Endless apocalypse short.., p.46
Endless Apocalypse Short Stories, page 46
There is no answer. 911? Also, no answer. I wonder if perhaps, the phone is dead. I haven’t been able to reach anyone for a while although I hear it ringing into the silence.
I look at the phone cord attached to the wall. It’s broken, the edges of the tear looking as if mice had gnawed upon them.
I am dumbfounded.
Where did mice come from?
Mice
Once we had cockroaches in our kitchen. We would turn on the lights after coming home and they would scatter, scampering away into the crannies between the cabinets, underneath the floorboards. So we brought out sheets with some kind of strong glue on top and placed them around the kitchen.
Coming into the kitchen the next morning, I found a tiny mouse, its ear and side stuck to the glue. It squirmed, getting itself stuck even more, and squeaked at me, its whiskers twitching. I looked at it, staring straight into its sad black eyes, then looked away. I couldn’t save it, no matter how cute it was.
When I returned from school later that day, it was gone, leaving bits of fur in the glue.
Back
Using electrical tape, I try to fix the cord but the finished product looks like a botched surgery, a wad of black tape around the cord. Oddly enough, I still hear the phone ringing on the other end when I try dialing. But no one ever picks up. I wonder what space it’s ringing into, imagining an empty room in outer space, aliens pressing their faces against the glass windows.
It’s dinner time again and as I eat some soup, I browse the headlines of last week’s newspaper.
News
LONG DORMANT VOLCANOES ERUPT
– This morning at approximately 10:00am Pacific Time, three volcanoes called the Three Sisters in the Cascade Range in Oregon erupted. None of the three have erupted for thousands of years. The magma from the volcanoes’ eruptions covered the nearest town of Sisters, Oregon 15 miles away, burying the two thousand inhabitants. Rescue workers have been unable to help as the ash and magma are still lethal.
Parachute
As I fall asleep, I realize that it has been two days or forty-eight hours since I’ve come home.
I dream of parachutes.
They are falling from the sky, giant parachutes with no one inside the harnesses. I’m watching from below, my face turned to the sky. They start out tiny and I think I can see figures but as they come closer, they disappear so the parachutes are left empty.
Tick Tock, Says the Clock
I wake up again, my dreams disjointed. It’s midmorning, the shadows outside inching shorter as the day approaches noon. Tick tock, says the clock, and I wonder what I’m doing in bed. I’ve spent too much of my time waiting and I don’t want to wait anymore.
The watch on my wrist tells me that it’s May 25th. May 25th? I distinctly remember that I came home on the 20th, which I thought was two days ago. My watch is telling me that it’s been five. I check my computer. Yup, May 25th, 10:48 a.m. I don’t know how I could have lost three days but I can’t argue with the evidence. And if today is the 25th, then my sister should have returned home yesterday. Could I have missed her?
Again, I search the house and find no signs of anything changed at all. The only sign of habitation are ones that I’ve made: the mussed bed, the dirty pots on the stove, the dishes on the drying rack. My clothes are still in suitcases scattered in the hall; they have not been joined by any new ones. It’s obvious that she’s not here.
Maybe something happened on the way here?
News
– And now, to Jim, with the traffic. How are the roads, Jim?
Jim, I gotta admit, you don’t want to be out on the roads right now.
Why ever not, Jim?
Well, Jim, there are cars stuck on the roads for miles around. Just stuck.
How are they stuck?
Well, it seems as if their tires have been punctured, Jim. Imagine that. Miles of cars with punctured tires.
Wow, that’s pretty bizarre, Jim. Were there nails in the road? Pieces of glass?
As a matter of fact, Jim, there were not. At approximately 8:30 a.m. this morning, every car on the L.I.E. from exit 40 to exit 60 found their tires full of holes. It’s a mess, Jim.
An inexplicable mess, for sure, Jim. So what’s being done?
Absolutely nothing, Jim. The tow trucks can’t get in there. Instead, the drivers are leaving their cars and walking and what we are seeing are just miles of empty cars. No one knows what to do.
Well, Jim, if anyone wants a free car, they know what to do.
Jim, I figure if you can get the car out of there then you deserve it. They’re packed like sardines, Jim. Car sardines.
Thank you, Jim. Well, that’s the traffic for today. Now onto the stock market –
Good Sister
I turn off the news. Could my sister have gotten stuck in that mess? If so, then she would now be walking home although she was supposed to have been here yesterday, not today. The phone is dead so there’s no way to reach her. I decide that I might as well take the car out, try to find her so she wouldn’t have to walk the extra miles. I’m just being a good sister.
Three Things
1. The keys are hanging in the fish.
2. The fish is on the wall.
3. If you want to get the keys, you put your hand in the fish’s mouth and press on its tongue. It will then eject the keys.
Leaving, Leaving, Left
I remove the keys from the fish’s mouth, throw on a light jacket, grab my wallet, and walk out the door. It feels as if I’m really leaving. But I’m not, I tell myself. I’m just searching for my sister to get her home.
Pulling out of the driveway, I notice something funny. There’s frost on the windshield. I get out and start scraping at it. Being inside, maybe I just hadn’t noticed a cold spell. A very cold spell.
