Finale

I got a sun and moon tattoo on my 18th birthday, for the sole reason that I could. At the time, I thought it made me look a little bit earthy, a little bit punk. But, over the years, I stopped noticing the simple black design, an orb that is half darkened crescent moon and half luminous sunshine with wavy rays, on the inside of my left wrist, except for the times I decided to wear a watch or bracelet. Or, when someone else would ask me the significance behind it. No significance, really, just something I’ve had forever. Now, it seems like a holy relic.

18 years is half of how old I am now - I think - but now those memories from the time when the sun was shining are so hazy that I’m not sure if I’m remembering them correctly or just remembering the memory of them, like a game of telephone gone on too long. 

It baffles me that kids today know how to play telephone, but they have no idea how to use one. I’ve seen some of the children in The Home playing with old cell phones, but not in the way they were intentioned. Now, the little ones use them as stacking blocks and dominos, and the geriatrics like me keep holding on to hope that one day these rectangles will illuminate once again. We pre-sun folks like to joke that we will probably have thousands of texts and notifications to get through once the grid is up and running again, but of course we know that’s impossible. There’s no such thing as texts anymore, unless they’re printed on pages. There’s no such thing as phones. Or internet. Or TV. Or “on the grid." All of them went dark with the sun. I remember we all used to say that we couldn’t imagine how we ever got by without phones that did everything for us. Those of us still around are living proof.

Josie and Seb are technically pre-sun, but they were so little that they don’t remember a time before the dark, a time when words like “afternoon” or “midnight” meant something. My sweet Seb is still only a little boy who curls up on my lap during Commune, his cheeks pink from the fire and his body warm from the quilt I assume his mother made him. I held him close, every bit as attached to this little person as he was to me.

“What’s that, Mimi?” He was poking my wrist with his index finger.

“It’s my tattoo, love. Lots of the pre-suns have them,” I replied. I can’t recall when he started calling me Mimi, but I like to think it was some toddler amalgamation of that sacred “mama” and my real name, “Nina.” It stuck, and Josie assumed the title for me too, so now I’m their Mimi, whatever they need that to mean. 

“What’s that design?”

“It’s a drawing of the sun and the moon, as if they were one object,” I explained. “You remember how I told you there used to be lots and lots of light, and people could see everything without needing a torch, and when it was dark we could see a big, silver ball in the sky that was sometimes a little or all the way hidden?”

He nodded solemnly. 

“That’s what it was like pre-sun. And I got this tattoo before anyone ever knew what was going to happen. At the next Glimmer, if it’s bright enough, I’ll show you how the sun has rays."

“Mimi, what happened? I forgot.” He scrunched up his face and looked like he was trying very hard to remember a time before the sun faded, or at least, to imagine what it would have been like to see light so bright you needed to shield your eyes, to feel a heat so intense it could burn your skin.

“It was a solar flare! That’s what Teacher calls it. Right, Mimi?” Josie, half a head taller than her brother and always listening, had slid over to me and rested her head on my shoulder. I imagined what she would have looked like if the world was still light. If she had been allowed to grow out her tight black curls or choose her own clothes. A heartbreaker, for sure. But, she wouldn’t be mine, nor would Seb. I might not have been their mother, but they were my babies.

"Yes, my girl. It was a solar flare. The sky lit up brighter than it had ever been, and lots of things caught fire. And then, everything that used to work, like phones and cars and lightbulbs, they just stopped. People spent their whole lives, well, humanity spent its entire life, building up the world, trying to own it. Then, one day, the world took back what was rightfully Hers. People were...very scared. But then I found you and we found The Home." I didn't want to continue. They knew what happened. If they didn't understand, then they would have asked where their mother was.

I reached into my coat and pulled out the jerky I had been saving, wrapped in a Hanes t-shirt I assume was once white. I broke it in half and handed a piece to each of them, who ate it heartily. I didn’t care about the phones or even the electricity anymore. I just wanted to eat a goddamn plant again. I would have given my big toe for a fucking salad. After they finished, Seb fell asleep in my arms and Josie’s eyelids looked heavy. 

“Come on, love. We can sleep out here. The fire is healthy and they can see us from The Home.” Josie smiled a little and helped me arrange the quilt over the three of us on the ground. The bed would have been more comfortable, but I couldn't carry both drowsy children at once. And still, after all this time, I couldn’t quite get used to seeing the heavens so intimately. The sky view might be the only thing my babies will ever take for granted in this life, but when I close my eyes I can still see a time when stars were eclipsed by city lights. This view, these stars like raindrops suspended mid-drop, and the absolute black in between them, could still take my breath away. 

