16 days
Thats all it takes.
One thing the tv shows get wrong about the downfall of civilization , is just how boring it could be at times. Unless you’re some kind of hero, you spend most of your time sitting. Unfortunately for me I had just got home from college when the world decided to end, so I got to spend the apocalypse with my parents. I’m not really sure what triggered the end, but it sure was loud.
We sat watching the news in the living room. Or rather we sat in the living room while the news was on. My mom always liked to have it on. “You never know what’s going to happen” she would say. She’s always been a little paranoid. We sat and talked about something or another, it feels like a forever ago, I hardly remember what it was. I do remember what happened next. There was a loud bang, and then silence.
Absolute silence. The TV went out. The familiar hum of all the appliances went dead. The world outside seemed to stop, and then the gunshots.
A more curious person may have checked it out but my dad was not the curious type. My Dad’s ex- military instincts kicked in and before my mom or I had reacted he was back from the garage with two hammers and a bucket of nails. Yes, a bucket. Anytime he took nails out of something, from bedframes to swing sets. he would put the old nails in a bucket. “In case we need it” he had said. In 15 years we had never needed it, which made us wonder why he still did it. But in this moment, boy were we glad he did . He returned once more with a few wooden boards.
“Start with the windows, the doors will hold for now” he said to the room and that’s how the first few hours of the end were spent. My dad dragging planks of wood from the garage and my mom and I nailing them to the walls.
If I had had my druthers I might have checked the blinds to see what was happening outside but by the time I had even thought about it there were planks covering them.
We sat in candlelight. After boarding up the windows, very little natural light filtered through the wood. We just sat. What else was there to do. We couldn’t talk. What was there to talk about. The mundane things that bothered us before, weren’t worth thinking about anymore, let alone speaking.
That was Day One. Silence. Even the gunshots ceased there barking, and all that remained was silence.
By Day Four we realized that we couldn’t keep going without talking about what happened, so we did.
“We don’t know what has happened, but let’s assume that we will be in this house for a little while, which means we need food” , Dad said, he walked to the kitchen, turning the faucet. Water came out. ” The water works for now, start filling buckets and when there’s no buckets fill the sinks.”
He went to the garage and started grabbing buckets and pans, anything that could hold water. We filled them all the way up almost to the brim. The last thing we wanted was to spill any.
Day Four is also the day my mother began to cry. It was so soft it was barely detectable, but upon seeing her face there was no doubt.
” This war is no place for a little girl”, she had said. She had been referring to me of course, but I was not a little girl. Like I said before, I was in college,nor was there a war as far as I knew, but I didn’t correct her. I just hugged her tight, while she cried silently.
While we filled the buckets with water, Dad worked on getting the planks off the door.
We may have gone a little wild with the nails, but can you blame us, it’s the end of the world. He made sure to put them back in the bucket.
” Just in case”, the words fell almost unconsciously from his lips, “Just in case”.
When he was done , he opened the door, and what I saw was… nothing. Everything looked normal. A few things were torn through with bullets though, and as if spurred by the thought, bullets tore through the air once more, and the door was hurriedly shut and bolted. He didn’t put the planks back though.
” Tomorrow morning I go look for food”, Dad said. He went to say more but the ring of gunshots interrupted him. I wish I knew what they were shooting at.
” The war is no place for a little girl”, my mom said from where she sat, on the couch with her face in her hands.
Day Five was mostly uneventful. It was for me at least. When I woke up, my dad had left. I guess he decided to move under the cover of darkness. We worried for him but after a few hours of that, even that became boring. Instead we sat. My mother cried quietly but I could hear her through the silence. I refused to look at her face anymore. It was too painful. I looked at the ceiling.
A butterfly flapped around and around. The rustle of wings almost perceptible. He flew around the room before coming to land in the armrest of the chair. I decided then that he would be my new companion. I named him Marvin. I stuck out a finger and Marvin crawled onto my hand.
I must have fallen asleep because when I awake, My dad was walking through the door with a shopping cart full of canned goods and 2 cases of bottled water.
His shirt was covered in blood
We didn’t mention it.
On Day Eight, I noticed something weird. None of us ever spoke above a whisper anymore. It was as if silence was fragile, and breaking it could lead to harm. I noticed this because I woke up to what sounded to my ears like yelling. No not yelling, counting. I went to the garage and saw Dad with his hands in the bucket of nails, being careful not to poke himself he counted 1 by 1. I asked him why, and with no thought he replied
“Just in case”
I left him to it and went to go find Marvin. He sat on my desk. Yellow wings twinkling by sunlight. I stuck out my finger and he walked on to me and we went to the living room to sit like we always did. Everyday we sat. It was either that or lay in bed all day. Everyday Mom cried. I couldn’t remember what she looked like before the crying. I could hardly remember her face. But I wouldn’t look. I would never look.
