7:51pm
Anna Hawthorn got a late dinner in front of the kids: McDonald's. Six-piece nuggets with hot mustard for Jake, a chicken sandwich for Liz. Both got fries and Sprite, of course. Anna didn't have a lot of rules, but "no dark soda" was one of them.
She'd have liked them to have something better tonight, but the truth was work left her exhausted. She wasn't sure why she'd even bothered to go today, except that she wasn't sure she could stand it otherwise. Sitting around pondering was no way to live--or die, as the case may be.
Jake brushed a tuft of his bowl cut from out of his eyes just before diving for his sister's last couple of fries. "I'm older!" he insisted. "I need more!"
Anna cleared her throat and gave him a dirty look. That was enough to stop the 5-year-old's shenanigans, for now at least. She pondered how late to let them stay up, as if it mattered. She decided a normal bedtime would be the best thing under the circumstances. It had just crossed 8pm, so once they finished their food it was time to prepare for bed.
Jake spent a good fifteen minutes bouncing off the walls, the sugar from the soda giving him a final burst of energy for the night. Anna let him burn himself out while she dressed Liz for bed in her My Little Pony nightgown. The two of them went to the bathroom to brush their teeth. Liz always laughed at her mother's sonic toothbrush, the way it vibrated so loudly and changed pitch as Anna circled it over her teeth. Liz's toothbrush was the non-vibrating kind, but the Bluey theme helped make up for it. The little girl couldn't imagine there was anything better in life than having a cartoon dog stare at you while you brush your teeth.
Jake must have realized his mom and sister were out of the living room as he soon joined them in the small bathroom. "My turn!" he yelled obnoxiously, snatching up his Spider-Man toothbrush. His vibrated but it wasn't anything fancy. Jake wished it played a song instead. A Spider-Man song, specifically. He'd asked before why it couldn't do that and he found the explanation unsatisfactory. "They just don't make one that does that," his mom had said.
"Well, they should!" he thought aloud.
After their teeth were brushed, Anna sent Jake to his room to change into his own PJs: Spider-Man again. This phase had gone on for a couple years at this point, Anna realized. She wouldn't have minded him developing a different fixation at some point. The stark red and blue on everything he owned got a little grating after a while. But who was she to argue with the impeccable taste of a kindergartner?
Both kids wanted a little TV before bed but Anna was insistent that tonight there wouldn't be any. "It's late already," she explained. Instead, she helped Liz to bed first. "I want books, Mama," Liz demanded with a forceful huff after crawling into bed. Anna tucked her in under her Little Mermaid blanket in the bed that had once been her crib. Anna always obliged the kids when they wanted to have books read to them, of course. She dimmed the lights just enough that the stars and planets glued to the walls and ceiling began to glow their pale green. Those caused an unexpected sense of dread tonight. Anna shook it off and grabbed a few books from the little square bookcase next to Liz's bed. Pookie books were always a good choice. Liz thought they were so funny, especially when Anna did exaggerated voices for everyone. For those few minutes, Anna forgot what was happening. She even forgot about Daryl, however briefly, though that made her feel considerably worse. She tried not to let it show on her face as she finished the last book and leaned in for a hug. Liz kissed both her cheeks and said, "Love you, Mama! Don't be sad."
"I'm not sad," Anna lied. "Just tired."
Liz giggled. "Mama should go bed!"
"I will soon," Liz lied again. She had no intention of sleeping tonight. She hated not telling them the truth, but with full perspective it wasn't as though it made any difference now. She gave Liz a kiss on the forehead and said, "Goodnight, my love."
Liz smiled and laid quietly, albeit with a fair amount of fidgeting.
