Pet Names

Living through a historic event, particularly a traumatic one, creates what’s called a flashbulb memory. It’s what happens when you witness an event so terrible, the memory of it gets seared into your mind forever.

I have two such memories.

The first was the day the world ended. Valentine’s Day, 2025—the night Martha Whitby dumped me.

It all started with a heart-shaped locket. I bought it as a statement, one that said: You belong to me, Martha.

See, my fiancé hated her full name. She always asked me to call her Marty, Marz, and a litany of other pet names. I tried to reason with her. “Martha’s a beautiful name. It’s feminine. What guy wants to introduce his future wife as Marty?” But she wouldn’t have it.

I figured if she could just see her name as beautiful—the way I did—she’d come around. I paid extra to get Martha inscribed on the front as a Valentine’s gift. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw it.

“My name is not Martha.” She spat every word, and walked out.

I suppose I’m lucky that I remember that moment so clearly. It was the last time I ever saw her. As you know, the next day was February 15th, 2025. The day the world actually ended.

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That morning I was hung over on the couch.

I still don’t know where Martha slept that night. At her sisters, maybe. I set up camp on the couch waiting for her to walk through the door, and I may have downed a few whiskeys to pass the time.

I woke up to the sound of growling. Our dog, Bosco, was staring in the direction of the couch, and I whipped around thinking there was someone at the window or something.

But there was nobody there. I looked around the room, nothing seemed out of place until I realized Bosco was staring at me. Growling at me. Ears flat, teeth bared and everything.

You’ve got to laugh about it now, how we used to think of them. Our “pets”. My first reaction was concern for her. I thought she had rabies or something.

But then my cat strolled over, calm as you please, and sat next to her. For an absurd moment they stared at me, and I stared back. And then—flashbulb memory.

My cat spoke.

Well, he didn’t ‘speak’ exactly. What they do is more like sharing the same thought at the same moment. But the thought isn’t yours. It’s awful.

My cat put the same thought into my head that every single person on the planet heard that day. “Do not be afraid.”

Yeah—right. Me and 7 Billion people lost our minds.

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To say the pets came prepared for violence would be a gross understatement. They understood us, as a species and as individuals. They knew we would mostly destroy ourselves.

In the panic of the first contact, we didn’t know which animals to trust. I was in California when the fires started, when ranchers turned on their herds and forty-three million acres of farm land burned to ash.

I managed to escape with the clothes on my back, my wallet, and the locket.

The wallet was worthless within the first few days of the attacks. Credit cards didn’t mean much when reality is falling apart. But I clung to the locket for sanity, and as a token of my mission: Find Martha... find Marty.

I didn’t know what would come next, but I knew I had to find her. I would apologize, and we could at least face the madness together.

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It was almost a year before I found anyone who had seen her. In a caravan out to Colorado.

In the cover of mid-day when the pets settled in for their naps, we travelled in bursts through the Dixie National Forest. When I wasn’t gathering water or fixing camo for the trucks, I was showing everyone the locket.

Inside was a picture of Marty and I, arm in arm. Every day was the same. “Have you seen this woman? Her name is Marty.” “No, man. I’m sorry.”

On the fifth week of traveling, I finally found Clara. She had spent a few weeks in San Francisco holed up in SFO airport. Marty was there, but the group split after an argument.

“There were a few pilots with us. They had a plan to get to Varanasi... I’m sorry.”

God damn Varanasi. In the months following the fall, there had been rumors about the sacred city. On the banks of the river Ganges, Varanasi was said to be the capital of Hinduism. A promise of asylum, mercy shown by the pets for the city of vegetarians.

Hundreds of thousands fled to a country fit to burst. The violence there was said to have put mankind to shame.

The pets knew. They always knew we’d do it to ourselves.

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Not long after that, my caravan was captured. Spies among us—self-proclaimed ‘cat people’—led us straight into an ambush near Grand Junction.

I was dragged back West, to work in the Death Valley pits. All I remember from that time is heat, darkness, and cutting bully sticks ‘til my fingers bled.

For three years, I kept the locket around my neck. I never gave up on finding Marty, Varanasi be damned. She may have gotten out… you never know. But in hindsight, that was a mistake.

I was eventually let out on good behavior, and got adopted by a St. Bernard. He’s not the worst kind of master… he doesn’t bite me or anything. But he’s got a sick sense of humor.

In the years after the fall, the pets took to owning humans and shaming us with our own devices. Small beds on the floor, eating food from doggie bowls, wearing collars. That sort of thing. When my master tried to take the locket from me, I bit him. That earned me a week in the kennel, and a new name.

In that horrible way they intrude on your mind, master’s thoughts ran out sharp and severe—“You can keep your golden collar. But you will answer when called. Remember, you belong to me, Martha.”

My name is not Martha.