How Apocalypses Start (Why I Can't Mend My Heart)

Content warning: This story has themes of physical violence and suicide or self-harm. Reader discretion is advised.

At the end of the world, there was you and me. 

We met at the end of each other’s guns. I haven’t seen or felt any other person for months. A lone wanderer. The last of the human race turns out to be a banker. Which is funny, don't you think? I thought I was sick, already hallucinating everything. I thought that somehow, the same fog that took everyone and everything away from me has settled deep in my guts already. That I was walking around in purgatory. But September came and changed all of that. Because of you.

If I close my eyes hard enough, the imprint of your face, your smile will sear the edges of my cornea. You’re alive. We’re alive. Isn’t that what you told me, clutching at me, desperately happy to see a stranger? I was in shock, at a standstill. But you? My god, you were alive. With life, with spirit. We both survived the same apocalypse, but what it took from me, it gave to you. Hope. It tastes like contraband marshmallows and the secondhand smoke from our fire. It feels like summer rain and jumpstarting abandoned cars. It sounds like how you whispered my name in the dead of the night. 

Hope looks like you, Agatha. 

And I open them again, and all I could see was the world's broad, vast emptiness. Quiet, empty silence. Without you in it. I could no longer stand the silence now that I heard your voice. Maybe that’s why I find myself in this position, with hesitation coloring my vision as my gun is pointed directly at the door. 

Like tonight, they came in the night. Unlike tonight, we were caught off guard. There wasn’t a scientific brain cell between the two of us. I can make sense of numbers without a calculator, and you could bake a pie. What power did we have to understand the horde of decaying undead masses? We did the best we could - we shot them. torched them, barbequed them - if we could’ve served them on a silver plate and sent them back to hell, we would’ve. Unfortunately, the thing about being undead is that they’re just going to keep coming back.

We started our final night talking about our past lives. You mentioned before that you liked watching movies. I never had the time. I wish we found an empty cinema and watched everything - from silly westerns and superheroes to art house films we wouldn’t understand. I would’ve watched anything, really. I would’ve been too busy watching you instead. But death found us that night. And now, he has come for me as well.

I can hear them screaming from behind the door. But I’d rather talk about you.

You wanted to open up a corner cafe. I didn’t tell you at the time, but I thought it was stupid. But what do I know? All I ever did was make money. You at least dared to chase after what you wanted. But I don’t really know why you wanted to open the cafe. We were rudely interrupted then. I don’t know if you wanted to be famous, or if you just wanted to bake. I’d like to think we would’ve met even then in that life. I would be more annoyed and snap my order because my eyes are glued to my phone’s screen. When you inevitably ask whether it’s cash or card, that’s the only time I’ll look up. And it would’ve been enough. You have the prettiest eyes I have ever seen. I wonder if you would feel the same. But I am going to see you soon anyway. All I have to do then is ask. 

It’s hard to imagine anything now without you, but it’s still entirely possible, isn’t it? I suppose, between the two of us, there's a life we haven’t lived. People we should’ve met, places we could’ve gone to. I wanted to go to Greece, the sprawling white city with tourists stuffed in every crevice. I had a picture of Santorini in my office, like a year-end goal. There wasn’t any real reason behind it. Santorini, Prague, Seoul, it doesn’t matter. I could’ve picked any picture up because it looked pretty. My entire life is just like that. Just running towards something I thought I needed. Running mindlessly. So afraid - of everything, of losing money, of losing. Why did I care so much about money? What do I know about losing, really? I shouldn’t have cared about all that. I should’ve devoted my time to watching survival videos on Youtube. That would’ve been more useful than worrying about how to work up to queen bee of the goddamned bank.

But now that money’s just funky-smelling paper, I guess that part of my life was useless. I’d be sleeping on my Egyptian cotton sheets and sipping red wine tonight rather than getting ready to die, but I’d rather choose zombies and cooked ducks than a life without you. That’s kind of romantic, right? 

I want to clear something up with you. Agatha. It’s very unlucky to have been standing where you stood, but the thing is - I was standing there first. I am alive because you pushed me. I am dead because I thought you would survive. I knew from that night on, that my days were counted. The earth spun along her revolution around the sun knowing that finally, the parasites that lived on her surface will soon be extinct. I know you told me not to give up, not to look. But I can’t, Agatha. My heart beats only for you. And even now, with the same gun from that miraculous night we met inside my mouth, I could taste you. It’s always been you. 

I close my eyes and smile. You told me that you’d save a piece of heaven for me. I’m taking that as a promise. The door bursts open, but you’re everything I see. I can’t wait to taste your smile again. 

I pull the trigger and the world trembles.