Now Playing: Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce
My breathing steadies as the frequency with which explosions can be heard intensifies. From underneath the cashier’s counter, I can vaguely make out a white-hot piece of space rock that nestled itself into the ‘Britpop’ shelf, liquifying the vinyl there into a plastic amalgamation of Blur, Pulp, and the Manic Street Preachers. Fragments of meteorite burst into the store from the newly-formed craters outside, embedding themselves into high-caliber equipment Muzant’s staff kept just behind the register. I watch in horror as vintage turntables and antiquated speakers are all indiscriminately torn to shreds by a proverbial firing squad. The comets reintroduce a cocktail of sand, cement particles, and space dust back into the record store. I begrudgingly strap on my oxygen mask, and hit shuffle on my cassette player. I just hope this meteor shower doesn’t drag on too long.
***
The second side of my cassette finishes playing. That means it has been exactly 86 minutes of constant fireballs crashing in and around the store, which I would categorize as “too long”. I think I even nodded off for all of maybe three minutes at one point, before another explosion startled me awake. So now, to keep myself occupied, I’ve started to reach around the top of the counter I’m hiding beneath, and dragging random items down as I grab hold of them. So far, I’ve secured a single cash register which, in hindsight, wasn’t the best thing to pull down while hunched over and without a visual. With my left hand (as my right is currently stuck beneath a cash register), I manage to snag a wooden ruler with which to free my hand, as well as a half-empty box of stale M&Ms.
This sucks.
For the moment I take off my respirator, the pungent stench of melting plastic hits me like a whiff of ammonia. I quickly shovel all the M&Ms into my mouth before slapping my mask back on. The candy feels like chewing drywall. I try to lean back in the small space underneath the counter, and hit the back of my head.
This sucks.
I kick the bottom of the countertop until some out-of-reach items drop down. Now I have in my possession a second box of M&Ms, a pile of ceramic shards that used to be a mug, and of actual interest to me, a leather-bound wallet. So, let’s see… driver’s license, an organ donor card; oh! Wait, never mind. An expired debit card, so no using this on any vending machines. An ID of one ‘Richard Mayes’, an IOU note about $15, an… ‘International Association of Scientologists’ patron card? The hell? And finally, a folded-up piece of paper!
I tap my feet into a drumroll and unravel the glossy square to reveal a photograph. It’s slightly faded, but I can make out Richard with his… uh, his wife? Or maybe a sister? They’re… in some sort of field – it’s a bit hard to tell. And they’re, uh, hugging in the photo, I think. It’s really quite overexposed I mean, can’t even see their faces all that clearly, so let’s be conservative with assumptions, right? You can’t even make out Richard’s expression. It’s just a bunch of opaque grain. A faceless man who I’ll remember as ‘expired debit card’ and ‘scientology patron’.
So why can’t I shake this feeling?
This impression that I’ve never had a smile as wide as this?
…
No. Being rational, people who’re smiling or having a laughing fit don’t take the time to look into a mirror and commit their grin to memory. And besides, it’s not like I have anyone around to be taking photos of me. Instead, I have a radio show – the last one on Earth, potentially. I have listeners, for sure, who tune in every day to check in and hear my voice. Anything I stumble across here is free for the taking. I have shelter, and electricity, and food, and water, and I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.
There hasn’t been any audible explosion for quite a while now. I peek out from under the counter, but even with the windows busted open, the smoke coming off of the stacks of vinyl that had been ignited make it impossible to get a good look. I figure now’s as good a time as any, and vault the countertop to get to the plastic bag of records I dropped while diving away to safety. Remarkably, they don’t even look damaged, but I’ll have to double-check later at the station.
I creak open the door, bracing for the blinding sun to flood the unilluminated store. Instead, I’m greeted by a cherry-hue sunset draping the entire dune. What was once a well-preserved collection of malls, stores, and miscellaneous office buildings has now become a derelict landscape of charred brick, broken glass, and protruding rebars. The soft red blanket of sunlight makes it hard to discern all the fires which have broken out over the last few hours. It feels a bit disheartening. I’m watching the beginning of the end for this little reprieve of mine, although being realistic, I think I should be content its lasted this long. I begin walking towards the suns-
*thump*
I trip over and land face-first in the sand. What even was that? Thump? Getting up, I already start dreading having to deal with another skeleton, but at least I don’t think I crushed anything this time. I get up, look down, and everything stops.
I make eye contact. Her eyes don’t move an inch.
My hand reflexively tries to cover my mouth. She lays completely motionless.
There is a thick, glass shell isolating her from my world.
A person.
And not a corpse.
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