The End - Visions of Apocalypse

by Unknown

  However, as the next day dawned, the airport at Nairobi buzzed with activity, and a sleek black limousine, a blocky white van, and a barely-running rented coupe were soon racing across the Kenyan countryside, their occupants cringing and cursing at every bump in the road. Soon the Rift came into view, and around it the crowds of onlookers who’d been gathering since the previous day. The possibility of further quakes and aftershocks offering no deterrent to the growing city of tents and improvised shacks that had quickly sprung up. News crews were everywhere, set up in fleets of trailers and mobile satellite vans, their cameras trained on the Rift as talking heads sweated beneath their suit jackets and their caked on make-up, trying to find new and interesting ways to convey that nothing was really happening yet. The only beings in the area that seemed disinterested in the whole affair were the herds of zebra and gazelles that idly grazed nearby, sparing only an occasional glance at their strange new neighbors.

  The motorcade came to a halt near the edge of the Rift, their kicked-up dust blowing over the crowd as they rushed forward to see the new arrivals. From the limousine, four large men in dark suits and sunglasses emerged. Their heads moved constantly, taking in everything and everyone, and only when each had given the other a quick, satisfied nod did they motion for a fifth man to climb out of the vehicle. He quickly buttoned his coat and strode with practiced authority, the other four men falling in formation around him. He’d seen the younger side of 50, and not many restful nights, judging by the creases around his eyes. He stopped and stood expectantly in front of the van.

  The van’s side door slowly slid open, and three robed men stepped carefully down to the ground. They turned and offered assistance to a much older man, bent with age, who still managed to kneel and kiss the ground upon exiting, the dew-soaked grass staining his bright white robes at the knees. He shook the first man’s hand while placing his other hand warmly on his shoulder, then gestured towards the coupe.

  From that car, a rumpled middle-aged man emerged with little fanfare. His hair had the tousled look of having recently been slept on, and his clothes were a mishmash of denim and tweed. He pulled a pair of glasses from a pocket, wiped some dust from them with the edge of his untucked shirt, and put them on, blinking into the morning sun. He stepped forward and shook hands with the other two men. Then they turned and walked towards the Rift.

  “Well, good morning!” Mother Earth said cheerfully as they approached. Her voice was heard in Swahili and English and dozens of other languages. All heard her words in their native tongues. “And who might you be then?”

  The man in the suit spoke first. “Michael Madison, President of the United States,” he said in a gruff voice filled with Mid-Western winters.

  “Oh, how very nice for you!”

  “His Holiness Pope Leo XIV,” said one of the robed men with a nod to the man in white, “Most Holy Father of the Roman Catholic Church.”

  “What a lovely gown!”

  “Dr. Livingston Chapman,” the last man said, in a crisp British accent the belied his ramshackle attire. “Professor of Geology at Cambridge.”

  “My, but your mum must be so proud!”

  “We’ve been selected to speak for the people of the world,” President Madison said.

  “Well, just the pale people, from the looks of it.”

  “No,” President Madison said, “I was elected to represent a diverse variety of colors and creeds.”

  “Pity you couldn’t bring some of them with you though, isn’t it?”

  The President blinked, the frantic coaching of a dozen speech writers and philosophers on the flight to Kenya running through his head. “Well, you see, in the great experiment that is American democracy...”

  “No, no, no,” Mother Earth said, “I don’t want to talk to someone who’s still experimenting. That means you haven’t gotten it right yet, doesn’t it?”

  “Our system of government has worked for over two hundred and twenty five years,” Madison said defensively.

  “Dearie, I’ve had blinks that lasted longer than that.”

  “But you must understand...”

  The ground abruptly rose beneath the President’s feet, sending him staggering and his security detail rushing to his side to catch him before he fell. “Look here,” Mother Earth said, “when you’ve had an asteroid slam into you, then maybe you can come around and tell me what I must and mustn’t do.” The ground settled, leaving Madison dangling in the arms of his agents. “Oh, I can tell this just isn’t going to work at all, I’m afraid. I do appreciate you coming, though. By all means keep working on that experiment of yours.”

  President Madison gaped as his agents set him down. “You … you want me to leave?”

  “Oh, you can stay and watch if you like.”

  Madison shrugged off the agents. “I’m the leader of the free world!”

  “I am the free world. And I don’t remember voting for you, sorry.”

  Several dozen speech writers and philosophers would have been unable to articulate the thoughts running through the President’s head at that moment in any socially acceptable way, and he certainly wasn’t up to the task on his own. Instead, he frowned tightly, turned on his heel, and stalked off through the crowd to his limousine, his security detail scrambling to keep up.

  “And what about you there, in the white?” Mother Earth said to the Pope.

  “I speak for the faithful of a religion that counts millions of followers of every race amongst its numbers,” Pope Leo said, his English tinged with a Russian accent.

  “Right, I see, and what religion is that then?”

  “The one passed down to us by the Lord God Almighty, in His divine wisdom.”

