Sebastian Grey stared at his sister, Vivian, avidly. He did not seem to care that she was incased in an iron lung and also somewhere in the process of falling asleep. Vivian could not hear his choked breaths, but Sebastian knew that there was a quiet understanding between himself and his sedated loved one. As he peered down with cautious glares, Sebastian’s black hair, which extended to the lobes of his ears, fell over his large, deep brown eyes.
          Those eyes began to fill with tears as he watched Vivian’s chest fill with forced air and then awkwardly deflate with the whirring noises of the machine that sat before him. As his sister became increasingly blurred and cloudy, Sebastian heard the phone ring in the next room. He let out a heavy, complicated sigh. Sebastian knew who was going to be on the other end of the phone when he picked it up. He wiped away his tears with the top of his right hand, got out of his chair (Sebastian gradually extended more than six feet as he arose, which was quite tall for a thirteen-year-old child), and walked to the adjacent room slowly, not caring how many times the phone rang.
          “What is it?” inquired Sebastian in a rather distant yet annoyed manner of speaking to the person on the other line.
          “I was just calling to tell you that I am going to be working very late again tonight.” There was a very long pause. The only noises that reached either receiver were the heavy breathing of Sebastian and the tapping of a pencil or fingertip of the caller on the other end of it all.
          “Did you feed the dog?” asked the caller suddenly.
          “Yes, mother.”
          “Did you take out the trash?”
          “Yes, mother.”
          There was another long pause.
          “How is your sister?”
          “She’s sleeping. I’ll see you in the morning, mother.”

          Sebastian hung up the phone just as he heard his mother mumbling something quickly and loudly. He did not worry about what that something might have been.
          He returned to Vivian’s room and sat down in a recliner that was about five yards from her. He sat there for a while, staring at her until he eventually fell asleep with only the television and the noises emulating from the machine to keep him company. He wished, before the world slipped away, that he would have a pleasant dream. He hadn’t had one in a very long time.

          April Kilgore suddenly dropped a tray containing plates that held spaghetti and bread pudding and various glasses of water and iced tea. Her supervisor had warned her: “One more time, April, and I’ll have to let you go.” She quickly dropped to her knees in a vain attempt to conceal her damning error. The customers and fellow employees looked down upon her as she scooped up handfuls of food and placed them back on their respective plates. April’s long, blonde hair was about to break free of the pencil that held it up right above the neck. Soon enough, she thought, her hair would be a sprawling mess on the back of her standard yellow blouse. She could imagine how the people that stood above her would see her if such a thing happened. They would simply shake their heads and continue filling their intestines with the greasy food her and her bitter co-workers prepared and delivered each and every day. April would look up, she thought, through her tangled mass of hair, and they would all purposefully not look at her, as if the mess she was cleaning up on the floor was not the only mess she had to deal with. They wanted nothing to do with such a troubled soul.
          When April reached this harsh realization, she got up, allowed her hair to fall down halfway down her back and her pencil to drop down to the floor and land in a pile of spaghetti, wiped her messy hands on her smock, and walked quickly to her supervisor’s office. She opened the door with force, entered the office, and then shut it gently.
          “I just dropped a very large tray of plates on the floor in front of the entire dinner crowd,” April proclaimed as she looked at a painting of a classic 50's style diner that hung directly above her supervisor’s head on the back wall.

          “I warned you about that, April. This makes, what? The sixth tray you’ve dropped this week? And today is only Thursday!”
          “I know, Mr. Waldman.”
          “Well, I don’t know what else to do with you, April. I’ve warned you on numerous occasions. I’m afraid all that I have left to do is to let you go. I’m sorry.”
          “I understand, Mr. Waldman, sir.”

