Avoiding The End
Aviva Bel’Harold
Copyright Orange Monkey Publishing 2013
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Avoiding The End
Consciousness started with a click. Waking up took longer. As I stumbled between dreaming and reality my husband’s voice came to me.
“Anarah, please—”
It was a memory. I could see Evan’s smile. His whole face was committed to it. But the way the sun danced across his bald spot made the moment feel like a dream.
“—it’s completely safe.”
“So is being buried alive,” I answered.
He’d pulled me close then. His strong arms holding me. His warm chest. His sweet breath. I would say yes. I would do it for him.
He felt me nod — he must have.
“I’m so glad.” His arms squeezed tighter. “I’ve already ordered them. If you had said no I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find a new wife to fill the second. Not with such short notice.”
He was joking — I hadn’t laughed.
What had clicked? I wondered, cautiously reaching forward. My hand stopped as it found what it had been searching for. It had only briefly brushed against the plastic pod that I was encased in. It was all I needed to feel how cold it was. Why wasn’t I cold?
“Aren’t they shiny?” Evan asked.
Despite the receding hairline and the growing pot-belly I was not surprised to see how much my husband looked like a child impatient to play with his new toy. That’s what they were to him — new toys. Placed next to the Hummer, Ferrari and the vintage Mustang, they looked like they belonged.
No matter how shiny, how new, or even how technically advanced they were, they only looked like coffins to me.
“A matching set. One for you,” Evan swooped me up in his arms and spun me, “and one for me. We will be safe in our own cocoons sleeping through whatever Fate has planned for the world. And when it is safe we will emerge, unharmed, unmarred. Like glorious monarch butterflies — ready to claim our thrown.”
Cocoon. I wanted to laugh out loud but my voice was stuck. Disuse had made the action feel foreign to me.
How long?
It was not a question I could answer.
“How long?” I asked Evan as the maid left the verandah carrying the tray of dirty dishes.
“Until it’s safe.”
That was the only answer he’d given me, no matter how many times I’d asked.
“When do you think it will be safe?” I was so pleased with myself — sure that this question would get me the answer I was looking for.
“Don’t fret, my love, I will work that out.”
I slumped in my seat.
“Don’t pout,” Evan said. “Pouting will put frown lines on your beautiful face.”
“And what will being encased in a cocoon do to my beautiful face?” I hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
Evan laughed. He was laughing at me.
I hated it when he did that.
It made me feel so much like a child who didn’t know anything. Just because I didn’t understand this didn’t mean I didn’t understand anything. I sat up but crossed my arms.
“Anarah, my love,” Evan had caught my hand up in his, “we will be perfectly safe and we won’t age a day. Trust me.”
He’d moved around the table to stand in front of me. He knelt down and caught my chin in his free hand. “I wouldn’t want to waste a day of your beauty. I say sleeping, but we won’t be sleeping — not really. It will feel like sleep, but it won’t be. We will be suspended in time. Time won’t touch us. No matter how many years we are cocooned we will emerge untouched. Not a day older than when we go in.”
Years — he’d said years.
We might not change in those years, but many other things would.
My eyes broke away from Evan’s intent gaze to look out over the estate. Lush green covered everything as far as my eyes could see. I thought of the grass; it was the softest I’d ever felt. Like velvet between my toes. Whenever Evan was out I’d walk barefoot just to feel it.
It was summer. The trees were thick with dark, healthy leaves. The flowers were in full bloom. The bumblebees were busily buzzing from one blossom to the next. Healthy-looking plants were growing in the vegetable garden. The world was full of life and all Evan wanted to talk about was death.
“Anarah?” His voice broke.
I turned back before he was able to blink away the pain in his eyes.
“I don’t want this any more than you do.” He tried to disguise his shudder. “Maybe they are wrong? Maybe I’m wrong. I hope it — I truly do. If I’m wrong we will not miss much. A day or two. I have a plan. It has a failsafe. I just want us to be safe…just in case.”
I pressed my palm against the inside of my pod and pushed — hard. I was awake now. I was ready to be released.
The plastic didn’t budge.
I tried again, feeling panic creeping up my spine.
The pod was unyielding.
I might have screamed if a question hadn’t formed: What had clicked?
That was a logical question. Logic slowed my breathing, calming my mind.
But the panic wasn’t going to give up that easily. Fear was quickly driving logic away.
“What clicked?” I spoke into the dark. My voice distracted me. It did not sound like me. It sounded like my mother…no, it sounded even older than her. It sounded like my Gran’s voice.
“Have another.” Gran slid the plate closer to me. “You’ve lost too much weight. You’re all skin and bones now.”
“No, thank you,” I said and slid the plate back. “I really shouldn’t have had the first.”
Gran’s homemade lemon-drop cookies were my favorite. She knew this. She was good at making all sorts of delicious treats. Most I could resist, but I was never able to resist her lemon-drops. Lately, whenever I visited there was always a healthy amount of those among the assortment.
“Tay, tell your daughter that she looks too thin. Too many bones showing is just as unhealthy as too much fat.”
My mom stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Anarah, you look fine.” She disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Gran tried not to let her scowl show. She pushed the plate closer to me again.
This time I slid my chair back. I made it three inches before hitting the wall. Leaning my head back till it was also touching the wall, I rested it there. I breathed deeply — there were no calories in the smell.
“It’s ok, Gran, I’m not starving myself.”
My eyes wandered around the trailer home. It hadn’t been my real home, but I had grown up there. I was more familiar with it than the house where my parents lived.
I had spent nearly every weekend and absolutely every holiday with Gran. My mom worked double and triple shifts doing several jobs. My father was typically in a drunken stupor by ten a.m. Mom had explained that it was better to grow up in the mobile home. It was ironic — she had worked herself so hard trying to get away from it.
“You know what would give you a little needed weight?” Gran was eyeing me with a coy smile.
I shrugged. I never knew what Gran was thinking.
“A baby.”
I nearly choked.
“Don’t you think pregnancy would look great on her, Tay?” she called out to my mom, but my mom didn’t respond. “Well, I do. I think it’s about time too. You’ve been married for what? Two years now? Your momma wasn’t married more than five hours before she got pregnant with you.”
I had done the math when I was a teen. I was born twenty-eig
ht weeks after the wedding and I wasn’t born premature.
“Evan doesn’t want kids yet,” I answered because it was clear Gran wouldn’t stop until she got an answer.
“Yet? What is he waiting for? You’ve got the money. You’ve got more than enough room in that mansion where you live. You have the time — what do you do with your days? Tell me, Anarah, what is he waiting for? Don’t you want to have kids before you are too old to enjoy them?”
I did.
“We’ll have them after,” I said.
“After? After what?”
“Just after.” I knew Gran had heard the distress in my voice.
Even my mom had heard it. She came around from the kitchen and took the only empty seat left in their shrunken dining room.
“Anarah,” Mom put her hand over mine.
Seven years after the fire, her wounds were as healed as they would ever be. Still, the unnatural smoothness of her skin made me shiver. She moved her hand away. “Are you going somewhere?”
I nodded eagerly.
“Another trip?” my mom asked and quickly added with a smile. “That man sure does spoil you with adventures. He’s taken you everywhere, at least twice.”
I bit my tongue before I could say that Evan wanted to see everything before it was gone.
“Where are you going this time?”
“A cruise,” I said softly. I didn’t hear my voice wobble, but I felt the tears trying to break free.
“Sounds like fun.”
I nodded, wanting to tell them that I’d miss them. I wanted to tell them the truth. If Evan was right — this would be goodbye. Evan was so rarely wrong, and he was so sure about this.
As I left I got to hug them each and made