This Is the Way the World Ends (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by James Morrow

  As dawn approached he would rub his eyes, force his face into a yawn, and collapse on the nearest bunk in a parody of exhaustion. Useless – Morpheus was not fooled. George stared at the ceiling, pawed at his blankets. And then, come noon, his teeth would begin grinding so briskly he expected to see sparks, and he knew that a new day was upon him. Did I dream? he would wonder. It pleased him to remember one, for this meant he had actually slept.

  ‘Be ready,’ Morning had said.

  Monday, the tree. He went to the missile compartment and searched among the remaining specimens from Project Citrus, eventually finding the runt of the orchard, barely four feet high, perfect for his purposes, with frail branches and scrawny fruit – no question why it had not been among those selected for the honor of lynching a war criminal. He cut it down, bore it away, set it up in his cabin.

  Tuesday, the ornaments. After securing a hammer from the torpedo room lower deck, he ran through the ship smashing every bright and gaudy object he could find – gyros, compasses, gauges, valves, pumps. He collected the shards in a duffel bag.

  Wednesday and Thursday, the presents. His goal was ten. That seemed a substantial number for her to open, whereas twelve or fifteen would have smacked of overindulgence. He went to Sverre’s cabin and appropriated the white alabaster raven, the captain’s stovepipe hat, the globe, and an empty gin bottle. From the Silver Dollar Casino he took a stack of poker chips and a poster of a harlequin whose word balloon contained the rules for blackjack. He wrote the names of countries on the chips. The main galley yielded an assortment of utensils. He put them in a cardboard box, labeling it SUPER DUPER COOKING SET with a Navy-issue laundry marker. The library was a disappointment – not a single children’s book in the stacks. So he made one, transcribing the fable he had once improvised for her in which a bunny with Holly’s personality conquered self-doubt, learning to ride a two-wheeler bicycle. He illustrated it with stick figures.

  For the ninth gift, George devised a rag doll out of patches and swatches cut from commissioned officers’ uniforms. Its eyes were brass buttons.

  The final gift had been hanging in his closet for months.

  Half a day. So short. Best to trim the tree in advance. After all, she would have all those presents to unwrap and play with. For hooks he used the paper clips that held the pages of Captain Sverre’s bad poetry together. By Friday afternoon the former orange tree had become a cheerful mass of glittery, twisted armatures and curled, nameless metal.

  He beat the lid from a canned ham into a star. Christmas trees without stars on top were totally unacceptable. He moved the step-ladder into place . . .

  Why am I lying on the floor? he wondered. What am I doing staring at the ceiling? He glanced at the rivet-studded walls, the unfinished tree. I am lying on the floor because there is no point to anything. People are extinct.

  Midnight came. He stood up. ‘The point,’ he said aloud, ‘is that Holly and I are not extinct.’ He placed the star where it belonged.

  Saturday, the final preparations. He wrapped the ten gifts in aluminum foil and set them under the tree, stacking and restacking them in an effort to find the perfect arrangement.

  Sunday.

  Seven AM.

  Round and round the Christmas tree he cut a path of nervousness and doubt, periodically stopping to rearrange the presents or reposition an ornament. She wouldn’t like the doll. She would start fussing. Something . . .

  Eight AM Nine AM Ten AM.

  After Chester the cat had died, they had decided to give him a proper burial, complete with a little headstone inscribed CHESTER that George had prepared at the Crippen Monument Works from a stray scrap of granite. Holly hated the whole idea; she refused to attend the funeral and screamed at her parents for dreaming it up. But the very next day, just as George and Justine had predicted, she began telling everyone about the big event – the monument, the grave, the cardboard coffin from the veterinarian – and continued doing so for months . . .

  Eleven AM.

  Justine had blown up a tarantula. This was really pretty funny when you thought about it . . .

  Noon.

  Outside the cabin: quick, trundling footsteps. Veins throbbed frantically in George’s neck and wrists, seeming almost to break free of his body. His bullet wound ached, and he breathed deeply. Dear God, make this a good day.

  A little girl ran into the cabin. Her feet cycled furiously. Her arms opened wide.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Though raspy – a cold coming? – her voice still had the angelic tone that George had never heard in any child except his.

