The Great Immortal

“An escape artist?”

“Yep.”

“In Silva?”

“Yep.”

“How does one make a living as an escape artist in Silva?”

“One is very good at what they do.”

“How good could you be?”

“Very good,” I responded. “I escaped the end of the world, after all.”

“Now, I suppose the question remains,” my companion continued. “Can you do it again?”

~

“I can’t believe you did it twice,” she smiled.

“Had to get back to you, didn’t I?”

“Back to me?” Her eyebrows raised. “Let’s be honest, Great Immortal, you just didn’t want my mother finding out that you lost this.” Her hand found its way to my shirt, gently tugging the thin golden chain until the locket revealed itself.

~

Through the fabric of my tunic, I rolled the bulb of the pendant between my thumb and forefinger, and considered my reply.

“It’s not about can or can’t - I haven’t any choice in the matter. I’ve got oaths of affection to keep.” When I looked at the man with whom I shared a bunker, I saw denial. His knees bounced, and his eyes remained on the small piece of reinforced glass that acted as our only window. Wouldn’t even look at me when we spoke to one another, as if as long as he kept watch, the cataclysm could not arrive. Denial was better than hysteria, though - the sweaty, clammy fraternal twin of hope.

“What about you? What do you do?”

“I was a clerk at a small electronics store. Part time.” Part time. Jesus. The kid still had spots.

“You get fired?” He looked at me for a second, distracted by his confusion, then snapped his head back to the window.

“What? No. No, just, you know, this.” He raised his chin to the glass, directing my attention to the bleeding skies. Close to us, you could almost make out a tinge of blue, but further, the clouds wept ash, and the red encroached upon us.

“Then you’re still a clerk, by my measure. Can’t have anyone saying you were unemployed when the devil finished the job.” He attempted to feign a smile, pulling his cheeks back in polite acknowledgement of my attempt. At least he could tell I was trying to be funny. The smile died with a hard swallow, his knee began to bounce with a renewed tenacity, and I knew I’d only made things worse.

~

“Can’t we just have a moment to ourselves?” I pleaded. She laughed, and smacked me on the shoulder. As always, she’d hit me a bit too hard, and it stung.

“Some father you are! He’s been up all night, waiting for you to get back.”

“I know, I know. It’s just – we haven’t had a second to be alone with one another since before the first one.” She pulled my collar up and together, and pressed out the wrinkles where her strike had landed. Then she took a hold of the collar, jokingly, and walked me towards the door.

“We’ll have plenty of time for that, now. Let’s go see everyone.”

~

“They wouldn’t let me bring my dog,” my companion remarked.

“What?” I leaned forward.

“Big brown mastiff named Angus. Said they only had enough food for the mouths on board, and a dog that big would eat more than the average person. I knew they were wrong. Even said I’d split my food with him, and he could stay with me, so there was no harm done, but they wouldn’t have it.” He laughed a bitter laugh. “Much good that did them, considering the fact that we’ve been out for almost a week now.”

“Yeah,” I replied, though I reckoned it didn’t much matter now. We’d all made it to the end regardless.

“Angus is probably out there right now, looking for me. Can you imagine how much pain he’s in? Fuck, man.” A breath caught in his throat, and he turned away from me to hide it. “I should have stayed with him.”

“Try not to think about that,” I began. “We’ve all heard those stories about dogs who live through hurricanes and tornadoes and stuff. Who knows where he might be?” The sound of his sniffling subsided.

“This isn’t a hurricane, though.” He choked, his voice returning. He was right about that. “It’s not just Angus. It’s just all been a waste. I spent twenty fucking years here, and didn’t do anything with it. You know I’ve only ever kissed a girl once?”

“Yeah? How was that?”

“I kissed her teeth.” He looked at me, deadly serious. Then he broke, and sniggered. That snigger grew into a chuckle, and soon we were both laughing uproariously. In the midst of my fit, I managed to get a single word out:

“What?”

“You’re supposed to close your eyes, right? I knew that! But when I did it, I don’t know, I just, I missed I guess, and I kissed her teeth, and her braces cut my lip, and I had to go home, and we never talked again.” The sound of our laughter resonated in the bunker until it faded into metallic reverberations, and we were left catching our breath. For a moment, then, we sat smiling, and the world wasn’t ending.

~

My son hadn’t stopped hugging me for what felt like hours. He seemed to have found a comfortable position now, standing on the couch cushion beside me while draped over my shoulders and wrapping his arms around my chest. I pretended to be exhausted and bothered by it, because I knew he liked to annoy me, but in truth I couldn’t be happier. It was a welcome annoyance.

“You’ll kill the man!” My father called out. In response, the boy growled and tightened his grip.

