How the World Ends (4 page)

“Oh, Gwyn,” I cry out, reaching down to pick him up. “I’m so sorry!”

“Thank God you’re alright,” I hear Rachel say, behind me, with obvious concern in her voice. “I wasn’t sure if you’d make it home.”

“They’re only rationing the fuel for personal use, so I think public transit is okay.”

“Hi Daddy,” I hear Jewel say, as she runs out of her bedroom to give me a hug. Her head barely comes to my waist, and I have to turn slightly so that her head doesn’t collide with my belt buckle. “We were
so
worried about you! We didn’t know if you were coming home or not.”

“I’m here, sweetie,” I say, putting as much reassurance in my voice before I begin the lie: “Everything is fine.”

I pick up her and Gwyn and reach out to Rachel, drawing my whole family into a warm embrace.

…

Supper is a quiet affair, with the unusual fact that the television is left on the entire time, something we normally forbid. All of the local news stories revolve around the dozen or so cities that have “volunteered” for “temporary resource regulation” in order to ease the demand on foreign fossil fuels. The international news is all about the escalating terrorist activity in the Middle East and Africa. The use of larger scale weapons and missiles is leading analysts to believe that at least some activity is being funded by the richer, first world nations.

We don’t bat an eyelid at these stories; we have become so disillusioned with our governments and the effectiveness of their militaries that we no longer expect reasonable results, only amazement.

In other news, the last fiscal year’s results show corporate profits rising on an average of twenty-two percent more than the last reporting period, with nearly twenty-five percent of the overall taxable earnings falling in the top one percent of earners.

Rachel and I spend much of the time being silent, watching the children eat pasta, or watching each other with wondering eyes.

“Daddy!” cries out my daughter in surprise. “We forgot to pray before we ate!”

“That’s okay, Jewel,” I reply, suddenly relieved that there is something to focus on besides ignoring the news. I switch off the television with the remote. “Why don’t you say grace now?”

“But we’ve already finished eating,” she says, puzzled, raising her palms as if I am missing something obvious.

“That’s alright, Jewel. God won’t mind.” I smirk. “Better late than never, your mother always says.”

We all bow our heads and clasp our hands – even Gwyn, who has recently learned this from watching us. There really isn’t any sight cuter than a small child conversing with God; the expression is much more personal than our repeated worries, problems and pleas for forgiveness and, if we have been fortunate, thanks.

“Dear God,” she begins. “Thanks for the food that we already ate and please help others to have food like us and please help my cousin Aeron to be happy and help all the children of the world to have food and to be happy and the big people, too. And show them what love is.

“In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

“’’Men,” says Gwyn, smiling.

“And help Daddy get to work tomorrow,” says Rachel. “Those trains are going to be crowded.”

“I’m not sure if...” I began to say, thinking that I would tell her I have lost my job, but in that precise moment, I’m not sure if I should tell them such bad news. Maybe it would be better to wait until tomorrow to tell them.

“Yes, Jonah?” Rachel asks, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem. I’ll just leave extra early.”

Rachel smiles, and motions to the kids, who have started climbing out off their chairs, “In that case you kids need to get to bed early tonight.” She gives me a meaningful smile, “Daddy and I have some grown-up things to take care of.”

Jewel hops off her booster seat and makes for the stairs. In the process of catching Gwyn as he leaps from his chair in an effort to match his sister’s actions, I raise an eyebrow towards Rachel. “Business, you say?”

“Yes, Jonah.” She says, suddenly seductive. Well, as seductive as you can be when you’re cleaning up the table spillage of two small children. “And I mean to have your full attention.”

…

The Hadlys

The soft rain outside lends its pitter-patter rhythm to the growing slumber of the suburban landscape. It is a stark contrast, sixty miles to the west, to the insistent downpour which punishes the inner city concrete for its harsh greyness and unnatural bleakness. The creeping night is thrust forward here, to roam free among desperate hearts and wounded minds.