  ‘Holly!’

  They embraced, the child giggling and trilling, George weeping. She was warm. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and blocked his incipient tears, Holly being too young to comprehend why anyone would weep out of happiness.

  ‘It’s so good to see you,’ he said.

  ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said.

  The war had taken its toll. Her hair looked like yarn. Her smile was interrupted by far more missing teeth than the predations of the tooth fairy alone could explain. She moved cringingly, with a slight limp. But her green eyes sparkled, her face was incandescent, she still had her wonderful compactness, and it was her, it was her!

  ‘Ahh – look at the tree!’ Holly shouted.

  ‘Do you like it? You can actually eat those oranges.’

  ‘No thank you. It’s beautiful. It has a star on top. That reminds me of something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those Halloween trees we used to put up.’

  ‘Yes. We hung rubber bats on them.’

  ‘And little pumpkins. They were so cute.’

  ‘I want us to have Christmas,’ George said. ‘You did not get Christmas this year. This was because of the war.’ He was always careful to speak in complete, grammatical sentences around her.

  ‘Daddy, I have something very sad to tell you. This is important.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is important. Mommy died.’

  ‘You are right. It’s very sad. The war killed her.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said, mildly annoyed.

  ‘You gave her orange juice, didn’t you?’

  ‘She died anyway.’

  ‘Holly, Holly, it’s so good to have you here. See those presents down there?’

  ‘Are they for me?’

  ‘Yes. They’re all for you.’

  ‘All of them? All? Oh, Daddy, thank you, thank you. I’m so excited.’

  ‘Why don’t you start with this one?’ he said, handing her the gin bottle. She sheared away the aluminum foil. ‘A flower vase,’ he explained.

  ‘Later could we pick a flower?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  Lunging for the big box, she stripped it bare. ‘That says, “Super Duper Cooking Set,” ’ her father explained.

  She pulled back the lid, took out the dishes, cups, saucers, pots, pans, kettles, and tureens. ‘Oh, Daddy, I love it, I love it. Will you play cooking with me?’

  ‘I think maybe we should finish the unwrapping.’

  ‘Then will you play with me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Apprehensively he picked up the doll. ‘Try this.’ She tore at the foil. ‘I know you wanted a Mary Merlin,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t find any.’

  ‘Couldn’t Santa Claus either?’

  ‘The stores were out of them.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Holly kissed the doll and stroked its hair. ‘I like her so much. Her name is Jennifer.’

  She put Jennifer to bed in a roasting pan from the Super Duper Cooking Set, covering her with a blanket of aluminum foil. Next George gave his daughter the white alabaster raven. She unwrapped it, named it Birdie, and laid it next to Jennifer. Soon the doll and the raven were fast asleep.

  ‘Be very quiet, Daddy.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I want to pick out the next one.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She yanked the stovepipe hat from the
pile, unwrapped it. Making no comment, she put it on and grinned her ragged, episodic grin. Now the bright cylinder caught her eye. Bits of foil took to the air. ‘Oh, a clown!’ she said, unscrolling the harlequin poster. ‘He’s funny. I want to hang him up.’ They taped the poster to a bulkhead.

  ‘And now you’ve got this one,’ George said. Gleefully she ripped the foil. ‘It’s a story I once told you,’ he explained. ‘A bunny wants to ride a two-wheeler bike, and—’

  ‘Read it to me.’

  Done.

  ‘Read it again.’

  He did.

  ‘Read it again.’

  ‘You’ve got another present over here.’

  ‘I’ll bet it’s a beach ball.’ She pulled apart the wrapping, continued beaming even after the beach ball proved to be a globe. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It shows us what the world is like. Well, it’s really a kind of game.’

  ‘Let’s play it.’

  ‘Okay. You need this thing over here.’ He handed her the poker chips, and she unwrapped them. ‘You see, they have the names of countries on them. Everybody gets ten. Then you spin the globe like this, and you keep your eyes closed, and you put your finger out the way I’m doing. And if your finger stops on a country that’s the same as one of your chips, then you—’

  ‘Is that last present for me too?’ Holly asked, removing her stovepipe hat and waving it toward the tree.

