The House at the End of the World

The end of civilization as we knew it was heralded by the warbling siren of an old Haitian ambulance with far more miles behind it than ahead of it. Inside was a young boy whose name was swept away in history by what he became: Patient Zero. But that may not be true, which is not at all shocking, as history and truth rarely intersect. The truth is the fungus emerged all over the world, but we like straight lines so let’s keep to the story. It's easier to look for a neat and tidy origin than see the world as chaos. The truth—no capital t because it’s just my truth—is that the earth simply had enough of our violence upon her and chose to brush us off like we would an ant.

My husband Peter and I, like all survivors, have everything and nothing. We moved into the mansion we used to drive by on road trips and dream of owning, acting as empires do, slipping other people’s dreams into our pockets when their backs are turned. The house overlooks the ocean. It has a salt water pool and the solar panels that allowed us to have some logical reason to take over this place. The wine cellar is full—although that will change—of incredible vintages that would be left to collect dust on their waxen heads if we weren’t here to drink them. Seems only right. And yet.

Peter calls this place our castle but outside its walls is a wild kingdom, so the prince became a pauper and started a garden where a lovely patch of impossibly green, perfectly shorn grass was. Neither of us have a clue about growing or cultivating anything, and without the internet we are left with nothing but skills dulled by luxury. We are, it turns out, hypocritical carnivores, as now meat is up to us to kill, we cannot. I wonder though, as the non-perishables in both stocked pantries decline, what we may resort to. Or what others may resort to, coming across this place. We don’t talk about what it was like getting out of the city before the quarantine barriers were erected, and we certainly don’t talk about what happened on the road, the chaos stripping us to bone and raw nerves. There are platitudes for that sort of denial. It is what it is. You gotta do what you gotta do. No pain, no gain. History just says we left the city and came here. Neat and tidy.

So, we have our dream house and dream life at the end of the world. This is, of course, not enough. The truth is—there’s the t word again—the survivors left a lot of stuff behind but still managed to carry things forward, and despite how trifling they are also burdensome. I’m thinking of leaving Peter.

Actually, I was thinking of leaving him before hell broke out of the earth. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t cheated or raised a hand to me, but some times I wished he had. It would’ve made it easier. Easier to say to him, “enough,” but also easier to explain to my family and friends. I knew the silent judgement would come. Without being abusive, unfaithful or boring—which seemed to be the only socially acceptable reasons for someone to leave a lover—people would fail to see the ruins of the relationship. After all, they were present only for the one act plays that couples put on, gracefully moving about the stage, flat characters fleshed out in golden absolutes by the audience. They did not see the death by a thousand cuts. Our knives had grown dull with use. I knew most wouldn’t understand, and I would be the villain. There are heroes and villains, but no real names for people in between, because that isn’t neat and tidy or a straight line. That line is drawn in the sand.

Peter is out there now, fussing around with the gardening tools he found in the utility shed hidden away behind the three-car garage. He’s delaying the inevitable. He hasn’t said it, and he doesn’t have to: what if digging around in the dirt releases the fungus, and this time we end up like almost everybody else, dead and bloated and forgotten? He doesn’t know I’m watching.

The couple whose house this was—their bodies disposed of into the ocean, which made Peter say afterwards, “What if the sharks get the fungus?”—seemed happy. And why not, they had everything. The enormous open shower in the master ensuite has two shower heads, there is an extra large hammock between the two spruce trees in the backyard, and all of the photos on the walls hung laser straight show them smiling, arm-in-arm. We haven’t taken the photos down, but perhaps we will when it feels like this place is more ours than theirs. I don’t spend time wondering what they were like beyond being happy, but I suspect Peter has made stories up for them. He referred to the man as “The skipper” the other day, and when I asked him why he said it was because of the photo of them aboard a large yacht, champagne in hand. Peter and I went out on a dinner cruise in the harbour that he won in a raffle at work last year. This house was full of things that meant everything to them, and something very different to us.

I do have one thing from before, cool against my chest. The heart shaped locket Peter gave me for our first wedding anniversary. He held it out in his cupped palms like it was a fragile bird. I opened it and smiled. It’s a part of me now. Peter knows when I’m lost in thought because he asks what I’m thinking every time I play with it between my fingers, rubbing its smoothness, looking off into the past.

The garden will come without incident, I’m certain. Mostly. Peter stands, shovel poised, staring at the earth. Looking off into the future.

Things will never be the same, but there is one constant from the old world through to this new one: life is made up of what-ifs. They just seem bigger now, with heavier shadows. What if I stay? What if we have a child? What if they lack the immunity we seem to have? What if I drink the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild tonight, or the Cheval Blanc?

The shovel pierces the earth.

What if we can change? We’ve done it before. We put away a photo of the two of us, when we had stars in our eyes, into the locket. I haven’t opened it to look at those people in a long time because I don’t want them to see what we’ve become. Let them sleep where their dreams can’t be stolen.