By Zeke Jarvis
Vanessa knew that this was probably her mind dissociating, but she found herself thinking about the word “breathtaking”. It typically referred to something good or beautiful, but in a very basic, literal way, its real meaning would be something closer to “overwhelming”. It was something that made it hard for you to function on a basic level. Looking at the sky, Vanessa knew that she was looking at something breathtaking.
In some ways, there was beauty. The purple that ran across everything, or maybe ran through everything in the sky was wonderful to look at. It was dynamic but somehow also calming. Like a lava lamp maybe. Or maybe lava was just in Vanessa’s mind because the sky was also filled with flames and sparks. It was impossible to tell where they were coming from. It wasn’t even clear how near they were. She felt a kind of heat, but it didn’t seem to be from the flames themselves. All you could say was that the sky was burning. But the sky was still better to look at than the street.
Vanessa couldn’t help herself though. The people running and screaming made it impossible to not look at street level. As she did, Vanessa saw an arc of light slice through the air. It decapitated three people. Their mouths were still moving as the heads hit the ground. The faces seemed to fold in on themselves, turning awful shades of green and grey. The bodies continued to move, like the mouths. They wavered back and forth. It looked like they were trying to dance but had forgotten how. Two of the bodies fell, and insects and worms started to crawl from the neck wounds. The third tried to pick up its head, but it couldn’t seem to get a grasp.
Vanessa closed her eyes and shook her head. If the world was ending, then she didn’t want her last visions to be of decapitations and nasty bugs. She opened her eyes and looked back at the sky. There were swirls and haze. Strange patterns like waves or paisley blobs. It was mesmerizing, which is actually what Vanessa wanted. If the apocalypse was here, then what was there to do but seek out a few last moments of comfort?
There were more screams to Vanessa’s left. She wanted to continue staring at the sky, but she knew that she needed to look. Two people were fighting off something that seemed to be crushing a third person. Or eating them maybe. The thing seemed to be an amalgam of concrete, bits of metal, and a glowing ooze. Vanessa shivered and walked briskly away. The terrible thing was reaching around the two people trying to fight it. They clearly had no chance.
Vanessa walked past a building with a large glass window. She looked in, trying to gauge whether it would be better to try to go in or to stay on the street. She looked back to the main wall. People were slumped against it. After a few seconds, Vanessa realized that they were cowering and crying. Vanessa couldn’t see the source of their anguish, but, after a few seconds, a cloud of smoke blew past them all, and the people screamed. Vanessa hurried away. She’d made it just a few buildings on before the entire window blew open, sending glass-filled smoke into the street. The smoke smelled like diesel exhaust and rotting fish. Vanessa started to cough. The air felt thick.
Vanessa turned a corner, hoping to escape. Her eyes were stinging, and she was less and less sure of where she was going. After a couple more panic-driven turns, Vanessa found herself in front of something bright and loud. She wondered, at first, if it was a portal to hell. She wondered if this was the moment where she was taken down. But, as her eyes came into focus, Vanessa realized that she was hearing expressions of joy.
It was a group of people. Just regular people, but they were dancing. Among the death and destruction, they were dancing. Not even to music, except for what they were singing themselves. One of them spotted Vanessa. She smiled and waved Vanessa over. “Come on in.”
Vanessa shuffled over, looking around as she went. There were pockets of darkness, but there was also a kind of sparkle swirling through the area. Vanessa asked, “What is this?”
The woman smiled. “It’s a party.” She did a twirl. “We’re having a little party at the end of the world.”
Vanessa laughed. She wasn’t sure if she’d gone crazy. Or maybe she was dreaming this, and her mind was writing a little story or song. But the dancing looked fun either way. If it was a dream, then maybe this was the moment where it would pivot from a nightmare to peace. Maybe her mind was throwing her a bone. And if this really was judgement day, then why not go out like this? Instead of a movie or show where she’d fall in with an unlikely, ragtag band of survivors, Vanessa would die with the rest, at least enjoying herself.
In the past few hours, Vanessa had seen awful things. A snake body with a spider face, spines along its twisting body and mandibles sunk into a poor young boy. An old man screaming as chunks of his legs fell to the ground and turned to rats. Twisted metal whirling and lashing out at anyone nearby. A man watching as a lion crawled out of his pocket and ate his face. Given all of all that, what was there to do but dance?
Vanessa joined the group and began to move, doing basic little steps at first. Then, she started making bigger arcs and sways. She looked up at the purple sky and smiled, feeling herself dissolve a little bit, but in a very pleasant way.
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Zeke Jarvis is a Professor of English at Eureka College. His work has appeared in Moon City Review, Posit, and KNOCK, among other places. His books include, So Anyway…, In A Family Way, The Three of Them, and Antisocial Norms. His website is zekedotjarvis.wordpress.com