          “You can work for the rest of the week in the kitchen if you’d like.”
          “That’s okay, Mr. Waldman. It’s too hot in there.”
          Rufus the Bum sprawled out on a park bench with a quickly deteriorating bottle of whisky in his left hand and a dog he had found earlier in the day nestled in his right arm. It was a little Irish setter that barked frequently and for no reason. It had tags that on them inscribed was the dog’s rightful owners, address, and telephone number. Rufus didn’t care about that, though. He had a very nice day with his new companion. They had walked by city hall together. The Irish setter yapped while Rufus cursed and threw rocks at the building. They then had gone to the pond that resided in the middle of the park. Rufus would throw the dog into the pond and then watch him paddle back to shore. He would throw him, at times, up to ten or twelve feet from the shore. As he got progressively drunker, though, with the help of the fresh whisky bottle he had stolen out of someone’s picnic basket a few hours earlier, he would only throw the dog a few feet, until finally he started throwing rocks, thinking that they were in fact his new dog.
          While the dog would swim to shore, Rufus would shout something to the effect of, “here comes my little champion swimmer! Hell, he could swim in the Olympics, for crying out loud!” He would then stop for a few minutes to burp a few times and stagger around a bit. “I’m gonna name you Carl,” he continued while holding his whisky bottle high in the air, “after that famous Olympic swimmer! What’s his name? Carl Lewis! That’s the one!”
          After a while, Rufus the Bum and Carl left the pond and wandered around the park. Carl would bark insanely while Rufus would yell at young couples and elderly ladies. They eventually ended up on that park bench. Rufus fell asleep, but only after tying Carl to the leg of the bench with one of his old shoelaces.

          Sebastian and Vivian were flying high above the city below in a helicopter piloted by the brother and navigated by the sister. The rotating blades above them spun quickly and violently, but they did not make a sound. Everything was silent except for the breathing of the two siblings. They did not talk to each other or hold hands or anything. Every once and a while, though, Vivian would point to a spot on the horizon and smile. Sebastian would then smile back, sometimes wink, and then aim the helicopter where Vivian wanted.
          At one point, Vivian pointed down instead of forward. Sebastian made the helicopter descend, and then flew across a pond quickly just as a dog was swimming by. Then, the rain began to fall and the thunder began to roll, so they were forced to land, but before they were safely grounded . . .

          Rufus fell off of his bench and nearly squashed Carl. His newfound friend was trying with great force to break free of the dirty shoelace that held him to the leg of that filthy park bench while Rufus woke up coughing and cursing. He laid there for a little while, just trying to absorb some of the cool evening air.
          Just as Rufus was attempting to get up, a group of four or five kids in their late teens strolled by and yelled at him.
          “Hey there, whino!” shouted one of the boys. “Ya having a little drink in the park?!”
          “Hey, you kids . . .” spoke Rufus in a very drunk manner. “How’s about . . . you give your old buddy Rufus a little money . . . only five or six buckaroos . . . so he can . . . go get a little more drinky drink?”
          “No way, old man. Haven’t you heard the news? The world’s ending. We’re all gonna die, old man.”
          “Well . . . If we all gonna die . . . why not give Rufus a little money?”
          “Fine, old man.” The boy threw him a ten-dollar bill. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
          Rufus and Carl got up and headed for the nearest liquor store.
          April walked the entire distance home because her co-worker, Jackie, who used to give her rides home every night, still had her job. It seemed unusually cold to her tonight. She tried to find the moon in the sky above her for reassurance, but could not find it. There were no clouds in the sky to block it, and there were only suburban houses around her, all of which were not tall enough to block that nocturnal majesty from view. April kept walking, though. She had to get to her neighbor’s house by ten o’clock.
          Mrs. Jenkins, April’s neighbor, ran an evening daycare center because the majority of mothers living in her particular neighborhood were not only unwed, but also had two jobs. April did not have two jobs, but her supervisor let her work whatever shifts she wanted to, including double shifts.
          If April was did not arrive at the Jenkins house by ten o’clock, she would be charged twenty dollars for each increment of fifteen minutes she was late.
          April’s daughter, Jane, had just turned seven years old. She was quite smart for her age. All the teachers at her school told April how impressed they were with her and how they could only imagine what a “lovely upbringing” she must have had. Whenever they would tell April this, she would smile and shake her head and say something like “Yes, I’m very blessed” or “Yes, what a marvelous seven years it has been.”
          The past seven years, however, had not been marvelous. Jane’s father had left April whenever he found out that she was pregnant. She only received child support payments from him three times because he died in a horrible fishing accident (a mixture of beer and sharp, pointy hooks) shortly after that third payment. She was getting help from the government, but it was hardly enough for the expenses needed to raise a little girl. When she got her job at the diner, things got a little bit easier, but then Jane developed kidney problems at around age six. Tests had to be done and medicine had to be bought, so things progressively got worse. She started taking double shifts whenever she could at the diner and never really saw Jane except for a few hours in the evening. During those few hours, they would play the only board game they owned, Chutes and Ladders.