  “Oh, the old man you all are so fond of arguing over,” Mother Earth replied with a chuckle, which sent thousands scrambling in panic as the ground around the Rift shook. “Sorry, sorry,” she added quickly. “This was all so much easier before you lot got everywhere. Anyway, you were saying something about this God person?”

  The cardinals in his entourage gasped at the impropriety, but Pope Leo silenced them and went on. “‘This God person,’ as you put it, is the Creator of all things, even unto the beginning of time.”

  “First I’m hearing of it.”

  “We have His own words,” the Pope said, gesturing to one of his cardinals, who hurriedly produced a Bible from the folds of his robes. The Pope took the book, opened it, and read aloud. “‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’”

  “Well listen to him going on,” Mother Earth huffed, a small puff of steam rising from the ground. “Created me, did he?”

  “In six days. And on the seventh, He rested,” the Pope intoned.

  “Ooh, now you’re just trying to flatter me! Six days, as if I’m that young!”

  “Nevertheless, so it is written.”

  “Well it’s obvious I should be talking to this God then, not you,” Mother Earth said.

  “He speaks through His word,” the Pope said, holding up the Bible.

  “Yes, but I’ve never been much of a reader. So much simpler if I could just talk to him.”

  “We speak to Him through prayer.”

  “And what’s that then?”

  “Just speak to Him.”

  “All right, but I don’t see the point in talking to someone who isn’t there.” There was a slight rumble. “Hello? God?” The last word echoed through the Rift, and across the crowd, who looked up expectantly. Only silence replied. “I say, Mr. God?” A breeze stirred, but still no response came. “Well, now I feel a bit silly.”

  “He moves in mysterious ways,” the Pope said, his smile wavering slightly. “He doesn’t always reply in a manner we understand.”

  “No, I’m sorry, love, but I need to talk to someone who’ll talk back, and not through some old book.”

  The Pope’s shoulders fell. He turned and whispered briefly with his cardinals. Then they all dropped to their knees and began to pray.

>   “All right, but I don’t see what good that’ll do. And how about you?” she said to Dr. Chapman. “You someone who thinks he’s too big for his britches or talks to imaginary people?”

  “Um, no, ma’am,” Dr. Chapman said nervously. “I just know a lot about geology. Which I’m not quite sure this is about anymore. Still, here I am.”

  “Oh, but you’re a funny one,” Mother Earth said her tone lightening. “I might just like you. So, what’s that you said? Geology?”

  “It’s the study of … well, of you, actually.”

  “Ooh, little old me?” she delighted. “Go on, go on!”

  “Oh. Right, well, you see, I basically study what you’re made of, where you came from, where you’re going. All done very discreetly and with the utmost respect, of course” he added hurriedly.

  “Believe me, the way you’re all constantly digging into me, I wouldn’t have noticed. But the courtesy is appreciated.” She paused. “So how did you become a geologist?”

  “Four years undergraduate study at Oxford, four more in the graduate program at Cambridge, and extensive childhood experience digging up my mother’s garden.”

  “Ha!” Mother Earth said, a peal of thunder punctuating her laugh. “So you did it all on your own then? Nobody elected you? No invisible man gave you answers?”

  Chapman shrugged. “I had the support of family and friends, and the guidance of some great professors, but for the most part, yes. All me.”

  “Excellent! You’ll do nicely.”

  “I will?” Chapman said. “For what, exactly?”

  “I’d like you to tell everyone that I’m leaving.”

  It took a few moments for the words to sink in. The crowd went silent, the praying ceased, and every news anchor stopped talking as they mulled this over. Even the papal entourage halted their prayers in shock. “Leaving?” Chapman finally managed.

  “Yes. Retiring, actually. There’s a lovely spot just a few million miles off of Alpha Centauri I’ve been keeping my eye on. Esther moved there last year and just won’t stop going on about it.” Her voice bubbled with cheeriness, and daisies spontaneously bloomed all around the edge of the Rift. “Oh, it’ll be just lovely, I know it. So it’s off to Alpha Centauri for me.”

  The Pope and his cardinals began their praying once more, this time joined by those in the crowd who were among the faithful. The rest of the onlookers burst into thousands of simultaneous conversations, while every news network in attendance scrambled to describe what was happening with as many adjectives as they could muster.

  “But ... that's not possible,” Chapman said. “The gravitational pull of the Sun … everything from Copernicus to Newton to Hawking...”

  “No,” Mother Earth said, considering, “I don’t think I spoke to any of those chaps at the agency. It was this rather nice gas giant, what was his name...”

  “So, wait, you can just leave orbit whenever you like?” Chapman asked in disbelief.

  “Oh, of course not, dearie. There’s a dreadful amount of paperwork, you wouldn’t believe –”

  “Excuse me,” Chapman said, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but if you’re leaving, what happens to us? What are we supposed to do?”

  “Well, you’ll just go wherever it is you’ve been flying in those wonderful little spaceships of yours, I expect.”

