In Twilight After

In Twilight After

A short story by James Kiehle

He wondered: Am I the only one left?

Sitting cross-legged in mud, Russ Perry held his daughter’s heart-shaped locket up against the ominous sun, watching light dance on engraved metal, the luminous ballet hypnotically transporting his jagged mind from this time and place back to before the—what was it? A war? A mistake? A prelude of the coming hard new reality.

The past was known territory; better to look backward, at least in his mind. Safer. After the noise and smoke and wholesale death, living life suddenly became both real and surreal.

Billowy clouds edged with smoke and flecked copper drifted above, obscuring the sun. Russ pivoted to see Mt. Hood behind him, backlit by an eerie orange glow from woods on fire. Farther south, his home town of Bend, far away, and a silhouette of high hills, a black forest and a thick mist blocked any conceivable view.

Stranded near the top of a mountain, eyes still wide from shock and fear, Russ tossed small stones across the flattened, damp grass, trying to keep from going batshit. He stared past a misty glen as if seeing ghosts far off. Here and now, outside of possible death from predators, unknown forces of nature, lack of potable water, eventual starvation, or sheer loneliness, Perry’s chances for survival were low.

From the heavens a fiery rain had blanketed the skies and fueled a series of events that changed the planet for eternity. All in a flash.

Begging the question: The end of the world was the beginning of—what?

Russ reimagined his wife’s smile, his daughter’s laugh… realizing it was pointless to give in to melancholy. Russ tried to not waste time on daydreams. He closed his eyes and encouraged himself: Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Think: Priorities.

Food: Some provisions were stashed in the rear of his Dodge Caravan minivan somewhere down the hill, holding a box of easy-open cans of food and twist-off bottles of soda. From the look of things around him, no animals were alive to kill for food, as if that was possible. Russ had murdered only cockroaches, spiders, and bugs up through his middle-aged life, though he squished a mouse once, an accident involving heavy boots in a dark basement.

Water: Dasani bottles were back in the van, otherwise, ironically, no. Russ was surrounded by possibly radioactive lakes both north and south—undrinkable. No streams visible or audible, just murky pools from the recent flooding fifty feet below.

Shelter: Only the trees for now. Russ knew of an old lodge a mile or so from his van, but didn’t know where exactly. In any case, he’d have to start walking before nightfall to first find his van, then search for the hotel. It couldn’t be that far. If nothing else, the van would provide a temporary roof.

Fire: A real problem. Chilly in the twilight. No dry wood in sight—worse, nothing to start a fire with. Russ didn’t carry matches or a lighter. No need. Again, ironically, an intense line of flames were eating forests far to the east, illuminating the horizon in a 180-degree horizontal arc, but nowhere near his end of the woods.

Food, water, shelter and fire. Those were the big four. Without them, death was only a matter of time.

Russell’s chances of making it even through the night were as slim as hearing from his family by cellphone—his wife and daughter were where? Or what? Ashen flakes of bone and flesh scattered on the irradiated bloody shores of Waikiki? Or safely back at home in Bend, folding sheets and picking tomatoes in the small garden, hoping Russ would call soon? His final words to them had masked his panic, saying everything is fine, you’re safe from harm. No, no, don’t cut your trip short. I love you.

Now all that remained of Russell’s original world were the clothes on his back and a gun in his lap, which he absently cradled. A perfectly reasonable solution, that weapon.

Perhaps to solve all problems. Rest in peace, pal.

As far as his family went, at least Russ ended with a loving phrase, not with a rebuke or an argument. All the recent transgressions and petty misunderstandings were silenced. All bad grades in school, all failed enterprises, all relocation moves in a search for the perfect place to settle, the perfect job—all the banal, everyday stuff that passed for a life…

All gone.

The only other living things Russ could see, aside from an obnoxious fly circling his head, was a forest of Douglas firs and Hemlocks that swayed in the breeze, and listened as Russ spoke to heaven. He stood, arms and legs stretched out to the night.

“So let me get this straight, God: This was Your divine plan? Apocalypse? End of life? Not to second guess, but You’re in charge of this little blue ball in space, right? This earthly paradise? So there’s no VP of Delta sector deciding fates, just you, right? Did you plan this calamity or just flat-out give up on us mortals and say screw the Rapture or what? If the idea was to thin the population, well, good work. But otherwise, I speak for any survivors and say You are fired as our Lord God Almighty. No notice, no severance. Just go.”

Russ sat down again, emotionally, spiritually, physically spent, knowing full well that God wasn’t to blame. Man was. Russ didn’t believe in a deity or Heaven anyway. Fairy tales. Besides, there were so many interlinked man-made and cosmic dangers piling up in the days before the collapse—each singular event foreshadowing larger troubles before the destruction went global—to more than make up any religious slack. Television broadcast reports that changed minute by minute, recorded up until the very last nanosecond by the ever-present eye of the tube, until even that came to an end and the screen went black.

The war was over in no time.

So, really, it would be so easy to give up, knowing that everyone and everything Russ ever cared about was likely gone, vanished in hard light, morphing from living thing to particles, a rearrangement of molecules spread by the clouds all over the dark planet.

Why did Russell’s living—his survival—still matter? What was the point?

Russ lifted the gun and stared at it. It felt heavy.

Loaded with salvation?

He put it on the ground and opened the locket. An older picture, taken years before, of a pre-teenaged Iris, gamely trying to smile. She was cute then; lovely now. He closed the locket, lifted the gun and stared at it as if it really might be the answer,

Russ imagined ghosts at the edge of the misty field egging him on; his mind drifting to memories of the days when at least the four basic needs were satisfied. The fifth and possibly most important—Love—didn’t seem like something to live for at that moment. Or was it the only thing? He’d felt love with his wife and daughter; now they were probably gone forever.

Not enough.

His mind’s eye paraded remembered views of Judy and Iris—so beautiful; their pretty, All-American faces topped and framed by Cleopatra haircuts, bodies shaped like Olympic swimmers, minds shaped by intellect and intuition. Maddening sometimes, a little whiny, they still made him laugh and smile and probably, in a big way, somewhat happy.

And so…

Join them?

With one hand, Russ lifted the pistol and placed the barrel to his right temple. In the other he gripped his daughter’s locket tightly. He closed his eyes, his finger gingerly touching the trigger.

Then, as if a video of her face played full screen in his mind, Iris seemingly cocked her head, grinned at him, and said, “Seriously, daddy, are you nuts?”