Keeping the Fire Lit

The world didn’t end with a bang or collapse or an alien invasion (that we knew of, at least). It ended with a slow smolder, like a landslide everyone watched in 1/12th speed.

It ended with automation taking over most of the work most of the world did. It ended with endless riots in the streets—riots still burning today. It ended with global economic instability, and all the world’s allies and rivals erupting in an ever-shifting conflux of “the enemy of my enemy.”

It ended with computer viruses disseminating the data of hundreds of millions of people, wiping out entire companies in days or weeks, and shaking the infrastructures of dozens of countries. It ended with militias of all different creeds in nearly every region of the world, coup d'état after coup d'état, and state-sanctioned this and state-sanctioned that. It ended somehow slowly and rapidly, like all the world’s remaining governments were these still-breathing skeleton-infrastructures supporting diseased bodies crawling toward some imagined finish-line.

There wasn’t one breaking point—when you thought the beginning of the end-times was over, and this was the thick of it, a new beginning to the end-times took its place just to spite how awful it had already gotten.

Some people still clung to hope. Most of us, however, had accepted that the world had already ended. There wasn’t much left to live for. Pollution was rampant. Mental and physical illness were at an all-time high, and only climbing. There were entire countries quite literally burnt to the ground.

Most of us had accepted that the world had already ended.

Everything was gray, covered in ash or dust or dirt, and littered with garbage. Everywhere you went, you walked by burnt down buildings, month-old car crashes no one bothered to move and days-old bodies. It was hard to say that crime was rampant because crime was just another part of life now. Everything was rampant by now. All the things you didn’t want to be rampant, at least.

Most of us accepted it.

We were just ghosts now, waiting for our numbers to get drawn.

The first few years of inflation and constant, relentless, all-surrounding war were met with anxiety and a sort of communal shrieking. Nearly a decade now into our downward spiral, the people who were left (who hadn’t joined some army or militia or commune) still went to work, still slotted into the 9-5 and still got drinks when they could afford it.

That’s where I ran into my co-worker, Michael: getting drinks down the street from the law-firm we worked out of. Funny how these things work out.

He caught me staring numbly at my IPA, calling out, “Hey! Sarah!”

I turned slowly to look at him. “Oh, hey.”

I could never decide whether to hate Michael or to love him. He was one of the last people I knew who regularly smiled or laughed or said things like, “Hey!”

“How many have you drank already?” he asked, sitting down next to me.

I halfway perceived someone else walking in the bar, but shrugged, looking at Michael still. “This will be my third.”

He laughed. “We got off forty minutes ago, how are you already on your third?”

“How are you not?”

He smiled. “I’ll catch up. Excuse me!”

He lifted up his hand. It was shaking. I’d never seen his hand shake.

The bartender came over. “Yea?”

“Just get me whatever she’s having. And get her next one on me, whenever she’s ready.”

His voice was shaking too. I don’t know why I noticed it, but it seemed strange.

For some reason, my brain told my eyes to look at a table in the corner of the room. A man made eye contact with me, then immediately averted his eyes, looking back down at his phone. This was also strange.

I turned back just as the bartender set down Michael’s drink. “Thanks!” he said. “I appreciate it.”

I looked from the bartender to Michael. Even the way he drank looked nervous.

He set it down. “Ahh, good stuff, huh. Didn’t know you liked IPA.”

“Mike,” I finally said, “what are you doing here?”

His eyes flashed into mine, then flashed away. He shrugged. Inhaled. Then seemed to consciously relax himself, talking a little slower. “Just grabbing some drinks. Found you here. Thought I’d say hello.”

I watched Michael for a second. Watched him visibly relax, then look back up at me, smile, closing his eyes, then turn back to the bar and take another drink.

I finished my drink, looking away from him, then waved the bartender down.

“So, what do you wanna talk about, Mike?”

Michael smiled. He didn’t look at me.

“I don’t know. Just something to pass the time.”

“’Kay,” I said, looking away.

“You hear about the latest firestorm in Australia? Or the meteor shower? They said a lot of space debris fell down with it—bits and pieces of satellites and old rocket parts—which I thought was neat, but, you know, it’s a little scary thinking about. How much junk and whatever else is up there.”

“Mike,” I looked back at him, “I don’t come to the bar to talk about news, I—”

And then I looked down. A note was scribbled in sharpie on a paper napkin.

I’m being followed.

My eyes shot up to Mike, who was looking away, and then instinct made me look into the corner, where the man was still sitting, looking at his phone. His eyes glanced up to mine, then back down.

“Hey.”

I looked back at Michael.

“Mike, what is thi—”

“You hear about the new Collective?”

