“What the fuck do you mean the world is ending?”
I stare at my mom and dad across the kitchen table, who I should really now call Doom and Gloom given the circumstances. Doom tightens her hold on her coffee cup, a cute white mug decorated with black kittens in various human clothing. The fact that she didn’t reprimand my language really shows how grave the situation was. “I don’t even know how to properly explain this. It’s like when you skip a pebble, but this is in space, and,” A breathy laugh, “I know this sounds ridiculous, but-”
“No, what’s ridiculous is that you’ve both let me think I was crazy. Like I couldn’t remember how our society worked or something.” The sad thing is, after the past two weeks, the world ending sounds anything but ridiculous. My brain has been jockeying between panic and relief ever since they both eerily sat down with me at breakfast five minutes ago. At least now all this shit I’ve been seeing makes sense. I repress a shudder as I remember the position I saw Mrs. Tatum in last week. Yes, relieved indeed.
“Right, and I am so sorry for that darling.” She flexes her fingers around her mug, placing her pinky finger around the neck of a cat wearing a bomber jacket. “But, we were in a very unique situation.”
“I’ve been back for two weeks. Don’t you think there were plenty of times you could-should have mentioned this?” The weird occurrences over the past fourteen days shuffle through my mind like a deck of cards, each seemingly stranger than the last. I look at Gloom, who hasn’t stopped wearing the expression of his namesake since we sat down. “Dad, you too. You’re the worst at keeping things to yourself.” He was the one who told me the tooth fairy, Easter bunny, Santa Clause, and Valentina (the Valentine’s day angel my mom thought was okay to make up) weren’t real at ages 6, 7, 9, and 11 respectively. The only reason Valentina lasted so long was because “Valentina” always left a heart shaped, red velvet cake in the refrigerator the morning of Valentine’s Day. And guess whose favorite cake that is? “Now the world is ending, and suddenly, you can keep a secret of this magnitude?”
Gloom takes a morose sip from his mug, “World’s Best Dad” stamped in large orange letters. I gave him that as a gift for Father’s day when I was in kindergarten. This was obviously before he ruined the magic of my childhood.
“There is no good way to shape this. You had such an ordeal,” Doom’s voice cracks, but with a deep breath she shoulders on. “We didn’t know how to tell you. Or if.”
It’s hard to look at my mom’s eyes, pacific blue identical to my own, bright with unshed tears. I look over her shoulder out the window, at the sun shining through the panes, the branches of my favorite oak tree swaying in the light breeze. I almost refuse to believe this. Almost. “How did I miss this? I obsessively watched the news every day in recovery.” I hated missing a single homework assignment in school, and then I end up missing two months- of my Iife. The news helped me catch up. Or so I thought.
“Hospital television is one of the connections that is censored. With the sick individuals, especially the children that are there, the government voted that this was the best course of action. Of course, all television is censored across the states, however those over eighteen can gain access. Same for anything online.”
Being twenty- shit no, twenty-one, I should have had access. I remember right before the retina scans for your cell phone came out. I can only imagine what it takes to unlock this information.
I stare down at my lap, my thighs still atrophied from the time spent lying in a hospital bed. “Okay, keep going. Back to the pebble.” Even though I feel like I narrowly dodged one death sentence before being shoved unavoidably at another, I needed to hear this.
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