There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
-Bob Dylan
__________________________________________________________
The windows shook. The glasses in the kitchen cabinet jingled. The walls thundered.
“Boom,” said the walls.
“Shit,” said the Arman.
“Huh?” said the friend.
“The weather today will be...,” murmured the news in the background.
“Thunderstorms?” asked the friend.
“Huh?” said Arman.
“The weather.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Oh,” Arman said with a pause. Arman had been startled by the vibration of his house. He tried his best not to show it and soon devolved into a calm pool of apathy. He was a strong, barrel-chested 18 year old with short hair and a dark Iranian complexion. He continued chewing his gum. His chin rested in his palm and his elbow rested on the kitchen table. One leg stuck out to the side, exhibiting record levels of apathy. His gum made a smacking sound at intervals, slowly - like drain dripping from a rooftop. This sound persisted, adding a metronome of pseudo-monotony to the otherwise eventful day.
“...the size of cars...” babbled the television.
“Cars?” asked Arman.
The weather report ended. But the weather was the headline story anyway.
“The apocalypse as predicted by the Christian Bible has been told since the beginning of history. Is today the day? Today we have noted Christian scientist Peter...” said the perky brunette newscaster trying her best to be concerned.
“Damn,” said a second friend, who had been half asleep on the couch. His name will be Erik.
“Huh?” asked the first friend, who will be Zach.
“The cars,” said Erik.
“There aren’t cars,” said Zach.
“Oh,” said Erik. He looked toward the ground as though he was deeply considering the gravity of the truth that he had just comprehended. It was a trick, however. He didn’t actually comprehend.
“Rocks,” said Arman, disinterested as if talking to himself. He was the leader of the group – always cool and in charge.
“Oh,” said Erik.
“Like comets?” asked Zach.
“No, meteors,” said Arman.
“I thought comets were the ones that flew through space.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Arman paused, “They both do.”
“But I thought comets were the ones that flew”
“What about asteroids?” Erik chimed in.
“But meteors are the ones that break the atmosphere,” said Arman.
“Let’s look it up,” said Zach. He got up to get online.
“Sure,” said Arman.
“What about asteroids?” Erik chimed in.
Arman was still chewing apathetically.
Zach wandered back into the room. He was reserved, a slight hue of red on his cheeks. He was tall, possibly handsome, but not dark... His hair was brown and poofy, flipping out to either side of his head like mirror images of the letter J. He shuffled into the room looking more toward the ground than the others. Arman knew that meant he was right.
“Comets do fly through the space, but meteors break the atmosphere,” Zach declared, as though he knew that fact deep down. Zach wasn’t always right, but was right often enough to assure himself that he always was. At first Arman savored his victories, as they were few and far between. But over time, they drew out to be about equal.
“What about asteroids?” Erik chimed in.
“Let’s go downstairs,” said Arman. It was his house, and the others were used to following him.
Thunder rolled through the walls of the house.
“Ok,” said Zach.
Erik got up without a word and moseyed to the basement.
The three walked to the basement door. They all went down and halfway closed the door. An enormous explosion blew the windows out of the room there were just in. They all looked over their shoulders behind them. The glass shards flew toward them, riding on a large ball of yellow light. The shards hit the door. They continued walking down the stairs, recognizing that there was nothing more they could do anyway.
................................................................................................................................................
They emerged from the basement some hours later. They were unscathed physically and mentally. They had no idea of the destruction that had flooded over the world they used to know. They clomped up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, a flat wasteland with various debris strew about stretched out in front of them. Even the doorframe was empty - the door had disintegrated. The visual effect was a door to nowhere – linking their past with this new, flat world. They walked through.
“Shit,” said Arman. There wasn’t anything else to say.
The dirt and pieces of roof crunched beneath their feet. They walked with tentative steps.
“We’re....” said Zach.
“The last people on Earth,” said Erik.
“Everyone’s dead! They’re dead! Your mom is dead! They’re dead! We’re dead! What are we going to do?!” Zach rambled. His voice grew higher and louder with each word, eventually reaching the peak and stopping cold.
There was a silence. The rhythmic crunching continued beating a painfully slow, tentative rhythm.
Crunch. the realization. crunch. slowly. crunch. sunk into. crunch. their minds. crunch. like water. crunch. into a sponge.
Each step brought the reality a little closer. They were alone in the world, and moreover, had no clue what was in the world they were left with.
“What are we going to do about food?” asked Zach.
“Maybe the grocery store is still around,” said Erik.
“Should we walk?” asked Zach.
“Do we have a choice?” asked Arman.
They started walking in the direction they last remembered seeing a grocery store.
“Want to play the question game?” asked Erik.
“When have I not?” replied Zach, with a smile on his face.
“Can you remember a time I didn’t?” asked Arman.
“Remember when your dog died?” asked Erik.
“Wasn’t that when my entire family died?”
It got quiet. Awkward.
“Uhh,” said Zach, “Shouldn’t we be able to see the store from here?”
“Are we still playing the question game?” asked Arman.
“I don’t know?” said Erik. Laughter.
“I don’t know isn’t a question!” said Arman.
“Why not?!”
“Just because you inflect the last syllable doesn’t mean it’s a question!” said Zach.
“What’s inflect mean?” said Erik.
“When you accent? the last syllable? to make it sound like a question?”