Anna peeked in on Jake after that. He was jumping on his bed, yelling, "No sleep! No sleep!" He definitely ramped it up the moment he saw his mother, which made Anna smile. The amount of attention he wanted was a double-edged sword, but at this moment she felt the grateful side of the blade. As she approached, he quit jumping and yanked the Spidey covers over himself. She tugged the cord on his ceiling fan to turn the light off, activating the two night lights on opposite walls. He was a little embarrassed to still be sleeping with those--the other kids in his class said they weren't scared of the dark, but he was. Daddy had gone into the dark one night and never came back. Didn't they understand that?
Jake started crying. Anna didn't understand, at first.
"It's OK, honey," she cooed. "It's just bedtime."
"I miss Daddy," he whimpered through tears.
Anna almost started crying, herself. She hugged him close. "I do, too. I miss him every day."
"Why did he leave?" Jake asked, as he did around once a week these days. It used to be worse. First it was multiple times an hour, then multiple times a day, then a few days a week. Anna hated being glad he didn't ask about his father so much anymore. It was like a punch in the gut every time one of the kids asked about him. There was no good way to explain a car accident to children so young, especially one as grisly as Daryl's. For the first week, she didn't even tell them--she was in too much shock herself. When she told them, "Daddy had to go away, and we won't see him again for a very long time," she didn't know better. A few months later, she found out the right thing to do would've been to explain death to them very concretely. But how could she tell them she was wrong about what she said before? How could she change "we'll see him again one day" to "we're never going to see him again"? So, she left things as they were.
She left Jake there, too, in his bed, after he exhausted himself from crying. Anna didn't know how much time had passed or how long he had cried. Tears had appeared on her own face at some point, an event she didn't clearly recall now. Gently, she tucked the covers around him and tiptoed out of the room, closing his door.
Not sure what to do with the next few hours, she snatched the bottle of El Jimador from atop the fridge and melted into the sofa, flicking on the TV with the remote. "We're about 3 hours from--" a news anchor began before she changed the channel. She didn't want to hear about that right now. She settled for an I Love Lucy rerun. It wasn't one of the good ones--this was the one full of awful Native American stereotypes. She thought she could get through it but soon found herself watching old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Huckleberry Hound never let her down, that was for sure.
Still, 45 minutes of that had her restless. She'd nearly clawed the upholstery off the arm of the sofa. Another big swig of the tequila and she was out the door, stopping on the front porch for a moment to figure out exactly what she wanted to do. She wasn't keen to actually leave home. She couldn't bear the thought of just leaving the kids here, no matter what was going to happen. To her left was Gene's house. She didn't know much about Gene, but there he was standing on his porch, looking up at the sky. She'd been afraid to do that for the past couple months, but if he had the courage to stare up at the stars, she figured she could muster it up for a few seconds, too. It all looked normal, though: normal moon, normal stars, and a particularly bright dot that was either Mars or Jupiter. She was never sure which.
She made a choice, albeit one partially informed by alcohol. "You wanna come over here?" she called to Gene. He shrugged and slithered down from his porch, across their yards. In a few moments, he stood alongside her.
"Nothing else to do tonight?" he asked as if the answer wasn't obvious.
"It's just the end of the world," she snorted. "One appointment I won't be able to miss no matter how disorganized I am."
Gene let out the tiniest chuckle. "You could miss it, but nobody would like what that entails."
"Yeah, ask my husband about that," she parried. Gene gave her a look like confusion mixed with horror, and she realized the two of them had never exchanged enough words for him to know anything about that. "Sorry," she frowned. "Just a little dark joke. He died in a car accident shortly after our daughter was born."
"I'm so sorry," Gene said softly.
Anna avoided his gaze. "Thinking about everything that's happened since, everything we've learned, I feel like maybe he was the lucky one. Sometimes I wish we'd all joined him that day."
"I wouldn't wish that," Gene said. "You sharing?"
Anna realized the tequila was still in her hand. She shoved the bottle at Gene. "Knock yourself out."
"I'm a lightweight so I just might," he said before taking a swig suggesting he could hold his liquor better than he suggested. He gave the bottle back.