I stopped. Shook my head.

“No, I can’t say I have.”

Michael nodded. “Apparently, they started in South America, spread to Asia first, then Europe and the Middle-East. Word has it they’re in the US now¬—what’s left of the US at least.”

“I see,” I said.

“That’s the word on the street, at least.”

Michael was beginning to make me nervous.

“There’s a lot of words on a lot of streets. Most of it’s just people looking for attention.”

Michael smiled. “True.”

I started looking through all the bottles of liquor in front of us, trying to occupy my mind.

“Last week,” I began, my own voice shaking now, “word on the street told me there’s a fleet of nuclear subs stationed near Antarctica. Week before that, word on the street said, ‘They’re summoning spirits out West,’ and the week before that, wanna know what it said? Said we’re gonna see warfare with giant robots soon. Word on the street says a lot of things Michael. I wouldn’t listen to what it tells you.”

“You know, if you don’t wanna hear about the news, there’s this bar a couple blocks down with a few pool tables. You wanna play pool?”

I stared back at Mike, not really knowing what to say.

“Come on. Finish your drink and we’ll head out.”

I nodded, intensely confused, but just worried enough not to say anything.

Instead, I let Mike continue talking. Let him talk about the news. Let him talk about the islands of trash in the ocean. Let him talk about the word on the street. Let him talk about whatever.

Then, we paid for our drinks, got up and left.

I didn’t look back at the man in the corner the rest of the time, but I did watch him stand up just before we walked out the front door.

Mike kept talking about things I didn’t care about, but I didn’t mind pretending. I turned just enough to see just out of the corner of my eye just as the man in the bar exited behind us, then looked away.

Mike almost immediately turned the corner down an alley. Anywhere out of sight was dangerous nowadays, especially this late at night, but I didn’t question Mike. Just let him keep talking.

And then he turned again, between the backs of two opposite-facing buildings. I looked to see that the man hadn’t turned down this alley yet.

“Here,” Mike said.

I turned back to see Mike slipping something into my coat pocket. Almost as soon as I looked, his hand was back by his side and I felt something shifting in the pocket.

“It’s got a picture of my son in it.”

“It’s… What… You… You have a son?”

He nodded. “He’s incredibly important to me.”

We kept walking. I looked behind me. The man was nowhere to be seen. Mike started talking again. I looked forward. We kept walking through the buildings’ in-between spaces until we were back out in the open again, crossing streets until Mike ushered me to the entrance of another, seedier looking bar.

“It’s not much to look at, but nothing really is anymore. Plus, the beer is cheaper and, like I said, it’s got pool tables.”

“Yea,” I muttered, “sounds good.”

I turned behind me just as we were entering.

Still no man.

We went up to the bar. Mike ordered us some drinks. We walked to the pool table.

“You’re off on… Saturday? Right?”

I nodded. “Yup. One more day in paradise and I get to breathe.”

Mike chuckled. “Well, hey, I heard if you drive Southeast down the highway far enough, you’ll find some farmland that hasn’t been ruined by everything going on. If you want a breather from the city, go check it out.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

And then, we started playing pool until, quite suddenly, Mike decided he needed to use the bathroom.

“Be right back,” he said.

I nodded. “Sure thing.”

I looked up in time to see him pass by the bathrooms, leave out the back exit, then looked back down, wondering what was happening.

The door opened. I turned. The man entered. I looked down before we could make eye contact. Lifted up the pool stick to start hitting things. Make it look like I was just… I don’t know… Anything else.

“Excuse me.”

I turned. The man was suddenly there.

“Hi, is your… friend? Still around?”

“My coworker. Yes. He went into the bathroom.”

He closed his eyes, smiled and nodded his head in affirmation. “Thank you.”

Then he started walking towards the bathrooms.

I waited, and, once he was in the bathroom, walked out the bar and walked home.

-

Mike didn’t show up to work the next day. I spent most of that day and night waiting for the man or someone else to come find me. He didn’t.

The next day, I drove out to the countryside that Mike told me about. It was actually… nice. It was beautiful.

When I was far enough out to wonder how long it would take me to get back, something flickered in my head. I pulled over and parked on a ditch. Then, looking around, making sure I wasn’t followed or being watched, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out whatever object Mike had put in there.

It was a necklace. A small necklace with a heart-shaped locket hanging from it.

It had a picture of his son? Is that what he said?

I opened the locket.

Immediately, I was blinded by this golden light, but I couldn’t close my eyes. It hurt, I cried out at first, but I couldn’t look away—but, then…

…

Then the light was gone. My hand closed the locket without my deciding to.

I started driving again.

I didn’t show back up to work either.