Arman laughed. “Hi? My name is Erik?” he said loudly.
They all enjoyed a hearty laugh at the expense of Erik’s inherent quirkiness. He was a rather short kid – Jewish if that makes any difference. He wore tight-fitting trendy clothing and loved musicals. Years of being picked on had caused him to develop ways of ignoring bad things. His friends didn’t mean any harm, but he still ended up as the butt of most jokes. Their laugher was just like the old days. The only difference was the downed trees and chunks of rooftops they had to step over as they chatted. Everything was a burnt gray or tan, accented with a few heaps of black ashes that dotted the landscape like sprinkles on a cake. They could see the familiarities of their former lives, but saw it through different eyes. If they squinted, they could just make out where the road was that led to the grocery store, or one of their houses. If they thought about it hard enough, they could almost imagine where the houses in their neighborhood stood, and to whom they belonged.
But now, like most humans lost in a traumatic wasteland, they focused on each individual moment and the people around them. They say people can get used to anything. It is not a coincidence that “They”, whoever that is, also says “ignorance is bliss.”
They came up to a place that looked like it used to be a parking lot. Black globs of asphalt were strewn across the lot. Ashes of what were previously lamp posts or brick buildings lay atop the uneven, black, chunky terrain. Mixed into this were little cylinders.
“What are those?” asked Zach.
“Cans?” asked Arman.
“Are we still playing the question game?” asked Erik. They both looked at him in bewilderment. “What?”
“Grab as many as you can,” said Arman, always the leader. They proceeded to fill their pockets and shirts with cans. They stuffed cans into every inch of space they had available, making them appear like knobby Michelin men. With their coffers full, they attempted to waddle home.
“Why did we grab so many of these?” asked Erik.
“Do you know of any other food we can eat?” replied Arman.
“What are they?” Erik asked.
Zach took one and read it. “Beans.”
“Beans?” said Erik. “I don’t even like beans!”
“You’re gonna have to learn,” Zach said.
They finally made it back to Arman’s. His basement was probably going to have to be their base of operations for awhile, seeing as how it was the only place they knew was still intact. They dumped the cans on the floor, so that it made a big heap in one corner of the room.
“Erik, count those up,” said Arman.
“But I...”
“Alright,” said Zach, “now what do we do?”
“Uhmm...” said Arman. He put his hands behind his head in a gesture that meant he was thinking deeply.
They stood and thought.
“One hundred twenty one,” said Erik.
“Right,” said Zach.
“Alright,” said Arman. He sat down in a heap where he was standing. “Now what do we do?”
“Well...” said Zach, sitting abruptly as well.
“Uhm,” said Erik, who was already crouched by the stack of beans.
“What about laundry?” asked Zach, “Who is going to do our laundry?”
“Do we even have electricity?”
“Or any more clothes?”
“Oh, I guess you’re right.”
“Cooking, though...” said Erik.
“We can just heat up these beans. It’s not like we have anymore food to work with anyway,” said Arman.
“Sure, we’ll just open them and cook them,” Zach said.
“Do we have a can opener?” asked Arman.
“Or a spoon?”
“No...” said Zach, “I guess not. Think my house will have them?”
“No.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“What about our friends?” Erik asked, looking off into space – as he often did when he was saying something serious that was too intense for eye contact.
“Yeah...” said Arman.
“Maybe they survived.... I mean...we did. Right?” Zach said.
“Yeah,” said Erik. “What about Sara?”
They paused. Sara was the on again/off again love interest for the group. All of them had had at least a crush on her in their years together. Somehow no one thought this was weird. Their town was a small world, after all. Small dating pool, you understand.
“What if we’ve lost everything? Everything we knew...just...gone? Our town – okay,” Zach said, “But our families...our friends? Our former lives? I mean, I’m talking about everything we used to know – vanished. We don’t have any idea what is going to happen or if anything is going to happen. And no matter what we do, someone will chalk it up to destiny...fate. Doesn’t that mean we don’t have to do anything? But if we do nothing, we’ll just sit here and die with an unopened pile of beans and a half-eaten corpse of a kid named Erik.”
“Hey!” Erik said, his ears finally perking up upon hearing something important. Zach continued.
“How are we going to make it for ourselves, man? We have no idea what to do...and if we’re doing it right, who is there to tell us? Who is there to congratulate us? ‘Woo hoo, you didn’t resort to cannibalism! ...Have you ever read Lord of the Flies?’ Even if we do everything right, we’re still following in the footsteps of some larger-than-life world of fiction!”
“Hey,” Arman said, “calm down. We’ll just make it a day at a time. First, we need to get a can opener.”
Zach was in his corner of the room, his head between his knees and arms over his head. Classic airline joke, ever heard it? “In case of crash landing, put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.”
The others tried not to notice this outburst. Erik was skilled at ignoring an elephant in the room. Arman was just determined to ignore this one as it raised many important questions about why they’re alive. Those sorts of questions are better left to philosophers...or Zach – sitting in brace position, kissing his ass goodbye.
The three lumpy piles on the floor awakened to...silence. Birds being, as they were, extinct and electricity, as far as they knew, historic; they had to awake when their stomachs growled the next day. It’s necessary in situations like this to focus on the mundane. Where, for example, can we find a can opener? What are we doing for breakfast? Et cetera.