          April knocked on the door at the Jenkins house at two minutes until ten. Mrs. Jenkins answered the door in her usual non-communicative manner. She hollered at Jane to come to the door. She came like a bolt of lightening from the darkness of an adjacent room.
          “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” Jane shouted as she ran toward her mother, but tripped on a building block before she could reach her.
          April walked over to Jane, picked her up, and held her close to her body. “You need to be more careful, my darling. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
          April carried her daughter across the Jenkins’ front yard and all the way up to her front door and set her down gently while she searched for her keys in her cluttered purse. She found them and then opened the door. Jane ran in, turned around, and screamed, “Get out the GAME!”

          The Emergency Broadcast System chimed in on the television with its urgent and piercing alarm, waking Sebastian up from his high altitude frolic. His body had situated itself into a very uncomfortable pose during his three-hour slumber. His entire body had slipped down the chair so that his posterior was nearly at the edge of the seat. His neck felt as if it was perpendicular to the rest of his spine.
          Sebastian readjusted himself and just sat there for a second, trying to get a bearing of where he was and what he was doing. He arose from the chair and walked over to the television and sat down with his legs crossed in front of him. The station switched from the EBS screen to the evening news anchor, sitting in what appeared to be his pajamas rather than his standard, network issued suit and tie. He seemed to be very distraught and near the verge of tears.
          “Sources have indicated,” said the anchor with a broken and upset voice, “that our time has come. We cannot reveal the identity of these sources, but I can assure you, good citizens of this nation, that they are very reliable and not at all the types of people that would pull a hoax on the unsuspecting people of this great land.” The anchorman paused for about thirty seconds, organizing the papers in front of him and breathing quite heavily. “It appears as if God himself, not Muhammad or Allah or anyone like that, has decided that it is time for our Earth to perish, to be destroyed, to be wiped off the universal slate with His hand. We do not know how this will happen, but we know that it will happen by daybreak and when it does happen, we will no longer live in His world and will no longer be subject to His will. Now, beloved viewers, I implore you to ask Him for mercy when he carries out His plan. Tell him not all of us are bad and that some of us in fact love Him.” He paused again, staring at the camera, not blinking even for a second. “I urge you not to do anything rash in this time of crisis. If God has any mercy left in His infinite heart and wisdom, He will bestow it upon those who live their last breathing moments on His Earth. Goodnight, loyal viewers. And God bless.”
          The screen then shifted to a test pattern. Sebastian switched of the television and sat there, staring at the blank screen. He could see his sister through the corner of his eye, just beyond the static crackling on the television screen. He pushed his hair behind his ears and got up, nearly falling over in the process.

          Rufus acquired his bottle of whisky from a liquor store slightly down the street from where he passed out not but half an hour ago. The man that sold him the booze gave him awkward glances as Rufus entered the store, but wished him a good night after Rufus let him keep the change from the ten- dollar bill.
          He returned to the park with Carl and his bottle. Determined to leave this world and his physical body drunk, he found a comfortable place to lie out and drink and drink and drink. He set his dog down on the ground, but since the dog was by this time far too frightened of Rufus to leave him, he merely sat down next to his homely master and whimpered quietly.

          April disrobed from her diner uniform and adorned her pajamas, which consisted of a pair of Jane’s father’s boxers and a plain white T-shirt. Jane didn’t own pajamas, she usually wore her clothes all day long and then just slept in one of her father’s very long shirts that when worn by such a small girl would descend far below her waist and nearly touch her knees.
          Jane grabbed one of the dining room chairs while her mother was changing so that she could reach Chutes and Ladders, which resided on the very top shelf of the hallway closet. She knew that her mother did not approve of her climbing to such heights merely supported by a rickety wooden chair, but for some reason, she did not care. She wanted to play this game tonight because she began to wonder if there would ever be another opportunity to play a game with her mother.