Anna followed suit. "Maybe we shouldn't be drunk for this, but who gives a shit, right?"
"I definitely wasn't considering facing this sober," Gene rasped.
"Do you really think it's going to happen?" She felt silly asking, but she had to.
"You watch the news? The telescopes don't lie. Or at least, for all the money we spend on them, they'd better not lie."
"Maybe the government's making it up."
Gene shook his head. "Every government on Earth going along with the same conspiracy theory? For what? Doesn't make any sense."
Anna sighed. She knew all that. She just kept holding onto the idea that it might all be an elaborate hoax. The two of them were rattled just then by the distant--but not too distant--echoes of gunfire.
"Some people aren't taking this very well," Gene snorted.
"That's nothing new," Anna noted. "Seems like every night there's been some of that lately."
"You know, I saw this long thing on 60 Minutes about one of the early mass suicides in all this and after that I was just like, that's enough. I try not to pay attention to it, you know?"
Anna couldn't say she was behaving any differently. "I've just been going to work like normal, believe it or not."
"I know," Gene said. "It's funny how most people have. Me, I work from home. Something's going to fill my day one way or another. I mean, what I do for a living is stupid in light of everything, but what else have I got?"
"Gotta be better than wiping asses at the nursing home," Anna laughed.
"Hey, at least you're doing something useful. My job is... I operationalize deployment artifacts for small companies that lack the expertise to manage their own continuous deployments. I set them up with a pipeline and off they go, then I swoop in to support them when they inevitably screw it up."
"I have absolutely no idea what any of that means," Anna said honestly.
"Exactly," Gene said, gesturing toward her like she'd just performed a magic trick. "It's bullshit."
"I guess we're all spending our lives doing things we'd rather not be doing."
"That's capitalism," Gene remarked. He snatched the bottle again and had another mouthful. "This stuff tastes less bad, the more I have."
"I think any alcohol will do that," Anna observed.
Gene couldn't think of a good comeback for that, so he stood silently, putting his eyes to the sky again. After a few awkward moments of dead air, he spoke again: "They said we won't be able to tell anything until the last minute or so."
"Talk about shitty pacing. You should really build up to something like that."
"Instead we're just getting teasers in the form of pixelated radiotelescope pictures."
"Terrible production values," Anna laughed. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty buzzed. Not slurring my words yet, am I?"
"Not yet," Gene confirmed. "Though I might need to brace myself against something before too long." The way he looked at her when he said that told her a little more than he likely meant to.
Anna drew in a deep breath. "We're not gonna do anything, OK Gene? I don't care how drunk I am. And no offense to you. I'm just. What if this doesn't happen? I'm going to live next door to you with that in my memory for the rest of my life?"
"You don't have to assume it would suck," Gene protested. "But message received, and sorry. I'm definitely feeling the liquor. And. I don't know."
"You're lonely," Anna said on his behalf. "I get it. So am I. Especially these days."
"You've got the kids," Gene pointed out.
Anna cackled. "Oh, Gene. Only someone without kids would say something like that. I need adult connection. Or at least, that's what I would have wanted, if I had more time. If we do have more time."
Gene got an idea. "Let's say the world doesn't end tonight. Let's go out next week."
Anna shrugged. "Sure. A date would be fine. I'll see if one of my girlfriends can come over and watch the kids. What do you want to do?"
"Start with coffee, maybe?"
"At night??" Anna balked.
Gene scratched his chin. "Sorry, never dated anyone with kids before. I'll take you to dinner?"
"That sounds lovely," she smiled.
"Anywhere you want to go?"
"Gene, you're supposed to decide where we go. Surprise me. I promise you, I'll find something to eat. Besides, I'd hate to embarrass you by guessing what your budget is. So don't try to impress me by picking something you can't afford."
"Really loving this hypothetical date. And if it goes well, back to your place? Mine?"
