Out of Orbit

The planets were falling. At this point, the atmospheric pressure was starting to change; weather patterns were erratic and the oceans were stretching across the land to reach each other like old friends. But there were other things, smaller things, that we noticed first. Magnets started falling off of refrigerators. The clouds cast strange shadows, bubbly and long. Everyone’s ears started popping like we were in one huge falling elevator. The animals were acting differently too. Birds began flying in circles, little ones at first; it was like a dance. But then, suddenly and all at once bundles of beaks and feathers, crashing together in a din of flapping wings for miles and miles burst into view, the skyline a swarm of crumbling spheres. Wolves fell silent, the pull of the moon losing strength like the magnets on our floors. Fish stopped swimming upstream and many stopped moving altogether, depriving their gills of the flowing water they needed to breathe. Rivers, lakes and oceans, filled to the brim with stinking, dead sea creatures. The smell alone was enough to make anything that survived want to die. Humans moved away from the coasts, migrating inland to escape the rot, leaving skeletal cities in their wake. Scientists couldn’t explain anything to any of us and even if they could, it wouldn’t have mattered. All of the theories and ideas that had existed in the hypothetical were now suddenly our sharpened reality and there was no escape. The sky was falling and we weren’t prepared to catch it. And how could we be? Who wakes up thinking heaven would meet them on earth?

No one knew how much time we had - some people thought it would be a matter of days before the end arrived and no one wanted to die without a flat screen and toilet paper so riots became an everyday occurrence. Martial law was declared but the soldiers were rioting too - you can’t defend against a falling sky. Everybody scrambled for what they felt they deserved to clasp in their hands upon their untimely, unexpected and altogether unfortunate demise. A billion pharaohs looking to take earthly delights with them to the afterlife. But then 3, 10, 30 days passed and the end didn’t seem to be any nearer than before. The planets were still in view, looming like long lost gods finally making themselves known to the masses. The sky bulged towards us like a distended stomach against glass. And still, we remained. The streets were full of abandoned cars, broken glass and discarded boxes (you simply cannot have a house full of trash during an unannounced apocalypse), businesses destroyed or transformed into bunkers for the most wealthy, (since everyone knows only the rich deserve a comfortable death at the hands of galactic sky fall). But the wealthy (who expected to be dead in a week) ate all their food or fucked themselves into a sweaty, sleepy stupor or overdosed on the finest drugs available, or all of the above; all while locked away in their safe spaces while outer space threatened the rest of us poor folks with death by vaporization or whatever happens when planets smash together.

Only the rich could gorge themselves to death before dying to galactic sky fall so, soon enough, the zealots rose to power; people who believed the face of God could be found in the new weather systems, rising tides, retreating moon and descending stars. Who's to say Jupiter's great red storm isn’t a reflection of the turbulence of man’s heart? Why couldn’t Neptunes diamond rain be a gift from heaven to men strong enough to seek it?

3, 6, 9 months in and people began looking for ways to leave Earth. The galaxy was in our backyard and somehow, we all weren’t crushed beyond recognition so surely, surely this was a sign. We were meant to explore the stars. Of course, many people had died (lack of food, fresh water, increase of riots and a violent police state, suicide and lack of medicine) and there weren’t many folks healthy enough, strong enough, smart enough or brave enough to take the necessary steps to touch the stars. But with the help of those starry eyed zealots (who have taken to calling themselves “Novas”) and people who were tired of waiting for the end times or wanted something to talk about besides the latest riot, a rocket was being built. In some mountain range in west fuck nowhere, that would be the Ark to take us to God. It didn’t matter to me much - people needed something to believe in and if it was a planet sized deity, the grace of space or whatever else desperate and bored people could dream up, it was fine with me. I just wanted everyone to calm down a bit.

2 years and the riots had stopped, makeshift rockets dotted the sky in fiery constellations, and people started taking care of their lawns again. My sister and I laid in the grass, watching Neptune spin on its side, glittering like a disco ball in our eyes and talked about her future. She was getting married to a guy who was a banker before Sky Fall. Personally, I hated finance bros but she said “he isn’t a bro, he’s one of the good ones!”, whatever that means. I was just happy she was happy. They were going to get married in this cute little church by a stream, a mile out from Papa’s old place but a meteorite vaporized it (and the entire town) when Venus entered orbit so they decided to get married at the center of the crater instead. “It’s good luck that the Heart of God would crash my wedding! He must have wanted to bless our union but didn’t realize his own power”. Her new arrangement was…laughable. But I was happy she was happy.

“James says in a couple years, after the baby is born, we’ll join the Novas in their space pilgrimage but I don’t know…don’t you think the gravity would be weird for growing bones?”

My eyebrows jumped to my hairline, “You’re still considering having a baby? Now?”

Indignant, she said “We aren’t considering it, we’re actually doing it and you didn’t answer my question. Is the gravity weird for baby bones? I feel like it would be.”

“Where the hell are you going to put a baby in that postage stamp of a house you two have? And what about diapers? And food? And, I don’t know,“ I threw a hand in the air; “all the other stuff a baby needs to even grow baby bones?”

