Are you sure it’s not better for us, all of us, to just die today?”

  “I’m not,” he said. He touched the baby’s soft back. “Do you remember that I had something to tell you?”

  Rica nodded.

  “She wants to stay,” he said.

  Rica’s eyes shone in the low light. “Why?”

  Milton shook his head. “Because,” he said, his voice quiet. “Things don’t end, only change.” Milton touched the baby. “Physics, faith, and love,” he said to her. “The best things make no sense at all. Not to me, at least.”

  “Okay,” Rica whispered. “Okay.” She reached up and touched his wrinkled face.

  Milton nodded and lowered the lid.

  Nothing at all

  HAYDEN WATCHED RICA’S lid close, his chest squeezing into his throat. Milton turned to him.

  “I can count,” Milton said with a crooked grin. “Not enough pods. I can’t let you do this.”

  “Look,” Hayden said. “I’m not a real pro at this self-sacrifice stuff. This is my first time. So, don’t screw it up for me.”

  “Mr. Brock, it was a pleasure to meet you,” said Dr. Warner, turning from his controls with a clap of his hands. “I am going to set the automated system and plug myself in. Good luck up there.”

  “If it’s all right, Doctor,” Milton said, “I’ll walk him up and latch the door.”

  “I can let myself out,” Hayden said.

  “I want that door latched from the inside,” Milton said.

  “Yes, yes. That would be best.” Warner nodded. “Five minutes and the only air in this room will be in those pods, okay? And make sure you seal every door and hatch behind you, for God’s sake.”

  Milton and Hayden moved past the pods. The room was quiet now, still in the yellow half-light. He followed Hayden up the steps, his legs growing numb, his breath stuttered.

  He was glad to be old. Something about the weak body, the failing skin and hair, the struggling lungs. Something about it felt natural.

  He watched the back of Hayden’s head and listened to their echoing steps.

  “Hayden,” Milton wheezed, “I was sent to find you and did not know why.”

  Hayden motioned to the stairwell. “Looks like you have your reason.”

  “Would you like to know what I know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing at all.”

  Hayden chuckled.

  They reached the door. The wind, a dull cry behind the steel.

  “You know what I’m going to ask,” Milton said.

  “Yes. And the answer is no.”

  “You’re willing to die for me. I’m asking you to do one more. I’m running on empty here. I need you to stay and love Rica and love that baby.”

  “No.”

  Milton smiled. “Listen, don’t be a movie star. Don’t be a saint. Just love those given to you to love.”

  Hayden stared for a long while. Finally he nodded and Milton smiled.

  “It will be lonely,” Milton said.

  Milton unlatched the door, opened it to the red roar of sand and wind. He turned and nodded at Hayden. Milton stepped out and was swallowed by the sand.

  Hayden watched the swirl of r
eds and black for a moment before pushing the door closed.

  Floated and blurred

  RICA LAY IN the compact dark of the pod, the only sound a faint hum and her daughter nursing. She breathed slowly, deeply, the air tasting of cinnamon. She opened and closed her eyes, but the darkness was too complete to change. She could feel the sleep coming, moving through her lungs and blood.

  Quietly, she sang Mingus’s dissonant lullaby “Eclipse” to her baby.

  Eclipse, when the moon meets the sun.

  Her voice echoed strange. Not her own and yet clearly her own.

  Sleep moved through her. Milk flowed from her and into the child, into the body her body had made. She shared her body, as they shared breath, as they had shared blood. Where did she end and her child begin?

  Eclipse, these bodies have become one.

  The sleep sent her floating. Past skin, past blood, and into these other nearby sleepers. As human as she. As alive. Where did she end and they begin? In the black, they floated and blurred into one another. Her, them, she, Earth.

  Sleeping floating. And into the dark she whispered.

  “We are soup.”

  Giant orange head

  WE’RE VERY NEAR the end now. You might want to know what Milton said back at the KRST studios.

