End of the World As We Know It

End of the World As We Know It

Growing up, it was quite common for my father to meet a stranger and within minutes be discussing the Apocalypse as casually as if Gog and Magog were teams from Saturday Night Football. It always terrified me to hear such things, and over supper if my father started talking about nuclear bombs or escape plans and what my brother and I were to do in case we couldn’t get back to Mother or to him, I would set my fork down beside my plate and wail, “But I wanna get married!”

“Now, Jolina,” my father would say, looking at his six-year-old from beneath lowered brows, “that might never happen…you must prepare yourself.”

Eighteen years later, I am married; the world is still here, but still nothing’s changed. My father has been staying with us off and on while he builds a house in our area, and this week I stumbled out of our bedroom after a late night writing and went into the kitchen where my father was seated at the table eating breakfast.

“You look tired,” he said.

Getting a mug out of the cupboard, I plonked it down on the countertop and glanced over at him.

“That’s ’cause I am.”

My father chewed his Cheerios thoughtfully, then said, “Did ya see that on the news?”

I faced the cupboard and rolled my eyes while thinking: It’s too early for this.

Turning around, I faked a smile and said, “See what, Dad?”

“All these birds are dying…thousands of them.”

“Oh?”

“They all look like they’ve had a trauma of some kind.”

“Trauma?” I jammed my mug under the Keurig and punched the button like my life depended upon it. “What you mean, trauma?”

Mulching his cereal, my father swallowed and said, “They’re all bleeding from their heads, beaks….They just fall straight outta the sky.” My father struck the table — thump — and I jolted like I’d been shot. Thump again. The hot coffee splashed onto my hand. I wiped it off on a dishtowel and walked over to the fridge.

“So…” I said, pouring milk into the mug, “what of it? They’re getting into poison or something?”

“Nu-huh, it’s happening everywhere….That’s gotta be something more than poison. And then you’ve got the fish.”

“The fish? What fish?”

“All these fish are dying. Thousands of them…all washing up on the shore.”

I scooped some sugar into my coffee. “Maybe it’s from that oil spill.”

“But most of the fish dying are in rivers, not the ocean.”

“Oh.”

I stirred the spoon in my coffee so hard, it started making a typhoon.

Clinking his spoon into the empty cereal bowl, my father suddenly pushed his chair back and stood.

“Hey, do me a favor,” he said. “Tell Randy I’m gonna keep in touch with him…make sure this whole fish and bird thing doesn’t mean the Apocalypse has begun.”

“Yes, Dad,” I sighed.

My father picked up his baseball cap and put it on. “Well…hope you have a good day.”

I dryly said, “I’m sure I will.”

Grinning, my father nodded once and went out the door.

For five minutes after he left I stood at the counter, drinking my coffee while staring out the kitchen window for kamikazi birds, and thought that as long as I can have my caffeine — end of the world as we know it or not — I’ll be fine.