          Her mother appeared in the doorway directly across from the dining room table where Jane sat. The game was on the table and the chair was back in its original position.
          “Honey, I thought I told you not to climb on that chair. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
          “But Mommy, what if . . .”
          Jane’s explanation was cut short by a rapid pounding at their front door. April stared at Jane for a moment and said, “I’ll be back in a second. Don’t you move, young lady.”
          April walked calmly over to the door oblivious to the urgency of each hurried knock. She opened the door and saw Mrs. Jenkins crying before her.
          “What on Earth is wrong with you, Mrs. Jenkins?”
          “Didn’t ya hear? God’s mad at us! He’s gonna end the world with all of us still here! Get out, darlin’, get out while ya still can!”
          Mrs. Jenkins ran away without saying goodbye, probably off to the next house. She was going to tell everybody. April shut the door with ease and returned to the dining room. Jane was just as she was when she left except for the worried expression on her face. She saw her mother standing before her, expressionless. Jane didn’t know what her mother was thinking, but she knew she was thinking something.
          “Grab the game, Jane. We’re going to play it outside tonight.”
          “Why, Mommy?”
          “Because we’re going to burn our house down, darling.”
          “Okay, Mommy.”

          Sebastian once again stood over his sister. He needed to say something before he was to do what he planned to do.
          “Vivian, my sister, my life, my love, you are a beautiful, flawed creature. You have not done one bad or immoral thing in your life . . . because you have not had the chance to do so. I don’t want to see you suffer more than you have already. Forgive me for what I’m about to do. I hope only that in a few hour’s time, I’ll be seeing you without this glass separating us. I’ll be able to run with you and carry you wherever I felt the need to. But for now, my darling, breathe. You are free.”
          Sebastian bent down and kissed the glass one final time. He then bent down a little bit more, took a pair of scissors out of his pocket and cut the tube supplying air to Vivian. He let the scissors fall to the floor, got up, and walked out the front door.

          The game board was set up on the sidewalk. Jane and April were facing each other, not seeming to notice that their house was ablaze and that everything in it was destroyed. They played for about ten minutes when suddenly Jane spoke.
          “This game is a lot like life, Mommy. Chutes and Ladders. Either you’re falling down or you’re climbing. Sometimes you fall too far, and sometimes you climb far too high.”
          “You know what, Jane? You’re absolutely right.”
          Jane got up and took hold of the game and all of its pieces. She walked carefully over to the fire and threw it all in there, letting it burn with all the rest of their possessions.
          “Let’s go for a walk, Mommy.”
          And with that, they walked away from their house, heading East. They were still in their pajamas and it was quite cold outside, unseasonably cold, but they walked on anyway, hand in hand.

          Sebastian climbed atop his roof with a flashlight and a pillow. He laid down on the roof, letting his head rest on the pillow. He turned on the flashlight and shown it on different houses and people walking by. He could see smoke rising up above the houses a few streets over.
          “It’s starting already.”

          The cold night air grew colder. All of a sudden, everything grew quiet. Sebastian moved his feet a little against the roofing, but he couldn’t hear anything. Rufus shouted profanities at people running by, but no sound exited his mouth. Jane sneezed, but April couldn’t hear a thing.
          The dark, starless sky suddenly began to turn a pinkish color and it grew colder. Sebastian sat up slowly to get a better view. He noticed a woman and her small child in pajamas walking by his house holding hands, not seeming to take notice to any of the insanity that was happening and was bound to get worse. Carl got the will to run away from his master. Rufus was far too drunk to get up, much less run after him.

          The pink sky began to turn into an uncomfortable white sheet, and the world grew colder once again. Sebastian closed his eyes and laid down. April hoisted Jane upon her shoulders and continued walking. Rufus passed out.

          The white sky suddenly turned black again. The stars came and out and the moon came out full above the world. The fires raged on and all was well . . .

© 2000 by Andrew Morgan