The End Of The World

  “Please don’t do it. At least not on that side.” His voice shocked her against the half silence of the rooftop, splitting through the white noise of the traffic far below. She hadn't seen him sitting on the opposite edge of the roof, as still as the statutes guarding each corner. “Are you here to jump? Because if you are, I’d say this side is much better. The view is a lot nicer.” She had been standing on the concrete lip of the roof for a while now, watching the ant cars crawl. He’d come to the roof first and since she bursted through the door he’d been watching her readjust the plaid shirt and black leggings she wore and occasionally put her burnet hair behind her ear, only to pull it back out again. She stepped down from the ledge after a small stint of unbalance, and turned to look at the stranger. 

         “You won’t stop me from jumping.” She said, her voice a squiggle, as she wrapped her arms around herself, pretending to be defiant when really it was just quite cold so high in the sky.

          “No, really. The view over here is much better. You can see Central Park.” He said in a matter of fact, entirely ignoring her protest facade and turning to admire the view he praised. He swung his legs over the edge to face the city.

           “Who are you?” She asked after another half silence.

           “Name’s Cally. But that’s not ‘who I am’ per se. Come over, I wasn’t lying about the view.” From so far away she couldn’t see the ground in front of the building, where the park was. She stepped forward a few steps, cautiously. This man was a stranger and she was alone on the roof with him. She blamed the shaking in her spine and her tremoring hands on that fact and not the ledge. In an attempt to make him less of a stranger she studied him for a moment. She found he was wearing a cheap gray hoodie with a few stains and tattered sleeves, what seemed to be new blue jeans, and he had short, platinum blonde hair. “I don’t bite, promise.” He told her without moving. She walked a few steps more, with steadier hands, until she was within arms reach of the ledge. “See, I’m right. This view is a much better way to go.”

          “Aren’t you supposed to convince me not to jump? I thought you were one of those people who just waits on roof tops, trying to ‘save’ jumpers, but you're really bad at it.” If he had looked at her, he’d see she was again acting tough but her hands were shaking, crossed against her chest.

          “Do people really do that?”

          “Yeah. But if you're not one of those people then why are you here?”

          “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the whole story, so I’ll just say that I like the fresh air. And of course, the view.”

          “What is it with you and views?”

          “I don’t really know. I’ve always loved marvelling at things, but I never really liked art. I prefer to look at cities. They are so crazy, these things took thousands of people to build, over centuries. That’s why I love to travel.”

           “So, what? You just go around to major cities and sit on rooftops? You sound like a jumper stopper.” She laughed a little. He was becoming less of a stranger to her.

           “I have come across some people like you in the past, and most of them I did convince to come down. But I see no reason to do that with you.”

           “Why not?”

           “Again, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

           “Try me.” She swung one lung over the edge, sitting on the lip like a saddle, facing him. Still she squeezed her legs tight against the concrete and secured her hands for balance.

          “This is going to sound silly, but I have it on good authority that the world will end today, in…” he paused and checked his watch, “ eleven minutes and 34 seconds.”

          “Really. The worlds just gonna… end? How?”

          “I can’t tell you how, it would ruin the surprise.”

          “Then how am I supposed to trust you?”

          “You can’t, and that’s the beauty of it. The world will still end whether you believe me or not. If there was more time on the clock I’d tell you to go home and be with your family, but there’s really no point in that. Especially seeing as you were trying to leave your life anyway.” He said as he stretched his arms behind his head and yawned.

          “That’s why you're not trying to stop me from jumping? Because I’ll die either way?” 

          “Yes, so it really doesn’t matter. But you won’t jump after what I’ve told you. Humans are terribly curious beings, so you’ll wait for another,” he checked his watch again, “ten minutes to see if I’m telling the truth. And when you find that I am telling the truth, it’ll be too late and your life will be taken from you by force rather than by choice.” 

         They watched the traffic move for a moment.

          “Huh. You’re right. I am going to wait until your doomsday timer ends but I don’t think I’ll die when it does”

          “That’s fine by me, you're entitled to your opinion.”

          “But I have a question. If the world is going to end and you know about it, then why would you come here instead of being with your family? Did you only find out the world was going to end like an hour ago?”

          “No, no, no, I’ve known for ages. Three years to be exact. Around the same time I got these.” He lifted his wrists to her to show scars crossing like tally lines. “And you're right, once I found out I spent a lot of time with my family. Then I went and explored the world for a year and a half, knocked everything off my bucket list, and finally came home again. I’ve spent the last six months being inseparable from my family, but I didn’t feel like being with them today.”

          “Why?”

          “I never told them about it, so my mom is making pasta for dinner right now. I told her I’d be home by five.”

          “Well don’t you want to say goodbye?”

