The End of the World

Is it near?

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"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."

“The Hollow Man”, by T.S. Elliot

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The world is going to end today.

Today at midnight.

It’s not a premonition; not a sixth sense. It’s real knowledge. If I tell people how I know it, though, they’ll take me to the psychiatric hospital.

I go out with the morning sun, after seeing my husband off. He is at work, I’m outside.

I walk, feeling the hard cement under my sports shoes, and watching the great blue expanse to my left. The sea is calm this morning, a pale stretch of silk that seems welcoming. Soothing. More soothing than usual. Does the sea know? Can it feel the near apocalypse in its wet guts; does it tremble inside, thinking of all living creatures in its warm womb who will never see the light of another day? Is it trying to be good to them in these last hours?

Evergreen Mediterranean pines line up along the promenade. The sea is on my left, the trees on my right. I walk in between and as the sea calms me, the pines worry me. They seem angry. Their needles are standing on end as if threatening to prick anyone who gets near them. Angry. You bet. They don’t want to disappear forever. It’s not fair.

Yes. Life is not fair.

Precisely because life is not fair, I walk alone this morning. I used to have walking buddies once. The rest of our nice bunch of mommies. Either one or the other. Sometimes all at once. Now some of them have left the country, and the rest are working. They are not easy-going freelancers like me, though. They are really busy. Distant.

I’m alone.

I walk.

I walk.

I walk.

At noon, I sit in a small restaurant and order a pizza. My last eating out needs to be a treat. I get a small beer to go with it. When I finish the crunchy baked bread with tomatoes, mushrooms, and mozzarella on top, I send a message to the Viber group called HAPPY MOMMIES. The message says: ‘Girls, let’s play our game tonight. Make your cocktails and see which one gets drunk first. I need it.’

They send back emoticons of love and approval. I smile. We used to play that game during the Covid quarantine. We prepared our killer drinks and knocked ourselves out, recording the minutes needed to send us into oblivion. Five. Ten. Fifteen. No food before the cocktails, that was the rule.

Fun times.

Then I start calling old friends I haven’t heard from in years.

‘Peter, what would you do if you knew the world ended tonight?’ I ask.

‘Are you writing a new novel?’ my ex-boyfriend’s voice sounds strangely close, although more than twelve hours’ drive separates us.

‘Yeah…sort of. Tell me. What would you do.’

‘I’d call you and tell you I still love you.’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘It’s true. You know it.’

‘I want a real answer.’ We haven’t talked in two years, but he still sings the same song. I’ll love you forever. Along with my wife and kids. This man has a generous heart.

‘That’s a real answer.’

‘Okay then. What would you do after you’ve told me you loved me?’

‘I’d stay with my kids I guess.’

The second male friend I call is a philosophy freak. He starts explaining how there was no such thing as an ‘end’ or ‘death’. “Matter can not disappear,‘ he explained, ‘it simply changes its form. Whatever we turn into, we’ll still feel and experience what is around us; we’ll still be us.’

The third male friend is still a workaholic because he snaps:

‘Can we talk about this some other time? I have an important business meeting!’

When I put my phone down, it is already afternoon.

I realize it’s time to go and stay with my kids.

And tell the person I love that I love him.

Things don’t go exactly as planned.

Why am I surprised at all? They rarely do.

My husband is cooking one of his crazy meals. He is an amateur cook and an extravagant one at that. He cooks food no one has ever heard of. Every time he explains something about distant islands and thousand-year-old traditions I think he’s just making this all up so that I forgive him for his creativity which often hurls me in the toilet and keeps me there as a hostage for the whole night.

I smell the air. Not that bad this time.

‘What are you cooking?’ I ask.

‘Meishan with petals of pink grass from the Orchan island.’ He says, brandishing the big spoon. ‘Just wait to taste it!’

I go to him, hug him, and kiss him on the lips. He quickly steps back.

