Man Up

I had every intention of telling my girlfriend. For months I had convinced myself I would tell her, I just needed to wait for the perfect moment. It was the day after Canada Day, normally people would be shooting off left over fireworks, but the entire week had been plagued by unnatural thunderstorms. Avoiding my reflection in the mirror, I whispered, “I’ll tell her tonight. Like right now.”

Drying my hands, I climbed into bed. Ella and I stretched out, rearranging ourselves until all of our limbs were in a position that could be maintained for the night. One that would not make my arm go numb, requiring me to extricate it as she softly snored, causing her to wake. She commented on how my breasts made perfect pillows.

I remember opening my mouth to tell her my plans for those perfect pillows. At that exact second a very bright flash and bang of thunder shook the house. She clung to me. I brushed my fingertips against her skin in a comforting motion. I lost my nerve. The moment passed.

She reached for her phone, “Power is out. I have service, but no wifi.”

“It’ll be back up by morning,” I said, believing my words in the moment. With our perfect cuddle position disrupted, I was free to move around the room again. I opened the window to survey the back yard, that strike had been too close for comfort. Sniffing for the smell of smoke was pointless though. It had been intensely hot and dry all summer, the smoke from already raging fires made everything gloomy.

By morning, the power had not been restored. With Ella still snoring, I pulled my numb arm out from under her and went for my morning walk to the bakery. On the way, I saw a blackened stump, what was left of a tree. The lawn was blackened too, the siding of the house slightly warped from the heat of the fire. I didn’t linger. The bakery was selling day old’s—no power meant no fresh buns or muffins. Magritte, the cashier, told me that the whole city had lost power as I scanned what was left on the wire wracks.

“Really?” I said, collecting what was left of the bread, muffins, and donuts.

“Stocking up for the apocalypse?” Magritte asked.

I shrugged, passed her my cash, “Maybe.”

Despite the thunderstorms, the heat wave had not let up. My shirt became soaked with sweat as I hauled the baked goods back to my place. Ella was sitting in the living room. Her parents on the couch across from her. I dropped my bags by the door, “Everything okay?”

My girlfriend chewed at her thumb, a bad habit of hers, “Hunny, do you think my parents could stay with us? Just till the power comes back.”

“Um…”

Her father broke in, “You’ll hardly know we are here. We can stay in the basement.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, asking Ella to help me with the groceries in the kitchen. I whispered to her, “Did you tell them about my crazy auntie? Or is this just because they don’t have AC with the power out?”

Ella shrugged, avoiding eye contact as she struggled to find a place to fit the fifth loaf of bread, “They were worried a fire had started up nearby. You know I never go more than a couple days without talking to them.”

I sighed at the non-answer, I love Ella with every fibre of my being but that was one thing that drove me crazy, “I know. We can set them up in the bunker, coolest place in the house.”

She kissed me, “You are the best girlfriend.”

“Thank my crazy aunt that left me the place. I just never got around to clearing all that doomsday shit out of the basement.” Enough canned goods and bottled water to last a single person at least a year, along with a generator, batteries, other gear that I never bothered to take a look at. All of it, including the house, had been left to me in her will. My parents had been furious—especially once I had come out to them. As the days passed, I found myself thanking my auntie every time I tried to turn on the tap, or flip on a light switch out of habit.

When we had used up everything in the fridge and freezer, I started to wonder if I would ever get the chance to tell my girlfriend about me. We were stretched out in bed, windows open, when we heard gunfire and screaming. Breaking glass. I again thanked my auntie as I pulled the lockbox from my underwear drawer, pulling out the gun inside. I didn’t really know anything about guns other than how to shoot one. My auntie had taken me to the gun range one time, I wiped away beads of sweat as I struggled to remember how to properly load the weapon. The whirring blades of a helicopter drowned out the pop-pop-pop of gunfire.

Ella shouted, “Why are they dropping gas canisters on the road?”

Glancing out the window, I threw the gun back into the lockbox. Tucking the box, I dragged Ella down to the basement as our eyes started to burn. The basement door slammed shut. I struggled to lock it in the darkness until Ella pulled the box from under my elbow and held up a tiny flashlight.

She looked pale. I probably did too. Silently we treaded down the stairwell. Next, I tugged shut the heavy metal door at the base, sealing the basement bunker shut. It had been a week since the power outage. We hadn’t received any news as to when things would return to normal and had no idea what was really going on. After twenty-four hours of silently being cloistered in the bunker, I decided it was time I manned up and took a look. I tugged open the metal door.

Broken glass was strewn across the floor from the windows. What could be blood was spattered and smeared on surfaces here and there. Doors were busted. Even the one at the top of the stairs had been nearly cracked in two—I had a hard time getting it open at first. At the front entrance I pulled on my runners, my auntie’s gun feeling heavy in my pocket. Everything was eerily silent. What I saw on the street, made my stomach tighten into a knot. There were dead things. Humans maybe, but animals too. And something else. Some fleshy, hulking mass that I couldn’t identify.

I wiped sweat from my forehead and then jumped backwards; had that been a trick of my eyes or had it moved? My heart skipped a beat, but I let out a sigh as a large insect moved away from what I hoped was a carcass of some animal I had never seen.

“Man up,” I told myself. It’s something I always did when I felt anxious. Just man up, because you can take this. You can beat that test you forgot to study for. Or you can lift that heavy piece of furniture your girlfriend asked you to move. Or you can stand in the street, alone, with a gun, and face down a dead… thing. An alien? I took another step closer, again jumping back as this time, the fleshy creature really did move. A trembling shudder. Then a head raised over the hump, two yellow eyes looking at me. Its fur covered in blood.

“A fucking jaguar,” I told my girlfriend and her parents minutes later. In the moment I just stared. The big cat growled, and I slowly backed away, raising my gun. Closing my front door, I watched as the jaguar continued to eat the alien carcass and then waddled down the street. Returning to the bunker I recounted all of this to Ella and her parents.

Ella’s mother rolled her eyes, “A jaguar eating an alien? I can only assume your girlfriend means an illegal immigrant, Ella, really. And why would there be a jaguar? The closest zoo is at least two hours away.”

Despite the sarcastic tone, she refused to let any of us leave the bunker. We were sitting down to a dinner of chicken noodle soup when I thought, maybe I should just tell her entire family. Right now. I should just tell them I’ve always wanted to be a man. Tall, muscular, able to fight. Maybe even shoot a gun. Like, for real, after some practice. But I was a woman, and now that the world had ended, I should forget about my dreams of going through surgery and hormonal therapy. I had no reason to tell my girlfriend I’m transgender, but I had planned to do it ever since meeting her.

Then the power turned on.

“It really was an alien,” I said, slurping my soup.

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Written by Kelsey Reich on July 6/2021 in Ontario, Canada. Edited July 9/2021.