”James is a really talented carpenter, I told you this the other day, so he’s gonna make most of what we need-”

“I didn’t realize you were marrying banker Jesus”

“Oh my god shut up and look, I took plenty of diapers during the Main Street riot so we should be fine.” Another huff. “And since when do you care what I do? You don’t care about anything.”

“Okay, rude And very not true!” I care very much about my cat-”

“That you literally haven’t named-”

“Because I’m waiting for him to tell me! You can’t just force a name onto something, that’s inhumane.”

“Yeah…and I’m weird for getting married in a crater. At least the crater has a name.”

The crafter isn’t alive and who the hell names a hole anyway? You know what, never mind,” I shoved her lightly, “you‘re nuts and yes the gravity would be weird for baby bones.”

Neptune winked in the not too distant sky and I shifted in the grass, closer to my sister. A funny feeling planted itself in my belly, squirming and heavy.

“You know.. I do care.”

I could almost hear her eyes rolling, “Sure you do, about your cat, you’ve established that.”

“I mean it, don’t be rude, geez. I care. But this is crazy” I ran my hand over my head, sweat dripping down my brow. “Having a baby is crazy right now.”

”why is it crazy that I want to have a family? James is a good guy and he’ll be a good father” she grabbed my hand, clammy with dew and I could feel the tremble in her fingers

“I’ll be a good mother…a better mother. I have to be”

The heaviness in my gut turned sour. “I know. I know you would be, I never doubted that. But-”, I shifted to one elbow to look her in the eyes, huge and clear and near as Neptune, “A baby? In a world that is literally on the verge of ending?”

“It hasn’t ended yet.”

“But it could!”

“And it hasn’t and I can’t live in fear every day that it might! I can’t accept that I’ll never get married, never be a mother, never have a family vacation on the beach”

Scrunched my nose, “A vacation at the fish graveyard?”

“Oh my god, THIS is what I’m talking about! I can’t do this! I can’t be like you and just wait for everything to go to shit and wallow in my “rightness” - that this whole world is going to hell and our lives were for nothing and everything was pointless and-” her eyes filled with tears, diamonds falling from a distant planet. “I want to be happy and I want you to be happy for you and for me and I want my life to mean something.”

I wanted to shake her, toss her, hug her and scream in her face but instead I stared, shaking on one elbow, staining my arms with crushed grass and never letting go of her hand. How did we get here? When did she stop being a starry eyed girl and start having problem I couldn’t fix with a chocolate kiss and a squeeze? Her breathing hitched and my heart broke. She looked away from me and so softly, I could barely hear her,

“…I’m sorry. I’m sorry i said that, I know you aren’t this shitty girl, waiting for everything to go to hell. I know you care.”

”It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s was mean of me to say-”

“You know, I care a lot, about a out of things. I’m just not out with it like you. I never could be, I don’t know. You matter to me.”

“I know I do, I know… I shouldn’t have said that to you, I’m sorry-”

“You matter to me, I love you and I love that you are getting married and I love that you are full of hope and optimism, even if half of it is Nova nonsense ramblings and I love that your ceremony is gonna be in that stupid hole. I love you now and I loved you then, when mom was there and when she wasn’t and when the planets showed up and all of this stopped making any sense. It’s just… I don’t know.”

Her eyes were huge, two full moons. “Say it, don’t stop…I want you say it.” She squeezed my hand tighter.

I could feel the tears building, the heaviness in my stomach threatening to make me collapse into myself. “It was always us. Just the two of us. And now it’ll be us and Jesus banker and baby bones and apparently banker’s carpentry shit and stolen diapers and Novas and space flight and I just…I don’t…fuck this is hard.” I shoved my knuckles in my eyes until I saw stars. “The universe is in our backyard and everyone wants to be out there. Out there in the space dust and heat death and whatever else and I just want to be here, with my sister. Fuck this whole planet and its nosy neighbors; you are my world and you always have been.”

The sun had set and the sky was bloated with starlight. I laid in the grass with my sister, damp and growing colder but unwilling to break contact. I could hear her teeth clacking in the dark but she didn’t leave. The breeze carried the sound of neighborhood dogs barking at Europa and Io and Tethys and I breathed deep, grateful that we were never near the coast and its rotten breath. Grateful that it was too dark for her to see me cry.

“You said it was going to be “us”…

I smacked my lips, my mouth sticky from not speaking for hours “what?”

“You said earlier, it would be us and James and the baby in space… are you coming with me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I want to stay with you. And I’d stay with you here, if that was truly what you wanted. I’m sure James would understand, he really value community and he knows what you mean to me.”

“Just… find me a suit that fits and an oxygen mask that doesn’t smell like shit and I’ll come with you, wherever you go. Just not to a Nova service…fuck that.”

I could hear he smile, “Shut up, don’t be dramatic.”

“I love you.”

The sky would fall that night, in brilliant blues and greens and pinks - the earth and its neighbors a kaleidoscope of shimmering rocks and refracted starlight. But for now, the whole world existed in the grass, in the dog song, in the cool damp of dew soaked sleeves and fingers clasped, never letting go.