The Waning Sun

“Oh, how the years go by.” 

Only the echo of that rough southern voice was caught out in open land like this. Land arid by heat and miles and miles of nothing. “I remember there used to be grass here, more alive than either one of us.” The man speaking kicked a rock across the parking lot of a rusted gas station, a relic of the past, it could do nothing but be useful for scavenging for fuel now. “Will you keep it down? Pull up your scarf.” The man leaned down into the barely kept-together car they had stolen not too many miles down the road. “What for? Ain’t nobody but you and me around here.” Silus retorted. The paint on the red Toyota they nabbed was falling off, chipping to the ground in flakes, and as this bigger man set his weight on it, it squeaked on its wheels, the noise something awful. “Silus!” they exclaimed and he was hanging halfway out the window. “Can you focus?” Silus rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah..” he muttered standing back up and looking tirelessly at the gas can being slowly filled with gas from the pump. 

“I’m serious though.” Silus managed to pull his bandana back on his face. “Ox, I really am. You don’t remember running in the grass? Or those days it used to rain and you’d be happy because it wouldn’t be hot for once?” Ox sighed leaning into the leather of the passenger seat of the car. “I suppose I do remember. What I wouldn’t give for some rain.” Silus laughed, “Amen partner. Amen.” They sat there for a few moments in nothing but completely silent. There weren’t any trees 

To rustle or grass to sway. No birds to sing and rarely any cars to pass by and offer a short-lived breeze and you could watch as its light wound into the night. 

These two hadn’t seen it be the night for quite some time now. “What comes after this?” Ox said silently. The question lingered between the two. Silus, of course, didn’t have the answer Ox wanted yet had felt his breath hitched when he knew the answer. “Nothing I reckon. Nothing at all.” His bandana had fallen again. “Enough with all that crisis and whatnot. We aren’t getting anything else out of this anyway.” Silus dropped the pump and as it made a loud noise of metal scraping on metal he walked to the trunk and popped it open. “Keep it down out there!” Ox shouted from inside the car. Silus rolled his eyes as he placed the gas can in the trunk and hopped into the driver's seat. “You’re so nervous, lighten up,” Ox grumbled something as Silus put his foot on the gas and turned back onto the two-lane road that seemed to stretch for miles. 

The ride home was always daunting to Ox, either it’d be too quiet because they didn’t know what to say or it would be loud because their mind always convinced them that someone had broken into the farm and taken the very last of their rations. They imagined Silus was always stuck in a daydream because he never treated any situation as dangerous as it was. Was he like an air-headed child or just some ignorant cowboy, Ox didn't know.

Ox turned their head toward the horizon, mesmerized by it. The sun was always there, of course, these days it never left, and that brought some sort of comfort to Ox. They sighed as they thought about how this even happened, how they got stuck surviving like this.

They used to work on a ranch and it had been their turn to put all the hay in the attic and basement of the barn. They hated doing this, the hay bales were so heavy and the wagons never seemed big enough. 

They took on a good sweat as they dragged each bale into the basement and once they were done they sat to admire their work. That’s when the sirens went off. A loud voice rang throughout the whole county and the only words Ox could gather were, “This is not a drill. This is not a drill!” The farm owner found Ox and pulled them from the barn into the bunker under his house. Ox had always been thankful that his boss was a paranoid man in case something like this happened. They stayed there for weeks, no one would tell Ox what happened because they weren’t even sure themselves, and when they finally emerged from the bunker, it was all gone. 

The cows, the crops, the trees. All of it vanished and was replaced with dry soil broken by empty lifeless veins. And as they looked to the sun they noticed it was much closer and half of it was gone.

News couldn’t explain what had happened, why so many people lived through it, why new diseases started suddenly popping up everywhere, or why everything was just gone.

People started dropping like flies. 

The memory of Ox and Silus meeting was torn into small recollections. The vivid ranch that was once breathing life was replaced by a desolate panorama and would serve as the perfect scene for a shootout. Everyone wanted to survive. Silus would rather share supplies, that were now rare, with Ox instead of just shooting them for it. Ox was thankful but had their suspicions. It had been five years since they traveled together now, so no suspicions were confirmed. 

As the years passed the sun, once this omnipresent beacon, waned, and all anyone left could do was hope that maybe when it disappeared into the void, it would come back the next day. Who knew what would happen when it was finally gone. 

Silus hit the brake before Ox even realized they were back home. “You done daydreamin?” Silus quipped and Ox groaned getting out of the car. The ranch, with its rotting wood and faded past stood tall, a testament to humanity's lively existence. As they walked toward it all either one of them could think of was the twilight and the constant need to live. All they had was this never-ending cycle of being together. Although Ox misses the way things were they couldn’t help but crack a smile as Silus nudged their shoulder. Even at the end of the world, they could laugh. That was enough for them.