"Yours, if I've had a good enough time. Not a guarantee of anything, mind you. I might just fall asleep on your couch or something. Or stumble home. At least it won't be a long walk."
"I'd insist you take the bed," Gene said. "I'd hate to be an ungracious host."
"As long as you wash your sheets more than twice a year, I'll take that deal."
The two of them were smiling broadly by now, both wondering why they hadn't had this kind of conversation sooner. The reality of it struck them soon enough, and their faces soured. Another bout of far-off gunfire didn't help matters.
"Do you think it was stupid that we kept just doing our jobs?" Anna wondered aloud.
Gene shrugged. "What else were we going to do? Join a mass suicide? Drink ourselves to death? Disappear into the woods?"
"Going into the woods doesn't sound so bad, except for all the bugs."
"As someone who spent a couple years hiking across this country: the woods are bad and you don't know just how much you can end up hating bugs."
"Duly noted," Anna grinned. "Mr. Woodsman, huh?"
"More like Mr. Misspent Youth. It's funny to think about that now, though. Like, what were any of us preparing for all this time? We're all supposed to live like there's a future, like there's a future generation to pass something down to. Not me personally, obviously. But even without kids, I always liked the idea that at least something I've done in my life would leave an impact on other people."
"I didn't realize it was existential crisis o'clock," Anna playfully ribbed. "I know what you mean. I don't know what to say about it, but I get it."
Gene checked his watch. "Well, shit. We're actually running out of time."
"Oh?"
"About seven minutes."
"I'm not nearly drunk enough, then." Anna helped herself to a little more. The bottle slipped out of her hand and shattered on the sidewalk just beyond the edge of the porch. Naturally, she preemptively winced in anticipation, while Gene was caught off-guard.
"That's not very considerate of you," Gene recovered, not missing a beat. "Want me to help clean that up?"
"What for?" Anna shrugged. "If it's still there tomorrow, we'll sweep it up."
"We?"
"Don't start," she scolded. "Just give me your hand."
He did as he was told. They stood side by side, hand in hand, letting the minutes float by. Gene stole a glance at his watch. "Two minutes," he whispered.
"Shh," Anna said. "Let's just wait."
So, they waited.
It wasn't noticeable, at first. Everything looked the same as always, a sky full of twinkling stars. It was perfectly clear tonight. But then, Anna swore she saw some of the sky blackening. There weren't as many lights as before. And then it picked up the pace, and she became more certain she was seeing what she thought she was. She squeezed Gene's hand and he squeezed back, wordless.
The moon, bright and full in the sky, disappeared.
"Well, that su--"
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"You reading me, DANTE?"
"Affirmative."
"You dropped me into a sendep or some shit. It's dark and empty. What the hell is this place?"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure! It's fucking empty. You think I'd make that up?"
"Stand by. Calibrating."
"Ambient temp is a hair above ab zee. Glad my life support failsafes kicked in or I'd be a goner. I'm not picking up any EM anywhere that isn't coming from me."
"Confirmed," the tinny voice echoed in his head. "This timeline has undergone a cataclysmic termination event."
"Wow, a full-on CTE. I thought those were theoretical. Now I just have to find a journal to write to about this. You know, in a timeline that's not completely annihilated."
"You speak as if I am responsible, Robert."
"You're at least half responsible. You picked the guy. I killed the guy. Didn't know that would collapse all of reality. Lesson learned, I guess. Can you get me the fuck out of here and let's go un-kill him?"
"I will need a few minutes to charge the tether."
"Ah, a few more minutes to enjoy absolute nothingness. Such bliss. I feel like I'm on vacation."
"Your sarcasm is unappreciated."
"This fuckup is unappreciated, DANTE. I thought you were a superintelligence."
"What do humans say? Contact me when you can perform 327-dimension fractal differentials in under a femtosecond."
"All the math in the world isn't much help if you doom the universe, you know."
"We will simply have to try again."
"And again, and again, and again..."