Two Minutes to Midnight

Fuck. Marisol thought. Fuck-shit-damn. This was not good, not good at all. She stared at the big red F-minus plastered on the front of her math quiz. Sometimes she could kind of go over it with her own red pen and turn it into a B-minus, but not today. Today Mr. Davies had written the big fat percentage right next to it. Fuck!

She wasn’t supposed to cuss. Her Mama would kill her if she could read minds, which sometimes Marisol thought she could, but this was the sort of thing that warranted harsh language. Besides, Mama wasn’t on the school bus to hear it.

“Damn,” Tizzy said. “What’re you gonna do ‘bout that?”

“I don’t know…” Marisol sighed. “Mr. Davies says my parents have to sign it. I’m dead.”

“Maybe you can fake it.” Tizzy said as she popped a piece of bubblegum into her mouth. She offered some to Marisol. Marisol accepted, she always though better with candy.

“No, ‘cause if I do and I get caught, my mom will kill me even deader.”

Tizzy nodded. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. Suddenly, she held up a finger, as if to say, “Eureka!” She grabbed the paper from Marisol and erased her name at the top. Then she scribbled—in her best third-grader handwriting—Marisol’s little brother’s name, Thomas.

“That’s genius!” Marisol shouted. The bus driver gave her a warning look in the rearview mirror. In a more hushed tone, she said, “Mama never gets mad at Thomas!” She gave Tizzy a great big bear hug. “You’re the best friend ever!”

“No way, you are!” Tizzy laughed. “Hey, do you wanna come over to my house on Friday? You can sleep over!”

“Okay! I’ll ask my mom tonight.”

Marisol bounded off the bus at her stop, her mind relieved of the worry she’d boarded with. She all but skipped on the way home.

“Helloooooo!” she sang when she entered. “Mama? Papa? Abuelo?” At the silence she tentatively poked her head around the corner to the kitchen. There stood her parents, speaking over the island quietly and urgently.

“I don’t like this, my love.” Her Mama said.

“Everything will be fine,” said Papa. “But it’s best not to worry the children. So when Marisol gets home don’t—” his eyes shifted to Marisol’s small frame in the doorway. “Mija!” he smiled, but there was something wrong with it, like it was really hard to do. “How was school?”

“It was okay. Tizzy wants me to stay the night on Friday, is that okay?”

“Sure, chiquita. That sounds fine.” Her Mama said this without looking up, just stirring the vegetables on the stove.

“Really?” It was odd that Marisol didn’t have to bargain that she would clean her room first, or help with chores around the house.

Papa shot Mama a look Marisol didn’t understand. “Yeah, you’ve been a good girl, huh?”

Marisol put the thought of her quiz out of her mind. “Yes, Papa.” She turned to put her backpack away. Something was definitely up.

She found her Abuleo in his big recliner in the living room, watching the news on TV. Marisol couldn’t quite understand the people on the screen, something about a big clock, and a dooms-day. It sounded like something from a superhero show, the kind that Thomas liked. Marisol thought it was silly, but as she looked over at her Abuelo sitting with his head in his hands, shoulders shaking, she thought it might be a little more serious than that.

Suddenly the phone for the house began to ring, and Marisol went to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Mari! Thank jeezus.” Tizzy’s voice sounded from the handset. “Have you heard? We’re all gonna be blown to bits!”

Marisol sat on the couch and hugged a pillow to her stomach. “What’re you talking about?”

“My Dad is freaking out! He came home from work early and everything. He’s packing, like cans and water and stuff into my backpack. He says we have to head west ‘cause some guy is gonna drop a new-clear bomb on America.”

“What’s a new-clear bomb?” Marisol asked. Suddenly Papa was beside her, and he took the phone from her hands.

“Hello? Oh, hi, Tizzy. Yes, we’re all okay. May I speak with your father?” he said. He held a hand against the bottom of the headset and turned to Marisol. “Go see if Mama needs any help with dinner.”

Marisol reluctantly carried herself into the kitchen, where mama was checking the chicken in the oven.

“Mama, what’s a new-clear bomb?”

Mama fumbled with the dish, spilling a little onto her wrist. “Shit!” she hissed, hurrying over to the sink to soothe the burn. Marisol’s mouth hung wide open in shock. She had never heard Mama cuss before.

Her Papa walked into the room. “She asked me what a nuclear bomb was, David.” Mama said.

The corner of Papa’s mouth twitched, and he knelt down to be eye-level with Marisol. “Marisol, mi princesa,” he said. “A nuclear bomb is a very powerful type of bomb that could—potentially—hurt a lot of people. You know what ‘potentially’ means, don’t you?”

“It means maybe.”

“Sort of. It means that it has the ability to, but not necessarily that it will. What I mean in this case is: it only has the potential to hurt us if someone decides to launch one, and I don’t think they will.”

“So, everything is okay?”

“Everything is fine, mija.”

Suddenly, Abuelo called out from the front of the house.

“What is it, Papa?” Mama asked him. He stood in the open doorway and pointed a thick-knuckled finger to the sky.

Marisol did not understand. They looked like silly little cartoon bombs, like in the ones she watched on Saturdays, and no one ever died from those.

Mama and Papa knelt down beside Marisol and took her into their arms. Abuelo stood with his eyes closed, shaking his head.

“Where is Thomas?” Mama cried. “He should be with us!”

Soon the bomb made purchase, and there was a big flash of dust and fire. The last thing Marisol heard was not the weeping, or the terrible boom of the explosion, but a strong voice which said simply:

“I am the great destroyer of worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people.”