I couldn’t sleep. Seb on my right side was dreaming and wiggling around, and Josie on my left was snoring. I could sleep any time, really. When the sun goes dark, there really is no reason to sleep at night and wake in the day, since there isn’t much of a night or a day. I started singing softly to myself, to pass the time. 

"I saw it written and I saw it say

Pink moon is on its way

And none of you stand so tall

Pink moon gonna get ye all

And it’s a pink moon

Hey it’s a pink moon

Pink, pink, pink…"

And then I saw it. For a moment, my heart leapt with joy at being able to wake the children to show them that a Glimmer was coming. Who knows for how long or how bright, but I saw the flash and ripple that meant light would be coming soon. In about eight minutes, actually. I carefully reached into Josie’s pocket for the binoculars she kept close, then gently roused her from slumber. 

I whispered, “Josie! I saw a flash! I think a Glimmer is coming!”

She was not interested, or at least, she was too gripped by sleep to reply. She turned onto her side and resumed snoring. I brought the binoculars, now scratched and dust clinging to the rims, up to my eyes to find the precise location of the Glimmer from the dying sun, now fighting its demise, to give us one more of its remaining flickers of the glorious, raging, enormous star it used to be. I waited and watched. Nothing yet. I waited more. It had to have been almost eight minutes, but nothing. Perhaps I’m sleep-deprived. Perhaps I imagined it. Perhaps I’m asleep. Perhaps I’m hallucinating. 

If I’m hallucinating, then the ray of light that just caught the corner of my eye isn’t real. I looked through the binoculars to be sure it was something real before trying to wake the children again. I fixed the lenses on the moving object that was probably just a shooting star. We’ve seen them before, we’ll see them again. Nothing Josie and Seb haven’t seen time and time again either. But still, I wanted to see it fly. And I wanted to see it fall.

I looked again. The star seemed a little larger than it did a moment ago. Or did it? No, it definitely did. And it’s brighter, too. 

And then, it happened quickly. The ball came closer, flew over our bodies. It was brighter than any Glimmer I’d seen, and then it was too bright. As I sat up and watched its trajectory speed past the horizon, I listened through the deadly quiet for any screams or animal’s cries to confirm that I had not been the only living soul to see the object that fell out of the sky. 

In an instant, the ground shook violently, and for only a moment I was transported to the last time I rode an airplane, with the turbulence so intense that my seatmates were crying, praying, vomiting, screaming. I thought I was going to die that day, even though I knew the danger was an illusion. I was safely off the ground and in the air, a capable pilot calmly finding a smoother altitude, and half an hour later we had landed on solid ground. But there was nowhere to escape on Earth. We could not fly away. We could not evacuate to the nearest exit. We were trapped on this rock, staring at the abyss which could have been our salvation and now was our greatest predator. 

Josie and Seb were sobbing and clinging to me. I don’t recall them waking up. I turned back to look at The House and instead found a colossal pile of rubble. I grabbed Seb under my arm and Josie by the hand. Strength in numbers, always. Look for survivors, and quickly. The ground was still shaking. Trees were snapping like kitchen matches. 

“Josie, I need you to be my big girl and help me look for Housemates. Can you do that? Josie? JOSIE??!!” She wasn’t hearing me. She could barely stand.

“Josie. Stay with Seb. Hold his hand and don’t let him out of your sight. Now!” I grabbed her hand and forced it to close over her brother’s, then moved them both further away from the fallen House, away from trees that could snap. Suddenly, I saw Josie’s and Seb’s eyes double in size. I turned around and saw a wall in the darkness. The House was gone, and this wall was larger than The House was. And it was moving.

It seemed to happen in slow motion, despite running as fast as we could on the shaking ground. The children were screaming for me but I couldn’t hear them. The wall had crashed and was creeping towards us, ready to sweep us away like a footprint on the rising tide. The water was colder than cold. The heat had been turned off a decade before. But, I didn’t feel the cold. All I could feel were the tiny hands in mine. I tried to yell, to tell them to kick with all their might, to swim as far and as fast as they could, but the surface of the water overtook me. I fought, until I couldn't.

The water calmed, and all was quiet. I could not cry for them knowing the embrace of the heavens was stronger than mine could ever be. My right hand was now empty. And my left. The children were gone but the sun and moon remained etched on my skin. I touched the tattoo with my index finger, and for a moment, I smiled remembering the sun, and the moon, before the water, the heavens, the earth, won its final battle.