Once everything is clear, I rev up the engine and I’m gone.
News
The weather for today is a high of 92 degrees with a low of -15 degrees tonight. The forecast is sun with a light dusting of hail, a sprinkle of lightning. 0 per cent chance of rain. Two clouds. One in the shape of an octopus, the other a regular ol’ cumulo-nimbus. Expect bird droppings and birds dropping.
Some Weather
I’m driving west on Middle Country when the sky cracks open and rain comes pouring down. I’ve never liked the rain. Snow, hail, sun, clouds, I can take. A little drizzle, a little fog is alright. But full-on rain? Not my cup of tea.
Through the frantic swishing of the windshield wipers, I can barely make out the lights of the cars around me, let alone recognize a person on the street. But of course, if she were walking back home, she would’ve found refuge somewhere from the rain.
I decide that the best place to look for her would be a diner. Warmth, light, greasy fries, late hours all make it the perfect place to wait out a rainstorm.
Cassandra, Are You?
The diner I pull up to is quite typical. Garishly reflective walls, neon lights proclaiming it the best diner in Suffolk, a cheery big-bosomed hostess. I take the menu and slide into a booth. It’s early but the diner is emptier than I would’ve expected. There’s only one person besides me.
I order home fries and a milkshake and watch the one other person in the diner. He’s definitely not my sister. First of all, he’s a he. Second of all, he’s wearing a hat that my sister would never wear, an Indiana Jones number with a giant crocheted flower sewn on. Third of all, he’s mumbling to himself. My sister knows how to project; she would never mumble.
I’m slurping up the dregs of my milkshake when this man slides into the seat across from me. “Hey!” I say; I can’t really think of what else to say.
He looks me in the eye and enunciates clearly. “The world is falling apart.”
“Yeah, so?”
He seems nonplussed. But honestly, who hasn’t known that for years now? The world tends toward entropy, after all. “I mean it. Today, I saw a frog drop from the sky.”
I think about that. “Well, it was raining pretty hard.” I glance out the window. “Still is, as a matter of fact.”
“It will stop raining in two hours.”
I shrug. The waitress comes over and I slide some cash into the checkbook. I get up, tell the guy, “Nice talking to you,” then leave.
Lake
The car is up to its headlights in water and indeed, there are frogs swimming around. But the rain is letting up and the water is seeping into the drains along the sides of the street. The parking lot just happens to have its own personal lake with my car in the center of it. I sigh and hope that it’s secretly a boat in disguise as a car.
I climb into the driver’s seat with only a little bit of seepage getting through. Amazingly enough, the car starts and hauls itself out of the lake and onto the road.
As I drive, I realize what a useless endeavor it all is. For a second, I’m overwhelmed by failure. But before I let myself do anything I’d regret later like bang my head against the steering wheel or cry, I tell myself that I am the only one I can rely on and I should pull myself together or else. I think this in my mother’s voice. It always works to calm me down.
Where to now? I’m obviously going about searching all wrong with my haphazard methods. I decide to find a map to make my way to my uncle’s house.
Maps
There are so many different types of maps. There are maps of paper, of blood, of ink, of dirt and sweat. They trace the routes of one’s life; they show us where we’ve been and where we have yet to go. They let us know what we should do and sometimes, why. There are air maps, traced on the wind and maps on vellum, showing us the way to our dreams. There are maps of the cities in our mind, of buried gold and ships of the sky. There are maps that show the skyscrapers of our lives. Every map is a map of the way home.
Right Track
I find a map in the glove compartment and there in red, a circle around exit 39W and the words ‘Uncle’s House’. Unfortunately, there’s no circle saying, ‘You are here’ or ‘Mom and Dad’. Those would’ve been helpful.
So the game plan is this:
1. Go to my uncle’s house.
2. Ask my uncle what’s going on.
3. If he doesn’t know, stay at uncle’s house and let him figure everything out.
It’s a grand plan. I turn on the radio, hoping for some happy pop music to combat the gloom of the day but instead, find the news on every station.
News
News just in – apparently, a fire started during the downpour in Nassau County and has spread throughout Garden City and adjacent towns. Firefighters have not been able to get to the area due to the incessant rain, the frogs, and the billowing smoke. It’s a deadly combination that if inhaled, can often result in croaking and suffocation. A warning has been issued.
Fire
There’s a glow on the horizon as I near my uncle’s town and soon, I see the individual fires on roofs, the ashes floating down. The rain has ceased; a rainbow floats above the fiery horizon. There are frogs littering the streets, dead frogs with their legs splayed like flattened mosquitoes.
When I get to my uncle’s street, all I see are the burnt out hulls of houses, fire crackling at their edges. I can’t recognize my uncle’s. I don’t remember the number but the mailboxes are gone anyway. I wonder where the people could have escaped to. Are they still stuck inside? I park the car, step out into the smog-filled air.
The smoke hits me like a wave, clogging my nostrils, my throat. I gasp and cover my mouth with my hands. Breathing is a chore. I open the door of the car, stick my head in for a quick gasp of air, then make my way to the closest house.