The darkness is something to sink into. Consciousness, as it moves, can only ever go up or down; on one path lies enlightenment, on another, despair.
And we are tethered to one motion
, thinks Phillip Hadly, as he stands by the riverbank, looking up at the building high above him.
We can go only one direction, as we are drawn unavoidably into a cycle of events that envelop us in their ferocious need to disseminate a purpose.

I am the causality,
Phillip thinks to himself, smiling at the thought of his brother’s wife in bed, miles away, safe and sound, sleeping, and oblivious to the inevitable truth that she had planted in his destiny.
She lit the candle, but I am the flame that will sweep through the halls of power and bring them to their knees.

Several lights blink off in succession in the tower above: the signal.

Phillip strides with purpose towards the stairs that lead from the riverfront to a rear exit. His job is the simplest of all tonight, he knows, yet the entire plan hinge on his success now, and that fuels him. His skills have never been in demand, and he has never been given the chance to meet his full potential. He wants this chance to exercise his power. He waits outside the door at the top of the cement stairs.

The woman, his brother’s wife, is not tucked up in here bed, miles away. Rather, she is watching from her vantage point of two-hundred feet, across the river. She knows Phillip’s desires with intimate detail. She has honed his yearning for power, his lust for control, his delusion of good intentions, into a weapon ready to strike down anything to slake his growing thirst. As she waits for James Hadly, her husband, to walk out the door, intending to get home across the river without any fuss, she knows the blade is ready to do her bidding. She does not doubt that Phillip will do what has been told is the right thing to do.

But she also knows that his hands will be cold and sweaty, and that wet palms are apt to slip on the hilt of even a well-crafted blade. Indeed, she has hedged all her bets on this eventuality to eliminate both the mayor and his brother in one fell swoop.

But insurance is always useful,
she thinks to herself, as she steps from one shadow to another, waiting. Lucia Hadly manages a bit of a smile as she quietly gets closer to the footbridge that leads across to the exit. The rain thumping on her umbrella keeps even time with her racing heartbeat.
Why is this the right thing to do? How can revolution ever change anything?
She doesn’t care for the answers, though, so she ignores the questions in her mind. She simply wants out, and she believes this is the way.

The mayor, thinking he is finally safe to withdraw after the fallout from the debacle that had been the day’s events, quietly descends the staircase towards his waiting assassin. He fumbles with the cellphone in his pocket, which is vibrating with an incoming text message.

- THE DEAL IS OFF. REPLACE WHAT YOU STOLE OR SUFFER THE CONSQUENCES. -

Swearing at the inconvenience of dealing with extremists, yet feeling smug and powerful with the new funds in his offshore accounts, James Hadly steps out into the darkness of his brother’s waiting knife. He feels no pain as the blade finds its target within his ribcage. Shock overcomes all of his senses as his life, now reduced to a hot, wet, sticky mess, pours out over the cement steps and down to the pavement.

Phillip holds his brother’s twitching body for a few moments before he starts to pull the knife out. James is mumbling something through the blood that is coming out of his mouth, making his speech sound somewhere between a whisper and a child’s gurgle. “You... Phil... I can’t leave it like this... the city,” Phillip was able to discern. “They’ll destroy everything.”

“It’s over, James,” Phillip grunts as he pulls the blade from his brother’s ribcage. “It’s finally over. She’s mine now. Lucia is mine.” His voice is little more than a whisper over the falling rain – and it seems to Phillip that this, which ought to be a moment of great triumph over his brother, is a sign of his continuing weakness.

He feels wet and cold, and his brother’s body is a slippery mess of blood and rainwater. He drops the knife as he tries to grab James around the armpits to drag him to the river. James falls to the ground on the hard cement at the water’s edge and, with his last breath spraying bloody mist from his mouth and nostrils. In one final motion he grabs the knife and jabs it into his brother’s neck as he bends over to pick him up.

The eyes on the bridge turn from the brothers’ embrace of death to look high in another tower, where a few lights continue to shine bleakly out into the downpour. The lights flick out; there is nothing else to see.