“The Great Immortal can escape any vice!” He announced, reciting my old radio advertisements, even mocking the inflection of the emcee. “Any trap! Any danger! How will he get out of this one, folks? Wait and see!”

“Really, though,” my father went on. “How did you do it? How did you dodge the catastrophe the second time?”

“Well,” I began.

~

A crack of thunder rung out overhead, lighting up the cloudy crimson sky. Outside, the last of the hazzies expeditiously made their way inside the final, much larger corporate bunker. They wore thick plastic suits, loose around the lower legs and arms, coloured a bright yellow to distinguish them from animals. The company that sold them told everybody that the suits could keep them safe from the fumes and residual energy of the calamity, but those who had been through the first event, like myself, knew otherwise. Not much regard for ethical business practices, these days. Rain begun to fall as the black extinguished the last of our window’s light.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” the kid said. “I don’t much want to die. It’s a pitiful shame that I was born twenty years before everything came to a close. Right unfair, I think.” His nervous twitching had died down, but his sunken posture and quiet voice betrayed his fear all the same.

“Everything’s going to be okay, mate.”

“How do you know? I’m not an escape artist. Things don’t really seem to work out for me.” It was a good question, and I didn’t have an answer that would suffice, so I did the only thing that felt natural. I shifted over beside the kid, a boy who so much reminded me of my own son, and put my arm over his shoulder. A moment passed without any movement, and I felt like I’d overstepped, and began to retract my arm, before he turned towards me and buried his face in my shoulder.

A woman’s voice rung out from a small metal grate in our ceiling, barely audible against the sound of howling winds buffeting our shelter.

Sixty seconds until impact. Brace yourselves.

When the kid heard the announcement, he heaved a quiet sob, and his tears soaked through my shirt.

~

I set my boy into bed, and pulled the sheets up to his neck. His chest rose and fell with deep, slow breaths, and I felt like I could watch it forever. A shadow blocked the light of the doorway.

“I don’t want to go,” I told her.

“He’ll be here in the morning, love,” she replied. “We all will. You’re home now, nothing’s going to change that.” She took my hand and walked me up to the balcony, a small pavilion attached to the master bedroom with a view of forest and the night sky. “I know you’ve been through a lot. But look.” She pointed up to the sky: a deep blue sea littered with stars. When he’d ask, I’d tell my son that we lived inside a glass sphere, and the stars were portals to the other side, so astronauts could visit the moon. Nothing could break through the sphere, not even a thousand impacts. She continued: “See? No red. You’re safe. We’re safe.” I let out a relieved laugh. For the first time in countless years, I felt like I could breathe.

“Two apocalypses can do that to a man,” I replied, and pulled her tight to my side. A point of light streaked across the sky, but it didn’t frighten me the way it once had. Staring into the night sky, I decided that my favourite colour was blue.

~

My companion and I broke our embrace and turned to face the window. The red outside began to rapidly brighten, a familiar phenomenon, if not threatening regardless. His cheeks were stained and swollen under the eyes, and the brighter the light from our window got the faster and heavier he breathed. I gave his shoulder a squeeze, and reached into my shirt, pulling out the golden heart-shaped locket. With my thumb’s nail, I managed to pry it open, and looked at the faded picture of my wife, cradling my infant son in his soon-to-be-favourite baby blue blanket.

“How are you so calm right now?” The kid asked me.

“Do you want the truth?” He nodded. I wasn’t sure if being honest was the right call, but I didn’t exactly have much time to agonize over it, so I went ahead.

“When shit gets heavy, like right now, I like to imagine returning home after all this. I see my wife, she makes fun of me a bit, hits me way too hard. We go inside and my son’s there, even my parents, and the in-laws. They don’t cheer, or have a surprise party planned, we just sit together and talk. Then, when everyone’s asleep, my wife and I sneak up to the roof, and I look out at the clear night sky, and know everything’s going to be alright. That’s how I see it going, at least.” He looks at me, and I can’t quite make out what emotion he’s conveying. Pity, maybe.

“I’m sorry, but I thought you lost your wife and son in the first event?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I did.”

“So, what is it, some sort of afterlife?” He pressed himself flat against the wall of the bunker and squeezed his eyes shut as he spoke. He gripped the safety rails so tight, his knuckles turned white.

Fifteen seconds to impact.

“I don’t really know what it is.”

“So, it’s not real?”

Ten seconds to impact.

“I guess not. But it makes me feel better.”

The red creeps in through the window, spilling over the pictures in my locket.

Five seconds to impact.

I did not brace myself. As the curtains closed, I took one final bow, and smiled as the sky fell.