The World is Ending
by Haley Souders
All the wet cars carry their ghosts. Storm clouds redact the sun’s climb. We think it might be snowing in the south, in September, but it’s whirling debris.
My reason for driving sits in the passenger seat, taking photos to send to her mom. Nothing will send. No calls will connect. But she demands documentation. I drive, holding the wheel tighter than anything, even her. I write a poem in my head, but it’s only fragmented panic.
The sedan ahead has a cooler strapped to its roof. The top strap whips off, the lid pops open, and a pineapple flies upward. A jar of peanut butter smacks our windshield. The storm washes the smear away so quickly I doubt it even happened.
“Should’ve bought a Yeti,” she says.
“You can pitch that ad later.” The if is useless, but implied.
The eighteen-wheelers have wakes. They toss mists that rattle our car. An Amazon truck smirks as we shudder past.
“The world is ending,” I say, and she nods.
Before, we sit by a marsh. Four miles from a NASA launchpad. She takes a photo of a heron looking for fish in unwrinkled water. National Geographic will reject this photo, but I will frame it for our living room, and we will remember the sun warming our backs.
Takeoff is loud enough to assert itself into the aftermath. When the frogs scream and the birds whip their wings, it sounds like propulsion.
I consider the stories I could write about space shuttle explosions, but it’s all too gaudy. There’s nothing gripping about hydrochloric acid killing fish or a cracked egg in a bird’s nest.
“The world is ending,” I say, and she nods.
Before, eighty degrees in October, but we tough the heat to hike to an overlook our friends described as medicinal. She tells me about Halloween as a child, jackets ruining costumes. I don’t notice the screeching bird until she grabs my arm. A blue jay descends on a vulture. We both gasp when he clips the vulture’s head.
She pitches a story where birds become territorial with humans, swooping over cars and fast-food entrances, but instead of mimicking the hawk’s call, they yell environmental taglines. The consequences spiral out, and, laughing, we exaggerate the capitalist antagonist until she says, “And the government kills all the birds for protesting.”
“The world is ending,” she says, and I nod.
About the Author:
Haley Souders holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College and an MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University. Her work has appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, The Lemonwood Quarterly, BULL, Flyway, and Tiny Molecules.