I have to go.
The war doesn’t so much end as it simply stops happening.
Our men and women come home to silence. At the docks and airports there’s no one to greet them except a few reporters who ask questions in which they’re not invested; they’d rather be at home, dying with what remains of their own families.
A bold one shoves his microphone in the face of a coughing corporal who doesn’t look old enough to have hair around his cock.
“Are you glad to be back?”
The soldier stops. He’s too thin, too tired, too war-weary for civility. “Glad?”
“To be back home.”
“My whole fucking family is dead. How d’you think that feels?”
“How—”
“I just want a fucking cheeseburger.”
“Do you think we won?”
The corporal lunges, his hands choking the reporter as they fall to the ground. “I… just… want… a… fucking… cheeseburger.” He punctuates every word by bashing the man’s skull on the concrete. Flecks of bone rain down in the creeping blood pool.
No one stops him. No one says anything. Someone mutters, “Did someone say
We watch this on the news as Luke Skywalker’s about to discover Darth Vader is his father. When regular television comes back, the movie is over and we’re left blinking at the screen without so much as a crinkle of a protein bar wrapper. Twenty-something bodies, a whole bunch of muscles, and not one of us twitches.
The weather war is over, and we’re down about three hundred million citizens. Maybe more. Maybe all, before White Horse is done. Despair folds us in her arms and squeezes us in her loveless arms.
High upon the rooftops, Nick and I watch night arriving, a sky full of stars hitching a ride on its coattails. From up here the world looks almost normal. Only the curious absence of cars skidding through the icy streets makes the eye catch and the mind whisper:
“You’re really not afraid of heights, are you?” he asks.
“No. Heights don’t bother me. I haven’t fallen yet, so there’s no precedent for fear.”
He nods. “Good attitude. Heights scared a lot of my patients. Wide spaces, too. I see—saw—people all the time scared of life. Every day I wanted to shake them, tell them that this day is the only guarantee they’ve got.”
“But?”
He gives me a tight, wry smile. “It’s not in the psychologists’ handbook. We’re not supposed to freak the fuck out and shake the shit out of clients.”
“Even if it’s for the best?”
“My clients don’t always want what’s best. They’re human. They like what’s comfortable. Coming to therapy every week is comfortable, familiar. Even at a hundred-plus bucks a pop.”
“Was I comfortable?”
He turns to face me, but I don’t look at him. I keep staring at the city. That’s what’s comfortable, familiar, safe. Nick isn’t safe.
“You could have just told me the truth. I was on your side.”
“It sounded crazy.”
“Hey, crazy is what I do every day. I see women who save their shit in plastic Baggies and weigh it so they can make sure what goes in comes back out. I see guys who spend their nights beating off to Internet porn when they’ve got beautiful wives in the next room. Real women don’t turn them on anymore, they’re so into the fantasy. I see kids who cut themselves to mask pain, kids who cut themselves because their friends do it and they want to fit in. You want crazy? I can tell you a million stories. But some jar showing up in your apartment? That’s criminal, not crazy. Crazy was lying about it to someone who was on your side—a person you were paying. You wasted your own money. That’s crazy.”
“I get it, I’m crazy. You’re the expert, you should know. Do you want me to climb up on the cross or would you like to nail me up there yourself?”
“C’mon, Zoe….” He’s big and broad this close, densely muscled enough to crush me if he chose. And maybe I’d like that.
“Kiss my ass.”
I stalk toward the door, grab the handle, meet resistance. The building has two rooftop entrances— or exits, depending on how you look at things. One gets locked at night so we only have to guard the other. Morris doesn’t like to keep both locked, in case of emergencies.
“Shit.”
He groans. “It’s the end of the world. Let’s not fight.”
His words deflate my anger. “You’re right.”
“Say it again.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“You will when you see I’m always right.”
This is almost flirting, except neither of us are smiling. A million million miles away, a star hurls itself across the sky.
“I don’t want to be Chicken Little,” I say. “I don’t always want the sky to be falling.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
“Is it?”
“Truth?”
I nod.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Or if it is it won’t be okay in the same way. We’ve lost too much.”
There’s a wall between us. I long for a sledgehammer.
“I’m sorry about your brother. I saw his name on the list.”
He slouches to my side. I want to slip into his arms. He has the perfect place for me right below his chin, but I don’t dare. Not without an invitation. Maybe not even then.
“I have to get to my parents if they’re still alive.”
“Are they in the city?”
“Greece. Every summer they head back to the motherland and talk about how great America is.” He smiles. “When they’re here, all they do is talk about how perfect Greece is.”
“How the hell are you going to get to Greece?”
“There are still planes—if you can pay the price.”
“Which is what?”
“Blood. Medicine. Food. Whatever they don’t have enough of.”
The city goes out. The night stays on.
Nick and I stare at each other through the darkness, three hundred million corpses stacked between us. In another life I could love him. In this life I could only lose him.
The lights flick back on in the morning. This brings us no comfort, because we know it can’t last. The electricity will leave us forever; it’s just a question of when. We hold our breath and wait.
The animals have a secret.
