Grief: Five Stories of Apocalyptic Loss Read Free Page B

"You can't think that this... stuff matters? These... things?"
    "Bet you can see the end of the world so much more clearly from your moral high-ground," Carson said. "But this isn't about looting."
    "Nah," Blake said. "No. You're right. We were robbing a bank, cops showed up, Danny got shot, and we were like, why are we bothering? Why do the cops want to stop us?"
    "One of the cops said something," Carson said. "All we got left is what we're doing. What we do is who we are."
    Blake picked the old man up and held him by the shoulders. "So hey, if we're going out, at least we're going to do something for the world and make you pay for what you've done."
    "But why? Why does it matter? You beat me, kill me, and all you've done is spare me my guilt. You feel better for a few hours, and then you're faced with the same inevitability. What next? Blame someone else? How long can you run on anger before you run dry?"
    "Shut up," Carson said.
    "Why are you bothering? Kill me, leave me alone. In a matter of weeks... in weeks... we're going to be dead. You. Me. Everyone. We are all dying. And this is what you're wasting your last moments on? A last stab at... revenge?"
    "Shut up," Carson said.
    Blake chuckled.
    "Why? Why bother?" Representative Briar stepped forward, and Carson found himself stepping back. "You know none of it matters. You said yourself, the looting was pointless. So why do you think revenge matters? You're just distracting yourself, getting a cheap thrill before the end, pretending there's a moral high ground."
    "What about you?" Carson found himself shouting, but the old man didn't blanch. "You're sitting in this apartment, thinking about your dead wife, thinking about killing yourself, and you think you can moralize at us?"
    "That's fair," the old man said quietly. "No, you're right. I was thinking about killing myself, until you showed up. And you're right. It wouldn't have mattered. What's another few weeks? And don't I deserve it? Wasn't I the one that defunded the very programs that could have detected the comet earlier? Didn't I defund the programs dedicated to solving just this sort of problem? I came close. This close, to just ending it all the day I heard about it, and I can assure you, we heard about it long before the public did.
    "But let me tell you, son. It wouldn't have mattered. Even with twice the budget they were asking for, even if we'd seen the comet a year before impact, there isn't anything we could do about it. You're mad at me for cutting science funding. Okay. But trust me. It didn't matter. And that's the point."
    "What point?" Carson asked. "What point is there to this? To any of it? How can you be so fucking calm?"
    Representative Briar shook his head. "The only difference between us, son, is perspective. The measure of my life, of my 'legacy', is measured in weeks. So what I do with those last few weeks is more important than what I did or didn't do, or whatever legacy I leave behind."
    "Who cares?" Blake asked. "Not like anyone's going to ever know."
    "I'll know. And when I'm gone... well. Everyone else will be gone, too."
    "I can't listen to this," Carson stood, abruptly, dashing to the bathroom.
     
    ***
     
    Cold water cleansed the vomit-taste from Carson's mouth, and he leaned with his head against the bathroom's cool porcelain for several minutes, waiting for the panic to subside to manageable levels. It was amazing, he thought, that the power and water were still running. Hell, if you turned the news on you'd see David Bright delivering the news, updating viewers on the approach of Earth's doom. All over the city, all over the country, all over the world, amid the riots civic employees were keeping themselves busy by doing their jobs, maintaining the power grids, keeping the water flowing.
    It was, Carson decided, most likely that they simply didn't know what else to do. He'd be one of them, he knew, working alone in an office with Blake if the riots hadn't forced them out. They'd let