That Time We Didn't Save The World

"It's not like you get to choose which apocalypse you're confronted with," David said with that arrogant know-it-all tone of his.

"You ended your sentence with a preposition," Cora replied without trying to conceal her smirk. She knew this would nettle him.

It did. David's eyes narrowed. He was never good at hiding his frustration. "Oh, is grammar what we need to be concentrating on right now?"

He was, of course, referring to the impending doom the two of them were ignoring in favor of having petty verbal battles with each other.

"If not now, when?" Cora knew this question wasn't going to help their current situation, but she just couldn't help herself.

David refused to admit when he was wrong. At one point in their relationship she found it attractive. He was a strong personality that had conviction and knew what he wanted.

But now, she only found herself bitterly combing through old examples of this behavior in her mind. One moment stuck out. It was the time they were lost on a cross-country road trip, miles off course, and ended up having to sleep in their car. This memory felt very similar to the predicament they found themselves in now.

Just then, a corner of the room dissolved into nothingness. This snapped Cora and David back to the problem at hand.

***************

Cora's pencil stabbed several holes through the orange construction paper. The stabbing was cathartic. In her mind she tried not to give in to the intrusive thoughts about how nice it would feel to stab David. Maybe then he would finally understand the point he was so stubbornly refusing to accept.

The pencil tip broke. Cora let out a groan and threw the pencil across the room. Her frustration amused David. This brought about a brief moment of self-reflection for him. Perhaps, if they didn't find such amusement in the other's aggravation their relationship might have lasted.

He shook this notion off. It didn't matter now. They were broken up and the world was ending.

"So these holes just appear or is there a giant pencil poking these holes in reality?" David asked with some unnecessary snark.

Cora rolled her eyes and tried to maintain her composure, "Listen, David. I need you to take this seriously. Trust me, if you didn't have the other piece to this puzzle, we never would have spoken again, but here we are."

David was surprised at how much this hurt. The amusement drained out of him. Did she really not want to talk to him ever again? Not even as friends? An accidental butt-dial years from now because they hadn't erased each other's contact info?

Now he wondered if he was in her phone or not.

Cora recognized the change in emotion on David's face and immediately launched into damage control. She could not lose him. Not now.

"David. These are holes being poked in reality. The construction paper..."

"The construction paper represents the fabric of Space and Time. I get it," he said interrupting her.

"Please don't cut me off. You know how I don't like being interrupted."

David's rolled his eyes.

***************

"That's a little too close for comfort," Cora said as she backed away from the hole of nothingness hanging ominously in the room like a dubious piece of modern art.

"I didn't see a pencil," David mumbled.

"Oh, shut up."

"What happens if you touch it?"

"You can't touch nothing."

"Why do you have to correct everything I do!?"

"Why can't you admit when you're wrong?"

"All I did was ask a question!"

"All I did was answer it!"

They both abruptly stopped talking, each taking a moment to fume and cool off. Cora spoke first. "We were given these tools. We were placed here. We've been waiting for that thing to show up. And, now that it's here..."

David cut her off, "And now that it's here let's just take care of it so you can go back to never talking to me again."

"I've told you before I don't like being interrupted."

"Were you seriously never going to talk to me again?"

"David, the world is depending on us. We can talk about this after..."

David interrupted yet again, "We can talk about this now."

"Or what? You'll hold the entire world hostage because I cut you out of my life?" She regretted these words as soon as she finished saying them. As much as she wanted to believe David wasn't that petty, there was no way of knowing for sure.

For a second it looked like David was about to storm out. Instead, he marched over to the hole of nothingness and reached for it.

***************

The alien looked like a hipster. That's really the only way Cora could describe him ... It?

"You have been chosen," the alien said in the same friendly tone baristas use when they ask for your name in order to write it on the side of your coffee cup.

"It is a great honor to be chosen," Cora responded, not believing a word that was coming out of her mouth. She was just doing as she was told.

One week prior to meeting the hipster alien she was approached by a representative of some unnamed government agency. This agency knew about the alien race, and had been in contact with them. They also knew about the oncoming world-ending holes of nothingness. The representative they sent was a small chain-smoking woman with frizzy hair and an attitude.

"Why me?" Cora had asked.

"It's not just you. These holes will be cropping up all over the world. There will be multiple pairs in every country on Earth," the woman responded flatly, "So it'll save me and everyone some time if you dispense with the self-pitying questions and simply do as instructed."

"Holy shit," Cora muttered to herself. Then to the frizzy haired woman she said, "I'll be ready."

"Let's go over your instructions again. Before I leave I need to be one hundred percent certain that you understand what's going on and what you'll need to do."

And, they went over how the meeting with the hipster alien would unfold. That is, everything the unnamed government agency could anticipate.

"Your piece of the machine is here," the hipster alien said producing a handheld metal casing. From the back of the metal casing a white cord about two feet long extended. The metal was a brushed silver. The machine whirred and quieted at intervals Cora didn't understand.

She reached out and took the machine from the hipster alien's hand, careful not to touch the skin of the alien. The metal was cool to the touch, and she could feel the machine vibrate when it whirred.

"It will be up to you and your partner to use your machines in tandem in order to eradicate the Punch." Punch is how the aliens referred to the world-ending holes.

"We will not fail." Cora said. This was another practiced line. She had so many questions. Why can't both machines be operated by one person? Why were the aliens picking these people? Why save Earth? Something didn't add up.

"Your partner will be along soon," the hipster alien said, "Be sure to explain everything to them."

This surprised Cora and she went off script. As far as she knew everyone was being visited by a government envoy and an alien, in that order. "Wait, what? But I thought you were going to explain everything to them? How will they know how to use the machine?"

The hipster alien smiled, "You will know."

And with half a wave, the alien was gone. Ten minutes later David arrived.

***************

"David don't!" Cora shouted. But it was too late.

In that instant, Cora imagined all the other couples and partners across the world that had been selected for this very task. She wondered how they were doing. Were they succeeding? Failing? Arguing? Questions she had no way of answering.

David's hand went into the Punch and a loud snap cracked and echoed in the room.

Cora's ears were ringing. From what she could see it looked like David's hand fell apart like puzzle pieces. Nothing landed on the floor, but his hand was definitely gone. His arm had no end. There wasn't a stump like an amputee, it just somehow ended.

David looked at Cora as if to say I'm sorry, I was wrong, but he didn't. The Punch began to expand. Cora fumbled for the machine and everything went blank.

When she woke up, she was in a nondescript room. The room had no windows and no doors, but other than that it resembled a hotel room. She explored it with her eyes before getting up to knock on surfaces and attempt an exit.

She made herself hoarse screaming escalated hellos, to which nobody answered.

The quiet disturbed her until it was interrupted by a whirring. This disturbed her more. The lights flickered. As soon as they did it occurred to Cora that the whirring must be coming from a generator. Eventually the generator stopped and it was silent again. It then occurred to Cora where else she experienced the pattern of whirring and silence. All she could mutter was a defeated, "Oh."

She slumped down on the bed. Her mind once again filled with questions to which no one would ever answer.