  “The moon?” Chapman asked.

  “The moon?!” Mother Earth gasped, inadvertently raising her voice and shattering windows all throughout the little village of television vehicles. “That’s as far as you’ve managed? Just what have you been doing all this time? You’ve been hurling yourselves up into space for how long now and you’ve only gotten to the moon?”

  “Space travel isn’t quite that simple,” Chapman said. “Besides, we didn’t realize we had so little time.”

  “Well, I won’t say I’m not disappointed. You’ve got eight other planets right in your own back yard and here you are still clinging to Mother’s apron strings. Well, seven really, the less said about Mercury the better...”

  “Actually, we don’t count Pluto as a planet anymore,” Chapman muttered, lost in thought.

  “Ooh, listen to him now, getting to say who’s a planet and who isn’t! I’d like to see you pop round to Pluto and tell him that to his face. He’d let you have what for, believe you me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chapman said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just a lot to take in at once. We’re only just coming to grips with you talking to us, then you tell us you’re dooming our civilization just so you can take a vacation.”

  “It’s retirement, sweetheart. You come back from vacation.” She lowered her voice. “It’s not that I’m unsympathetic, love. But it was a non-refundable deposit, you see.”

  Chapman spread his hands. “But this is all we have.”

  “What’s that they say about eggs and baskets?” Mother Earth chided. The prayers were growing louder now. “I say, what are they going on about?”

  “They’re praying for deliverance,” Chapman said, lowering his arms with a sigh.

  “Pray for some spaceships, that might be useful.”

  “Actually, they’ve been waiting for this. They always believed the world would end and they’d be whisked up to Paradise.”

  “Ooh, that sounds nice,” Mother Earth beamed. “Is that one near Alpha Centauri?”

  Chapman laughed ruefully. “No. If you ask me, it doesn’t exist. But it’s funny. All my scientific knowledge has just been thrown out the window, yet their faith endures.” He looked down and shook his head. “So how long do we have?”

  “Oh, not very long at all, I should think,” Mother Earth replied.

  “As bad as that, is it?”

  “Well it’s not like I can keep them waiting, dearie. I should be off in two, maybe three hundred thousand years at the most.”

  Chapman’s jaw dropped. “Three hundred thousand years?”

  “It’s not much notice, I know, but if I don’t go soon, I’ll lose my spot. And Esther will be so put out.”

  Chapman threw his head back and laughed, long and hard, until tears ran down his face and his sides ached. “What’s so funny, love?” Mother Earth asked.

  He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I think I might just believe in miracles now,” he said, and continued laughing.

  TRISTIS WARD

  Mother and Child

  Tristis Ward lives and writes in Fredericton, New Brunswick. After a degree in English at Dalhousie University, she worked for years in community radio as a producer, station manager, and national lobbyist. She has written comic book scripts, short stories and plays as well as producing both stage and radio plays. She has long participated online in the SFFWorld.com forum and is a multiple winner in their flash fiction contests. Her first graphic novel, Bones of the Magus is available from Broken Jaw Press.

  Mother and Child is a prelude to Bones of the Magus, but is a great stand-alone story presented in a unique format. It will take you into a strange new universe where worlds fall at the hands of wizards and science, and nothing is safe – not even your soul.

  Editor’s note: Ms. Ward writes in a unique format designed best for print. Though we have included her story here in the digital anthology, we were forced to modify the sizes of the images to fit the format of the anthology. If you view the pages on a small screen, it may be difficult to read. If this is the unfortunate case, please contact the editor and a PDF version will be emailed directly to you. Thank you.

  12. MOTHER AND CHILD

  by Tristis Ward

  The End

  Copyright Notices:

  “Introduction,” by N. E. White. Copyright © 2012 N. E. White.

  “Executable,” by Hugh Howey. Copyright © 2012 Hugh Howey.

  “Julia's Garden,” by Michael Aaron. Copyright © 2012 Michael Aaron.

  “Let’s See What Tomorrow Brings,” by Igor Ljubuncic. Copyright © 2012 Igor Ljubuncic.

  “Tick,” by Wilson Geiger. Cop
yright © 2012 Wilson Geiger.

  “Mother and Child,” by Tristis Ward. Copyright © 2012 Tristis Ward.

  “The Last Hand,” by Pete McLean. Copyright © 2012 Pete McLean.

  “Fly the Moon to Me,” by Stephen “B5” Jones. Copyright © 2012 Stephen “B5” Jones.

  “Relapse,” by Norman Gray. Copyright © 2012 Norman Gray.

  “Burning Alexandria,” by Michael J. Sullivan. Copyright © 2012 Michael J. Sullivan.

  “Silver Sky,” by Liam Baldwin. Copyright © 2012 Liam Baldwin.

  “Sacrifice,” by G.L. Lathain. Copyright © 2012 G. L. Lathain.

  “Empty Nest,” by R. F. Dickson. Copyright © 2012 R. F. Dickson.