The ground is hot through the soles of my sneakers. My eyes are tearing as I near the house, stung by the smoke. There are small fires everywhere. I make my way around them and into the house.
Inside, everything is burnt and completely unrecognizable. I can’t tell a chair leg from a human leg. Ashes, ashes everywhere.
I leave, kicking frogs along the way. It’s not their fault but I’ve got to take my frustration out somehow. And frustration is always better than breaking down. If I keep moving, I won’t be able to feel what’s buzzing around in my head, hovering just out of reach. Give me blind anger, give me obstinance, just don’t give me grief.
There’s a mostly intact television in the driveway, its plastic only a little warped and it’s showing the news.
News
– Well, Jim, the rain has stopped so the firefighters were able to go into that fiery disaster area. What they found was quite strange.
What’d they find, Jim?
Empty, burnt houses, Jim. The fact that they were burnt wasn’t the strange part. It was the fact that every single house was empty. Every single house, Jim. No corpses, no nothing.
Not even a pet?
Only frogs, Jim.
So Jim, do we even know the cause of the fires?
Not a clue, Jim. Some say it might’ve been caused by highly reactive chemical rain mixing with the skin of the frogs, causing them to spontaneously combust and so, causing fires. Personally, Jim, I don’t believe it. There are still plenty of frogs around and none of them seem burnt at all.
Jim, you’re absolutely right. I bet frog lovers are having a field day though –
Fireproof
When I get back into the car, my shoes squish and my head feels like someone’s been pounding at it with a hammer for several hours. In the car, I watch the frogs hopping around the sidewalks, avoiding the fiery patches. Are frogs fireproof?
I step on the gas, peel out of the street and into the highway.
I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing but I think I’ll know when I get there.
Pretty Soon, Pretty Please
I’m going with intuition. Driving east on the L.I.E., from exit 63 up, toward Montauk Point, I’m surprised by how empty the roads are. There are only about five cars on the road, including mine. The highway stretches on and on, no one behind me or ahead of me for miles. The frogs are gone and the sun is high overhead. It’s nearing four in the afternoon.
Out east, where the farms and vineyards are. Where the mansions border on the Sound, the lighthouses beckoning the ships to shore. I’ve never been very far east on the island but because it’s the last place my parents would be, it may also be the first.
I switch on the radio.
News
So, Jim, how’s it going out on the east end?
The usual, Jim. Tsunami-like waves and a beached humpback whale on the north side of Montauk Point. It’s a pity, Jim, a real pity.
Sounds pretty terrible, Jim. How are the sailboats then?
I’ve gotta admit, the sailboats have all been smashed to smithereens, Jim. The lighthouse was taken down by the waves and all the sailboats smashed against the rocks.
Jim, have I ever told you that I’ve always wanted a sailboat? I guess it’s the wrong time to get one now.
No, Jim, actually, it’s the perfect time to buy a sailboat. Demand is down since they’re all getting ripped apart so prices have dropped. That’s actually the economic news of the day.
Well, thanks for the advice, Jim. Hear that, folks? Get your sailboats now!
Sand, Stars and Storms
It’s always amazed me how long this island I live on is. The rain has started again, pellets of rain falling like bullets onto my windshield and after two hours of drenched fields, I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever reach the end.
But I do reach the end just as the rain ends, literally driving to the edge. The lighthouse is a few hundred feet away, the water higher than its door. I have a feeling that that’s not the way it should be. The waves are huge, crashing against the lighthouse and lapping onto the shore. I stop the car and get out.
The sky is overcast with clouds, dark since the sun has already set but in between the clouds, I can see the dim twinkling of the stars. There is no one here and it feels as if I am the last person on earth, surrounded by the forces of nature with the waves pounding, the sand at my feet, and the stars above.
I lie down in the sand, exhausted, and watch the clouds rush by.
Dream A Little Dream
I dream of the sands swallowing me, my bones washed by the ever-changing sea. I dream of earthquakes opening fissures in the ground, hurricanes tearing houses down, mountains spewing lava and ash. Of floods, of fires, of plagues of locusts.
I dream of being alone.
I dream of people disappearing one by one. I watch them as they go.
And away they go.
Almost There
I wake because of the waves tickling my feet, sucking me down and out. Scrabbling out of the wet sand, I haul myself to my feet and head back to the car.
The car is already sitting in a pool of water a few inches deep and getting it out of the sand and water is not an easy task. Sand and water spray everywhere, traction is almost impossible but somehow, it heaves out of the hole it dug for itself and we head back on the road. Back towards home.
The radio sputters alive but only to give off the sound of static. There are no cars on the road at all but I don’t worry. It’s pretty late and dark enough that sometimes it’s hard to see the white lines in the road. I fly through the night on slick black tires, occasionally hydroplaning on the wet road.
All I can see are silhouettes. Silhouettes of telephone wires and grape vines in vineyards. Silhouettes of houses. Occasionally, a green sign will leap out of the dark, informing me of exit 80 a half mile away or route 247 to my right. But everything is strangely calm. The rain hasn’t returned and the night is silent. I crank down the windows but all I can hear is the sound of the engine and my own breath.
