Julio and the End of the World

What happens when your greatest love is right beside you, but you can never speak to them again? The only comfort I am allowed to have won't come from his words, but from a pearly piece of metal, a locket, his last gift.

Several years ago, the world ended, or at least close enough to it. We worried so much about one threat for hundreds of thousands of years that we ignored the other. Two planets were soon to collide, Earth and Venus. It was almost like a tragic love story—I could hear the voice of the old poets now “There once were two lovers named Earth and Venus. They longed to be together for millions of years. They longed to be together so much that they waited all those years, moving closer and closer together, inch by inch, until their lips could meet. The problem with the love of Earth and Venus was that it was toxic, and the closer Venus moved to her lover, the more poisonous both worlds became. Soon, just like the Romeo and Juliet story of old, they would crash together and die.

But why did they have to take everyone else down with them? What a cruel place the universe could be.

I’m pretty sure I’m the only human being alive now, well me and Julio. But Julio isn’t breathing anymore. He’s probably dead actually, but I try not to think about that because it hurts less if I pretend that he’s still alive.

I met Julio when we were just kids. The earth was a toxic place then, but our parents and neighbors stored up enough oxygen and hid it all underground while the rest of the world was focused on other problems. There are many ways to die on this earth, but the trouble always had been keeping track of which would wipe us out first. No one realized that the slow decrease in oxygen was what would kill us before the others had a chance.

I thought to myself many times that it couldn’t that bad to die by suffocating slowly. Falling asleep peacefully before the big explosion seemed to be a gift, but there was a part of me that wanted to be the last one left. I wanted to see the world blow into a million pieces with my own eyes. That would be my gift.

Julio had given the heart-shaped locket to me only a year ago and every time I hold it I remember his cheesy grin when he gave it to me. I’m pretty sure he stole it from a shop that had been abandoned. Once currencies and commerce had been destroyed there was no other way to buy something like a piece of jewelry, and buying jewelry was hardly what anyone cared about when they knew they were going to die.

I adjusted the mask on my face. Day 460 of having to wear it every day. The worst part was sleeping with it, but I don’t think I’ve slept much at all since Julio stopped responding to my jokes. He had never missed laughing at one of my jokes, even if it was a fake laugh to make me feel like I was funny. We removed our masks only once months ago, but that was before he got very sick.

“It’s happening.” I whisper as I feel the earth shaking bellow me. Earth and Venus would soon be together forever, yet I couldn’t choose to be with the one I love forever. What a cruel place the universe could be.

“Julio, look. The sky. It looks like a movie.”

“My favorite movie.” He smiled. I ignored the fact his gentle voice and expression were only in my head.

“Do you think the locket will just float in space forever?” I looked down at it through the fog that my breath created on the oxygen mask.

“It’s all molecules, it will probably blow to pieces, just like us.”

“Could you stop being logical for just one second?” I snapped. This is the end of the world, not a chemistry lesson.

The shaking is so bad that I am knocked off my seat to the floor. My oxygen tank crashes loudly onto the concrete surface of the warehouse we had been living in. I grab the nearest stable piece of equipment and brought myself to my feet.

“Julio, the window.” I gasp.

“What do you see?”

I haul the oxygen tank over to the large, dusty panes as quickly as I can.

The sky looks like a CGI scene. I wish a hundred times that it was all just a movie. Meteor debris streak across the blood-colored sky. It is hot, as it has been for hundreds of years, but this is a different kind of heat. This is the heat of passion, of two bodies preparing to become one.

I rush over to Julio and remove his mask.

“I want you to see it with your own eyes.” I say excitedly.

I remove my mask too. The shaking is uncontrollable now. It feels like we are inside a washing machine and the spin cycle is only just starting.

I can’t breathe at all, but I clasp onto Julio’s limp hand and imagine taking a deep, long breath. In my mind I see the forests I had only read about as a child. I see a deer sprinting across a field, a lake under a full moon, a Mother smiling at the birth of her child. This world had been a beautiful place. I guess some love stories really do end tragically.

I close my eyes. “I’ll see you when we both become stars.”

The locket fell to the floor. I wish I knew what really happened to that locket after we were gone.