  ‘Yes. It’s from Santa Claus.’

  She freed her civil defense gear from its foil. ‘Oooh, a gold one. Pretty.’

  ‘It’s called a scopas suit.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I thought you might like to dress up in it.’

  ‘Nice. What’s the matter with the glove?’

  ‘Something hit it.’

  ‘Let’s play tea party. I’ll be the sister. You be the visitor.’

  Holly distributed her new cooking things around the coffee table. She set out Sverre’s gin bottle, filling it with several tree ornaments that vaguely resembled flowers. The raven was invited, and the doll, and the visitor, and also the scopas suit, which Holly decided was a scarecrow. Everyone had invisible cake and gossamer ice cream. During the course of the afternoon, the scarecrow’s name went from Suzy to Margaret to Alfred.

  Later she played alone, giving Birdie, Jennifer, and Alfred their bottles, putting them in for their naps. Outside the submarine, the black of day gave way to the black of night.

  Father and daughter went to the galley and had Christmas dinner. The stale pretzels were scrumptious. They sneaked extra sugar into their cocoa.

  When they were back in the cabin, George said, ‘Holly, would you like a horsey ride?’

  ‘No.’

  He was grievously disappointed.

  Ten seconds later she said, ‘Give me a horsey ride.’

  For George it was to be a test. All previous horsey rides had ended with him insisting that he was too tired to continue. In truth he had been too bored. Each time, he had received the impression that there was no point at which Holly herself would end the ride, that she would more likely fall asleep in the saddle.

  She climbed atop his big equine shoulders, and he galloped down the corridor. The pressure on his spine was extraordinarily pleasant. Waving her stovepipe hat, she urged him on. ‘Turn . . . down here, Horsey . . . go through the door . . . that’s the way, Horsey.’

  Fifteen minutes passed. Horsey became bored. He thought: how can this be? Yet there it was, boredom. I shall keep going, he told himself. Nothing will stop this horsey ride, nothing.

  ‘This reminds me of something,’ Holly said.

  ‘What?’ Horsey asked.

  ‘That ride you put the money in. Back home. Oh, I wish we were home again, Daddy. I miss my kitty.’

  ‘Horsey is tired now,’ he said. The lump in Horsey’s throat felt like a stuck walnut. ‘Horsey wants to go sleep in the stable.’

  ‘Can we play that game? The one with the world in it?’

  ‘Sure, honey.’

  Back in the cabin, they made a half-hearted attempt at playing the stupid game. Holly became frustrated and ornery. ‘How about another round of Bicycle Bunny?’ he suggested.

  They read it in the bunk, huddled beneath blankets. After it was over, she said, ‘This book reminds me of something. Long ago, when I was very little, like three or something, you used to read me a book about the beach.’

  ‘Carrie of Cape Cod. We read it lots of times last fall.’

  ‘Remember the part about the Big Spoon?’

  ‘The Big Dipper. Yes.’

  ‘Could we go see the Big Dipper? I mean, now could we see it?’

  ‘All right,’ he said, dragging her scopas suit away from the tea party, ‘But you’ll have to wear this. It’s cold out there.’

  ‘No, no, that’s Alfred Scarecrow!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Here’s the deal, honey. If you don’t put this on, we can’t go see the Big Dipper. I’m going to wear one too.’

  ‘Birdie wants to come.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He girded his daughter against the elements. The suit fit perfectly. She looked adorable in it, her round, glowing face popping from the gold collar. To compensate for the bullet-shattered glove, he wrapped her hand in silk strips torn from the bedsheets.

  He scooped her up, carried her and Birdie through half a mile of corridor, pausing briefly to remove an electric lantern from a bulkhead and hook it around his wrist. Twenty risers spiraled from the navigation room to the first sail deck. At the door he stopped and said, ‘Honey, there’s something I want to ask.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you know what’s happened to you?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘What’s happened to you?’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you.’

  ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘You know what’s happened.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I died.’