The rain continues to fall and the darkness is not penetrated by any further disturbances. The few moments of earlier desperation are diluted from red vitality to an insipid puddle of uselessness. This rain does not cleanse the ground of blood, but rather it is a living death that slowly dissolves the force of life that binds us together, until eventually we are drained of our will to be whole, and we are no longer ourselves.

The darkness and the rain consume James and Phillip as Lucia walks home. She avoids the dull glow of the street lights and the waking eyes of the traffic cameras. She seethes in expectation of the enormous fortune she will be able to share with her new acquaintances.

Chapter Six – A Day for Death to Reign

Jonah

For a few moments before the day begins, and this seems to happen every day, if I can manage to get up early enough, there is a silence where even the silence is quietened from its usual clamour within the conscious mind.

Evil deeds are wrought daily. They happen whether we see them or not – whether we acknowledge them or not. Yet, even so, the rains of yesterday are dried by the harsh winds of tomorrow, as it becomes today. It has always been thus, and, I can only imagine, it will only ever be so.

The pre-dawn day is still grey and dark when I arise to see what has become of the world after the rain. I immediately break with any normal workday routines; after all, this isn’t a workday at any rate. I walk downstairs in my underwear and eat a breakfast of fruit and toast while watching the news. I am shocked by what I see, worried about what it will mean for my family. I wonder if I what I am about to do today is wise. Most people will not be staying home, I figure, and the greater danger will most likely be in the city itself, not out here in the suburbs.

To recap our breaking news this morning: the mayor and his brother have been found dead. Police report only that foul play may have been involved and that their investigation is ongoing. In other news, the energy crisis that gripped the city so suddenly yesterday was revealed to be a similar situation in several cities across the nation. It is not yet known why only a few “sacrificial lambs” have been chosen to bear the brunt of the growing energy burden.

Our energy analyst, Dr Jim…

I switched the channel.

In our top story this morning, we have been led to believe, through an anonymous posting on an internet discussion site, that the individual mayor of each of the cities set to receive gas rationing was given a substantial personal cash incentive to volunteer their city for the rationing...

Next channel.

This just in, we have unconfirmed reports that yesterday’s gas rationing is only the beginning in a long series of energy cutbacks that may include basic services such as natural gas, heating oil, propane and possibly electricity. The mayor’s office has asked us to inform our viewers to stay tuned to your television or radio stations for an announcement later today.

“Stay tuned?” Rachel asks from behind me. “How are we supposed to watch TV when they cut the power off?”

“Yea, I know,” I reply. “I’m starting to think my parents weren’t so crazy after all. They managed a house and farm that was totally off the grid.”

“And it nearly killed them with the effort.”

I flick the TV off.

“Maybe,” I say, unwilling to revisit that territory just now. “I have to get into the city.”

“Why? Is the office even going to be open?” Rachel opens the fridge and pulls out milk and apple juice for the kids, who are beginning to rumble around upstairs. “Come downstairs, kids. Daddy hasn’t gone to work yet and he needs a hug. Jewel, can you get Gwyn for me, sweetheart?”

I look at my wife, wondering at the strength in her, strength of will, of character. The kind of staying power that kids need to rely on – indeed, that I have come to rely upon more and more as I have been consumed with my workload.

“Oh, and honey,” she says as she puts oatmeal on the stove with one hand whilst pouring juice with the other. “I forgot to tell you last night, that you had a call from the office. They wanted to know where you got to yesterday.”

I hesitate a few moments, stumbling over an answer. “Why would they care where I got to? They fired me.”

“What?” Rachel continues spooning hot cereal into ceramic bowls, Winnie-the-Pooh for Gwyn and Peter Rabbit for Jewel. “Why would they do that, when you’re their top writer? Everybody knows that.”

I stare at the kids as they come down the steps, Gwyn trying to wrench himself from Jewel’s grip.

“I don’t know, but I didn’t bother to stick around.” I hold my hands out to the kids and they both jump from the fifth stair into my arms. “Whoa, whoa, one at a time!” I laugh as they both twist and turn from my attempts to hug them as they slide down to the floor in a tumble of feet and knees.