  KRST was linked to a burgeoning satellite radio company, U-Sat Radio. In fact, by the second-to-last day of planet Earth, U-Sat Radio possessed the only working communication satellite orbiting Earth. The others, like the one Hayden witnessed, had fallen to Earth in impressive fireballs. Because of this Milton was heard not just by a few, but by billions. Billions searching the airwaves for some kind of news, some word of hope.

  He said this: “A man walks into a bar. He sees a guy sitting at the bar with a giant orange head.”

  As he spoke into the microphone, Milton imagined his father as a young man, sitting in his Austin kitchen, listening to a radio on the table. He’s sipping instant coffee and waiting for the next song.

  “The man walks up to the guy and says, ‘Hey, how’d you get that giant orange head?’ ‘Funny story,’ the guy says. ‘I found this genie lamp, rubbed it, and out came this genie. He gave me three wishes.’”

  Milton could see his father nod a little and smile.

  “‘My first wish was to be rich. And bam! Bags of gold appeared all around me. It was great.’”

  His father chuckled a little, enjoying the buildup.

  “‘My second wish was true love. Again, bam! And a beautiful woman was standing by my side and we instantly fell in love.’”

  His father’s smile grew and he leaned closer to the radio. Milton paused for effect. His dad’s eyebrows raised. Milton waited. He could feel his father whispering, “Come on. Come on.” Just one second more. Then Milton finished the joke.

  “‘For my third wish, I asked for a giant orange head.’”

  Milton paused and smiled.

  “Ha!” his father said and clapped his hands.

  “By the way,” Milton added into the microphone. “The world’s last sunrise is happening right now and it is amazing.”

  He thought to explain that actually as long as the Earth was spinning the sun is constantly “rising” somewhere. But Milton decided that would take too long.

  Ameyn

  MILTON TOOK ONLY three steps through the hot rain and biting sand before falling to the ground.

  He lay there with no fear, no dread. Just a sense of curiosity and slight amusement.

  A hand touched his. The winds died away and the red scratch of sand was replaced by a pale, white glow. He looked up to see the dark, bearded man in the trucker’s hat sitting beside him. The mystery lights surrounded them, buzzing in fast arcs, forming a dome of low, white light that repelled the wind and rain.

  On the other side of the glow mountain-size hunks of earth slipped from the ground and scattered upward. The stars were hidden in the rush of red soil.

  Milton felt a scratching and saw the hermit crab crawling on his leg. He lowered his hand and allowed it to crawl onto his palm.

  Outside the wind stopped, as if all the Earth had inhaled and held a final breath. The debris fell, colliding against the surface. All was quiet and brilliant. Then in a rush, the Earth exhaled and a new wind melted the land into a soft, rolling, cream-colored ocean.

  “Ameyn,” the bearded man whispered.

  Milton turned to him. He was smiling.

  All this, all this was how it was supposed to be.

  Or at least how it actually is, he thought.

  And the difference between the two meant nothing at all.

  One by one, the lights slowed their spin. One by one, they blinked to darkness and the dome faded.

  No air. No sound.

  For an instant Milton was floating in the stars. For an instant he was with his father, his daughter, his lover. For an instant he was the darkness and one dot among an infinite spray of light.

  acknowledgments

  MUCH THANKS GOES to my editor Liz Parker for helping me shape this novel. Thanks to Jack Shoemaker, Julia Kent, Kelly Winton, Elke Barter and the entire Counbterpoint/Soft Skull family. Also thanks to Matthew Bialer and Lindsay Ribar of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. A huge debt is owed to my dear, talented friends who read and reread these pages: Michael Noll, Stephanie Noll, Matt Stuart, Mike Yang, Angie Beshara, Stacey Swann, Mark Barr, Zach Carlson, my big brother Gareth Egerton and others. I owe you backrubs and cocktails. Thanks to my parents for example and encouragement, my brother Gwyn for inspiration and my sister Annwen for teaching me how hermit crabs molt. Love and thanks to Arden and Oscar for emboldening me with hermit crab art and irreverent songs. And a heart-popping thanks goes to the outstanding population of Austin. You fill this book. Finally, thanks to Jodi—my best reader, my best friend.