  A thick stratum of snow covered the outside deck, sealing the missile doors. Ice flowed from the diving planes in silver sheets and drooped from the periscopes like the web of some monstrous Antarctic spider. Ragged bergs squeezed the hull from all sides, locking it tight against the barrier.

  ‘Oh, great!’ Holly said. ‘It’s been snowing! Look, Daddy, it’s been snowing!’

  He did not want to tell her that it did not snow in Antarctica, that the crystals were simply redistributed by the winds.

  She looked up. The stars were sharp and bright. ‘Is it there? Can we see the Big Dipper?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I think I see it.’

  ‘Honey, I just realized something. We’re in the Southern Hemisphere—’

  ‘Is that it?’ she asked, thrusting her stubby, insulated fingers heavenward.

  He studied the sky. Amorphous clusters. Meaningless forms. ‘Yes, honey, I think that’s it.’

  ‘You’re just saying that! We can’t see the Big Dipper!’

  ‘I’m sorry, honey. I’m really sorry. We’re too far south, and—’

  ‘It’s okay, Daddy. Put me down.’ He lowered his arms, and she slid into the crusty snow. Groans filled the air as ice and hull ground against each other. ‘I love you, Daddy.’

  ‘I love you, too, Holly.’

  ‘Mommy couldn’t come,’ she said softly.

  ‘Yes. That’s very sad.’

  ‘We couldn’t see the Big Dipper.’

  ‘Yes. That’s sad too.’

  A wind blew up, churning the snow, tossing iceballs against the sail. ‘Thank you for all the presents,’ she said. ‘I love that doll. This has been a great Christmas.’

  ‘It’s been the best Christmas ever,’ he said.

  ‘I have to go now.’

  ‘No! You can’t go!’

  ‘I really like that cooking set, and I had fun playing visitor with you. And thank you for Birdie. And be sure to take care of Jennifer. She gets her bottle at six o’clock midnight.’


  ‘Please stay, Holly! Please! You’re not allowed to go yet!’ He ripped a gob of wolverine hair out of his parka hood. ‘I need to tell you a bedtime story. It’s about an elf who casts a golden shadow. Please! So one day the elf’s uncle asked him to—’

  ‘Good-bye, Daddy.’

  They hugged, squeezing so hard it should have hurt.

  ‘Please don’t go, Holly! Please!’

  ‘Good-bye, Daddy. I love you.’

  ‘Good-bye, darling. I love you so much. I love you so much.’

  She worked free of his grip, coasted bum-down along the hull as if it were a sliding board. Her stovepipe hat fell off. Now George could hear snow crunching under her little boots. The starlight caught her golden suit, so that a figure made of phosphor moved across the barrier toward Lazarev. She clutched Birdie tighter, ran faster, and was soon swallowed by the darkness and the gale.

  Vanity of vanities. George had actually believed he could save his species. And yet, despite the scale of his failure, he had not reverted to his old, unambitious ways. He expected things now. God owed him. Tirelessly, enterprisingly, he dashed across the Lazarev Ice Shelf. I’ll go to whomever Morning made that deal with, he thought. They’ll let me keep my child. They must.

  His lantern was strong, more than equal to an Antarctic blizzard, and he had no trouble keeping Holly in view. She was only four, and unsteady, and burdened with a scopas suit and Birdie. He called her name. The wind threw it back in his face. Bits of ice sailed past, pelting his forehead, slicing his cheeks. He wished that he were unadmitted, so that his memories would be fogged, but instead the images all boasted a brutal clarity: Holly’s first trip to the zoo, Holly being a bug for Halloween . . .

  The crevasses of Antarctica are predatory, hungry, lying in wait. Holly did not notice the great Novolazarevkaya Crevasse. One second she was running, the next she was gone, falling in a flash of golden scopas threads.

  George cursed the crevasse aloud, vowing to defeat it as totally as Sverre’s navy had defeated the invalidated past. Already he was at the brink, throwing himself on his stomach, extending his lantern arm. The beam spilled downward, illuminating flying whorls of snow and a child’s figure pressed against the wall, her boots frozen to a feeble lip of ice. George saw two frightened green eyes, heard whimpering. His muscles and tendons creaked, nearly tearing apart as he fought for an extra inch of reach.