          “Goodbyes are something people who are leaving say to people who are staying, and vice versa. But that’s not what's happening here, here everyone’s leaving. That means that there’s no one to mourn, and no one to miss. I’d find it sad if I hadn’t learned better.”

          “Why do you not think that’s sad? Of course everyone in the world dying would be sad! Or at least it would be sad if it were true.”

          “Why? Why is it sad? It’s not our fault. It’s not something we could have or can prevent. Once it happens there will be no one left to grieve everything lost. It seems sad at first glance but if you look a lot closer you’ll find this just another arbitrary event. Like a raindrop hitting a cat or rolling a six on a die.” She opened her mouth to rebuttal, but instead shut it and looked toward the park, eyebrows furrowed. She sat silently pondering. Slowly the thought faded from her face and she was simply enjoying the view. She finally swung her other leg over the ledge. They both sat in quiet, contemplative silence. After a while had passed, Cally finally broke the half silence like he had so long before.

          “I’ve just realized you never gave me your name.”

          “What does it matter? Apparently I’m going to die, so what difference does it make?” She said, poking fun at his prophecy.

          “I know you’re only joking but, see, that’s why I never told anyone! That thinking right there. If everyone knew the world was ending, and they truly believed it, then the world would end much sooner. People would stop going to work, production of things would stop, the world would stop turning.” He stopped looking at the view and turned to face her for the first time. Their eyes finally met. She surprised by the vibrant green of his eyes. “But, even if I’ll only know you for a few more minutes, I want to know what your name is because you're a person I just met, and I would love to become your friend. I can’t do that without knowing your name can I?” He stared at her with a warm smile, the kind of smile that disarms even the most rotten hearted, and shines like the sun beaming against your face. 

          “My name’s Becky. Nice to meet you.” 

          “Becky! What a lovely name! I'd love to go to lunch with you sometime next week if you don’t mind? I know an amazing sandwich place.” They both returned to admiring the view.

          “I love sandwiches.” She said quietly.

          “...Hey, Becky, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you here in the first place?”

         She looked down at the ground below as if she might melt and drip down the brick siding. “I was here to jump, I thought that was obvious.”

          “Well yes, of course you were here to jump. People don’t admire the view while standing near the edge and staring straight down. You know what I am asking. You truly don’t have to answer if you don’t want to but we still have,” He once again checked his watch, “ 4 and a half minutes to kill.”

         He waited for her to answer, confident that she would. She waited to make sure she would not melt, and after a few solid minutes she decided that the world would end in four minutes anyways. 

          “I don’t even know. I lost my dad a few months ago. It was… sudden. Even since he’s been gone all I’ve wanted to do is talk to him again, even just for a second. And while I was failing to pull myself through all that I was missing too many days at work and now I don’t even have a job. And you know, a million other things, bad relationships, terrible friends. It’s all just a lot. But honestly, through it all I was just living for my mom. She doesn’t deserve to lose two people she loves. But…” She thought for a moment. “I just found out this morning that I might lose her too.”

          He waited for her to finish whatever thought she seemed to be grappling with.

          “Don’t you want to live just so you can be with her longer? That seems more logical.” He asked.

          “It will cost a fortune to treat her, and even though I don’t have much, everything I have would go to her if I die. Plus, I’m not able to help her so what’s the difference? All my life all I’ve been is an unwanted nuisance to other people, this is no different. She’d be better off without me. And I just...don’t think I can go through that again. I can’t start this whole process over when I haven’t even accepted my dad’s death. A part of me thinks I should wait for her with him, so we can all be together.”

          “You know, none of that is true. Everything you’ve just said are lies you told yourself to cover up the fact that you're scared of losing your mum. I know it hurts, I know it feels like the world is falling apart, or even like the world is going to end, but I promise you it will hurt a lot more if you push her away rather than being with her. She’s going through all of this too, and she needs your help. I know you are already going through grief, but she is the only person in the whole world who can make that grief a little bit easier.” He was staring at her with the same sun ray smile when she looked back at him. It felt nice on her cheeks against the cold tears running down. “Sorry. I got carried away there. I promise I’m not a jumper stopper.” He offered his hand out for her to hold. She felt the warmth of his hands matched his smile. He felt the dampness of her hands where she had wiped her face. 

          “I think I’ve just been waiting for someone to tell me that. I don’t think I ever had the courage to go through with it in the first place.”

         He squeezed her hand and said, “It takes much more courage not to.”

         “Well... If the world doesn’t end in...” she looked at him and he glanced at his watch.

          “13 seconds.”

          “In 13 seconds, then I’ll go back home to my mom. I’ve been selfish, I can’t leave her. And on an unrelated note, you are definitely a jumper stopper.” They both laughed a little, trying to be sensitive and trying to change.

          “Hey, you said you like sandwiches right? What kind of sandwich do you like best?”