‘Oh, please! I’m sweating, and I smell horrible! I see your top is soaked, too. Why don’t you go and take a shower?’

That’s what my husband is. He loves me, but his pragmatism can ruin any moment of intimacy. Today I forgive him his husbandness, though. I go to the bathroom and take a long, lemon-scented shower. I put on the short pink dress I know he loves.

I can hear that he’s doing the dishes, so I knock on my son’s door. He lets me in, calling me ‘bro’. He’s fifteen, and the bouts of good mood are a rare thing with him, but he happens to have fallen into one of them today. He asks me how my day was and then shares his ideas about the discovery he’s going to make. He’s going to think of a way to make heavy objects lighter so that old people don’t struggle to carry them around. While I’m listening, I smile. Despite the end of the world, there will be a future for him. His enthusiasm will create it.

My daughter’s room is the next one. She is twelve: a delicate brunette like me, and just like me at her age, always engulfed in painting. I look at her new picture: a calm sea, just like the one I was walking by all morning. There are ships, rocks, milky-colored clouds, and a star visible in the daylight.

‘What is this star?’ I ask.

‘This is the star of hope,’ she answers. ‘We should be able to see it in daylight. If we can’t, then we have lost hope.’

‘Can you see it?’

‘Always!’ she smiles. I kiss the top of her head and leave the room.

Hope will keep my daughter’s world eternal.

When I go back to my husband, he’s done washing. When he sees me, his eyes sparkle.

‘Oh, that dress! It’s so sexy! And the way you’ve made your hair! And this lipstick, is it new? Have you put it on before?’

He grabs me, and I forgive him that it’s not me that’s sexy, but the dress, the hair, and the lipstick. I forgive him for the quick, well-practiced sex, and his immediate ‘Let’s go eat!’ after we finish. I have never been able to understand how he can switch from an erotic to a food-consuming mood at such lightning speed. I forgive him that, too, and we go eat.

And his crazy meal is delicious today.

And to my question ‘what would you do if the world ended tonight’ he answers with a smile, ‘I’d do what I just did. I’d make love to you and then enjoy the meishan.’

‘And after that?’

‘Well…maybe convince you to watch a good thriller together?’

So, we watch a good thriller together while the kids play computer games, and then it’s time for bed, and we say good night, and everyone falls asleep, but I can’t.

I lie in the darkness, waiting for the fatal midnight hour.

Soon.

Soon.

At eleven thirty, I get up and steal out of the bedroom in my bare feet. I go out on the balcony. I see an ebony sky full of stars. The stars are hanging like diamond earrings from the hardly-visible earlobes of the clouds.

Soon these earrings will be ripped out of the earlobes and blood will fall from the sky.

I hear distant, cheerful barking.

Soon this dog will be forever silent.

I hear the soft murmur of an open TV: somebody is watching a late show.

Soon there won’t be any TV shows anymore.

I slip back inside. Go to the bathroom. Enter. Lock the door from the inside.

I take one of my husband’s razor blades.

I carefully step over the edge of the tub and lie in it. I know how to do it. I’ve read a lot about it. Just one deep cut is enough. Then you relax and let the flow take you.

Maybe I should fill the tub with water? No, somebody might hear and wake up. I need to be extremely quiet. Quiet like a blast capable of obliterating the whole world in a matter of minutes.

I lie. I tremble.

I press the razor blade against my left wrist. The veins are clearly visible under the white skin. Such white skin! Then why is it so dark inside me?

And why is my right hand trembling so violently?

Not only my hand. My heart is trembling, too. Trembling like mad, trembling in unison with the hearts of my husband, my children, and my friends. With the hearts of all the people who have been, who are, and who will be part of my life.

I lie.

I open my fingers, and the razor blade drops down on the cold tiles with a hollow clanking sound.

I start to cry.

The world is going to end. It’s not a premonition, not a sixth sense. It’s real knowledge.

It’s going to end, but no,

not tonight.

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Always yours,

Nev