“The war is no place for a little girl” she cried.
She must have looked at me when she said it, but I don’t know.
On Day Nine, I woke to loud banging at the door. I thought someone was knocking, but I quickly realized they were trying to break in. My Dad also came to that realization. Without hesitation he pulled out his gun opened the door and fired. He hit one and the others ran, carrying there wounded friend. I learned two things then. People had begun looting houses. We had discussed the possibility already, but seeing it in action was terrifying. The second thing I learned was, my dad has a gun. I asked him why he had a gun, but you can probably guess his answer.
“Just in case”
My mother cried a little louder after the gunshot. She was still on the couch. I wonder if she ever slept.
Marvin and I went back to the couch and sat. I let him fly around a little bit. He likes it. I watch him twinkle and flutter and then closed my eyes and fell asleep in my chair.
“The war is no place for a little girl”
When my mother was a young girl. She lived with her parents in Vietnam. At a young age she knew the cruelties of war. She had engulfed in it since birth. Her parents sent her away to the countryside. To live with her grandparents.
“The war is no place for a little girl ” they had said, as they bundled her up into the car.
They had spoke Vietnamese of course, but I don’t speak Vietnamese. My mother had smiled. If she had known this was the last time she would ever see her parents, she might not have bothered.
I tell you this so you know that what happened next, was not a malicious act, but the act of a desperate mother. I woke up on Day Ten looking into the crying face of my mom. She muttured as she cried “The war is no place for a little girl”. Even disoriented as I was it didn’t take me long to see the raised kitchen knife above her head.
I threw her off me and ran to my room, shutting and locking the door. She knocked on the door ceaselessly, not bothering to try and break it down. Her voice racked with sobs. “The war is no place for a little girl”
She hit the door with the knife a few times, and surprisingly the knife ate through the door piece by piece until there was a hole big enough to see through. She kept hacking until my dad came around the corner.
My Dad was a soldier, so when she attacked him next, he reacted quickly. Not quite quickly enough though as she slashed his leg he fell down, injured. She had fallen too from a shove , but she was back up now, knife poised to strike, and my father reacted to that too. With a bullet through her head. She fell down, and the crying finally stopped.
Through the hole cut in the door by the knife, Marvin fluttered to the living room to sit, just like we did everyday. Not noticing or caring about the things that had just happened. I joined him in the living room. Helping my dad to his feet before walking by my mother’s lifeless face. That night the crying started up again. It was my dad now.
Day Fifteen was the day I decided I needed to leave. My dad had cried for four days straight, and he was working on a fifth, but what actually bothered me was what I saw in the garage.
My Dad was in there counting the nails, like he normally does. He was no longer careful though. He plunged his hand in as if it were a bucket of water. Blood rolled down his arm and on to the floor. ” Just in case,” he muttered ” Just in case”. He saw me come in and he smiled. I don’t want to make assumptions, for all I know my dad is still alive and well, so all I’ll say is before he could move into the way I say a rope behind him. Tied off into a loop.
” Just in case”, he would say, if I asked, but I didn’t ask. I knew though that me and Marvin had to get out.
Marvin and I got up early on Day Sixteen. I could hear my Dad crying and counting in the garage. I guess he hadn’t slept. I took the shopping cart with me. I left some food and water for him and took the rest.
Outside was beautiful. Marvin flew so so high swooping and sweeping, twinkling and fluttering, feeling free from the confines of the house. We had to keep moving though. I wasn’t sure who had been shooting but I also didn’t want to know.
I found this place that I’m in now, but it’s not the best place to hide from looters. It’s Day 25 and they’ve attempted twice already. Luckily I stole my dad’s gun. It keeps them at bay
At least Marvin is happy. His beautiful yellow wings barely catching the sunlight. A beauty all but lost to the world outside. I hadn’t seen a single animal out there. Let alone a butterfly. You may ask why his name is Marvin. Marvin was the name of my college friend. The college from 25 days ago, that somehow feels like 25 years ago. Marvin was the philosophical type. “What is life?”, and crap like that. It was mostly annoying, but sometimes he asked a really good question.
One such day, we were sitting outside in the yard eating lunch, and out of nowhere he says.
“How long do you think it would take for the world to end?” , he blurts
“What?”, I said nearly choking on the food in my throat.
“Assuming the Earth doesn’t spontaneously explode, how long would it take for the world to end?”
Then I would have said, I don’t know, but now having experienced the end of the world, I could tell you
16 days, Marvin
That’s all it takes
Tyrek's Writing 