By
Andy Hamilton
“Off... Off!”
She
looks ahead blankly. Silently. His orders, barked from the far corner of the
room, do not penetrate her numb shock.
“Turn
it off,” he shouts.
“What?”
she replies at last.
“Turn. The TV. Off.” His words are slow and cold. “You heard them," he continues. “We have twenty minutes, that’s it. So just turn it off.”
“But
there might be more... Something we could do... something...,” she says in a sudden flurry. “Or maybe the Russians or the Chinese might do something?”
“Nobody
is gonna to do anything. You know that. Just turn it off.”
She
looks at him for a long, silent moment, lifts herself from the couch
and walking to the large television in the corner of the room. A red box in the
corner of the screen is flashing 18.54, 18.53, 18.52… She presses the large
square button on the side of the television and holds it as fire and light
flashes across the screen. There a click, and the image shrinks slowly to a single dot,
that lingers for a moment in the centre of the screen and then dissolves.
All
is silent.
“I
can’t believe this is happening,” she says as she half-runs, half-falls back to
the couch.
“It’s
those fucking governments,” he spits, from his seat in the opposite corner.
“Those bastards. They God-dam think they’re God or something.”
“Oh stop it. Just... I don’t want to hear anymore. What does it matter anymore?”
Her
face is plunged deep into a damp cushion. He stands over her, his eyes searching the
room wildly. Looking for something… anything. The room is
filled with muffled screams.
“What
about them?” she says, nodding towards the sitting room door. “We should wake them. We
should let them know.”
“Wake
them? No. Why should we? No. That wouldn’t do any good.”
“They
deserve to know. They are part of this world. They deserve something.”
“Let them be... the deserve to be spared all of this.”
She tries to stand but he
grabs her tightly on both shoulders.
“You
want them to come to you,” he says. “You want them to put their hands around
your neck and tell you that they’re scared. You want to comfort them.”
“And
what’s wrong with that?” she shouts. “They are my children. What is wrong with
loving my own children…”
She
stands up quickly, breaking his failing grip.
“They
don’t deserve this,” he pleads. “Just let them sleep.” His hand goes to his
forehead. “Oh God,” he says. “We don’t deserve this.”
A
minute later he is lying flat on the sitting room floor, this arms outstretch,
his body formed into the shape of a crucifix. She is pacing the room.
“Water!”
she shouts, and jumps over his motionless body.
Quietness
takes him. Lying on the hard floor, staring at the whiteness of the ceiling, his mind empties. He can see brown fields and scorched mountains, grey cities with no people in them. He is the world, and the world is utterly empty.
A noise enters his dream. He
springs up suddenly, gasping for air. The bathroom, the shower, the children.
“What are you doing?” he shouts, pulling back the shower curtain. “What the fuck do you
think you’re doing?”
“Water,”
she says. She gulps down mouthfuls of the off-white liquid. “Water. If we can
get enough water, maybe we can get through this. Maybe we can…”
“We’re
not getting through this,” he says through gritted teeth.
“If
we drink enough water me might be okay. Maybe we can…”
“We’re
not getting through this. Nobody is getting through this. Do you hear me?”
She
spits out a large mouthful of water. It lands on his chest, wetting his shirt
and his trousers. She starts to cry.
They
walk slowly to the bedroom door.
“Ready?”
he asks, reaching for her hand.
“I’m
ready.”
He
pushes the door gently open. The light from the hallway revealing two tiny children, their bodies pressed snugly together, in the centre of a large double bed. They remove their wet
cloths and climb silently into the bed, one on either side of the sleeping children.
“Good
night,” she says, as she closes her eyes.
He
does not answer.
