“Yes, you are in fact, dead. I know this can be hard to hear.” Death said with a compassionate smile “I can’t “help” you, but I like to offer one thing. Your last. I will show you your last. What would you like to see? Your last kiss? Your last talk with your mom? The last hug from your son?”
I looked into Death’s cold unmoving eyes with tears in mine. His eyes reflected what was in his heart, absolutely nothing. I suppose he wasn’t always this way, for his brain still knew what compassion means, which was evident by his offer, but millennia doing this job means a heart of stone.
My children had died many years prior, the first passed while fighting Chekhov’s war, the second dying from the nuclear fallout that soon followed.…
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The prow of the boat faced black water while the divers found their traps in the wet cold, the howl of their lights breaking windy waves. Jim Carter turned west, away from that hum, past the scratchy-roped buoys and into moon-bright waves, to drop the body: its smell like wasted soil, the dead flower scent of rotting water greened with slime.
The doctor’s anxious hairy arms had waved money at Jim like feed for seagulls, frantic. “Take this, take it, take anything.” Why did a doctor, barely breathing, prone to asthma, twitching into an inhaler, want his wife heaved over a boat?
“Just bury her,” Jim had protested, matter-of-factly. “That’s probably the easiest, ground still soft with spring and summer’s warming coming.”
“I can’t,” the doctor mouthed, between the inhales, gaunt as a ghost, breathing white nothing air, his inhaler back to his mouth.…
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The canopies that cover the street obscure my vision, so it’s not until he’s upon me that I spot him.
Jennifer! – he sticks out his hand – how are you? – and goes from handshake to hug.
Oh wow! How are things? as I come out of his embrace, and scan my memory for his unfamiliar face.
The kids have been a handful; his parents have been ill. Work’s been a nightmare but what’s new. There was a holiday to Europe – that cost a bomb – but what an experience. Another planned to Fiji, without the kids. Do you stay in touch with Gabe and Shan?
If I look nonplussed, it’s because I am. To my knowledge, I’ve never met a Gabe, or a Shan, or this man that stands before me.…
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Clarence realized he couldn’t get up. He lay flat on his back on the hard ground. Slowly, he rolled over on his stomach trying to remember what had happened. His legs had given out. But why? That’s right, I was shot. Damn legs are worthless now.
It was dusk but the heat of the day was still emitting from the ground below his prostrate body. He looked behind him, but in his mind he knew what he would see. Yes, they’re dead. All dead. The bodies of his comrades—all members of Seal Team Six—lay strewn along the ground, motionless and silent.
Clarence surveyed his surroundings. He was next to a large shrub and a plastic green recycle bin which shielded him from view from the small field littered with his fallen comrades’ bodies and a deserted country lane just beyond. …
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Mickey Lennon, lost in thought, stepped off the curb safely into the street. The light, he knew, being solid red- it was red, he recalled, remembering that he noted that distinctly before allowing himself to wander among the thoughts he had himself queued to think- when a honking car went by him. Lunging backward, Mickey sees that the light is green. By the speed of the car, telling him that the car was able to approach the intersection without slowing and that the car didn’t recently transition from a paused state to a moving state, that the light had been green for significant time. Mickey questions the certainty of his life’s certainties. …
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The truth was not that we were the only ones. It was that we were the last ones: the only ones left.
The whales knew.
In their infinite wisdom, and with characteristic empathy, the whales recognized not only that the doom was upon us humans, but that they had the ability not to stop it but to mitigate its effects. In a world of growing despair and certainty of the end of all, the whales realized that they of all creatures had the ability to be harbingers of joy to those whose world-weary civilization was about to collapse upon itself.
Enthralled, shouting with delight, the passengers on the Queen of Capilano ferry in Howe Sound watched in wonder as two humpbacks breached in tandem; just the week before, other commuters had witnessed a pod of orcas frolicking in the blue-green waves. …
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Immense vociferations echoed through the amusement park from the terrified onlookers as bright blue sparks spat from the back of the “Number One” roller coaster that was stuck upside down on its final loop.
“We have to keep calm, I’m sure that the emergency crews are on their way” Robert stated as he attempted to alleviate the trepidation that had captured both he and his best friend.
“It’s been fifteen minutes, I know they’ll get here but I doubt it will be easy-” Jake replied before profusely vomiting from the nausea that he struggled to contain.
“This high in the air isn’t a good place to be but it’ll be okay soon!” Robert exclaimed, trying to calm the other distraught riders most of whom were young children that dangled behind them.…
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