Fiction, Kara White
“ …asteroid plummeting toward the Earth. Top scientists report that it’s nearly the size of the moon. We, uh… encourage being with your loved ones at this time…”
Her coffee cup stayed suspended in the air. She’d often wondered how the world would go out. She assumed it would be closer to a candle burning down the wick, not the quick snuff of some cosmic god.
The apartment’s luxurious decor, collected with painstaking attention, became wrong quicker than the world ending. Her reflection in the floor-length mirror mocked her. She had the urge to shatter the glass — shatter the portal to every promise she had spoken to it that would now go permanently unfinished.
The map on the wall, the bookshelf of unread books, the photographs of friends she hadn’t spoken to for years, all suffocated her now. She set her coffee on the counter. As she walked about the room, vexed that the world was ending this way — what the hell do you take with you, anyway? — she didn’t notice the news anchors had abandoned their station in front of the fake city landscape. She settled with grabbing her keys and opened the door.
A stranger in mid-knock stared at her. The stranger lowered her hand. “Can I…?” The woman pointed down the breezeway, and after a beat, shook her head in a way that said, “Well?”
The stranger’s mouth opened, and she paused as if also surprised to be standing there. Her eyes brightened, and she snapped her fingers. “I cut you off yesterday in traffic. I’m sorry if I made you angry.”
The woman responded sharply, “That hardly matters now.”
“Am I forgiven?” She asked desperately. The woman noticed a small child clinging to its mother’s leg.
“Sure,” she said, passing the words like an empty offering plate. “You’re forgiven.”
She saw the stranger’s shoulders relax. Then, a new resolve tightened her expression, and she marched off with the toddler in tow.
From all directions came the sound of knocking, doors opening and shutting, cars unlocking, and engines turning. The woman went to the stairs and saw more people than she ever knew lived in the complex.
When the woman reached her car, someone blocked the driver’s door. She recognized the reclusive old man. They’d never spoken before, and the woman hardly wanted to start. She had better things to do with her day.
He extended a package like a peace offering. “This is yours.”
The woman stifled a laugh. She wasn’t surprised the old hoarder had sticky fingers. “I don’t need it.”
”This was delivered to my door ages ago. Every time I’ve looked at it since, I remembered my failure to bring it to you. I’m so sorry.”
The woman looked upon him with some sympathy. He should have gotten his life in order earlier. Now, he had no time left. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter now.”
The man nodded and hiccupped a gasping breath. “Thank you. Thank you.” Then he, too, found renewed purpose in a new direction.
The woman didn’t dwell. She climbed in the car and turned the ignition. Before she shifted the gears, knuckles rapped on the passenger window. Another neighbor waved at the woman. She rolled down the window.
”Can you give me a lift to Broadway?” The neighbor asked, pointing in the car.
Before the woman could respond, the neighbor climbed in with her little dog. The woman always hated the yappy thing and its gaudy rhinestone collar. Her disdain, though she’d never admit it, was because the neighbor vaguely resembled someone else.
A line of cars blocked their exit.
”Listen, I know we’ve always tried to be friendly,” the neighbor started, “but I’ve never really liked you. I never gave you a chance though, you know? From the moment I saw you, I judged how you walked.” The neighbor laughed. “Absurd, right?”
The dog’s wet eyes stared at the woman as if it too tried explaining its yapping or shitting too much.
“No,” the calculated reply crawled out, “I didn’t know.”
The neighbor wasn’t phased. “Well, I wanted you to know I’m sorry anyway.”
The woman’s eyes bounced between neighbor and dog. “Okay.” She said through clenched teeth, wanting the woman to leave, “I forgive you.”
Nodding, the neighbor exited and sprang into the crowd. The abandoned cars behind her forced the woman to follow.
Eyes flicked desperately between faces. Some stopped, seeking resolutions or exonerations or absolutions. The woman kept walking.
Surely, they had better things to do or, at least, bigger amends to make. With a rancorous seed, she imagined certain people who should make amends instead of people who hardly affected her.
Birds flew overhead. They landed on power lines just as any other day. The swarming pedestrians didn’t stop their usual dance from wire to branch to ground.
Nearly in a trance, she collided with another person. “Watch—!“ The words dried on her tongue when she recognized her ex-lover.
Silence lingered after an awkward greeting. She resisted the urge to cross her arms. How many times had she fantasized about this moment?
“Well?” She raised her eyebrows. Now came the apology she deserved.
”After you left—after you saw—” his Adam’s apple bobbed like a fish pulled on his esophagus. “It wasn’t fair that you had to go through that. I wish things had been different.”
She exhaled. Wings flapped overhead, and the woman glanced up. Her eyes stayed on the spot in the sky. It slowly grew larger. Was this really it?
She had clenched this anger, drunk its intoxicating burn, and had believed its whispers, If only… If only… And this was it?
“Do you have anything you want to say?” he asked.
She inhaled, filling her belly. The breath reached through her feet down into the earth. She let the breath go. How many more times would her lungs expand and contract?
”Do you forgive me?” he asked.
Something planted in her womb took root and began to grow. It tugged. “Why do you want my forgiveness?”
He pursed his lips. “I don’t want the world to end without knowing I was forgiven.”
She threw her arm toward the sky. “What will that actually change?”
His brow knit together as his mouth opened and closed. She walked away, following the tug.
“Wait” He followed her, apologizing for more and more. All his words floated up, and the birds jumped off the ground to catch them as they flew to the power lines. ”I thought this is what you wanted!”
She rounded a corner of the sidewalk and saw a group of people loitering there. It was her parents and her ex-lover’s parents. More people she’d thought needed to offer this or say that. But would it ever be what she needed?
“We’re so sorry,” all four parents said simultaneously.
“What for?”
Her father said, “For all the ways you thought I failed you as a father—“
Her mother said, “But you must understand what I went through as your mother—”
His parents said, “But you know he’s our son. And you have plenty to apologize to him for, too.“
The blob in the sky now looked three-dimensional. The woman pushed through them, and they joined the ex-lover in throwing apologies to the air.
She begged them to leave her alone. She even tried to shout “You’re forgiven!” to the crowd. Their confessions grew so loud, they could no longer hear her. The woman ran.
More people joined. All shouted apologies of some sort, minor and major, known and unknown. Some of them, remembering some past offense or presently stepping on somebody’s heels, turned to ask for forgiveness from each other. Some chased others who chased her. The crowd ballooned like a murmuration of starlings.
She reached her apartment, locking the door just in time before the thunderous knocking erupted. She backed from the door, catching her breath.
She met her eyes in the mirror. She could see in herself the small, scared thing she kept hidden. It looked at her now, searching for meaning in their final moments.
The woman’s tears unleashed in ravaged sobs. She cried for the life she thought she’d have, for the past she wished she had, and for the future she’d never get. In that private moment, she birthed a new understanding.
Her fingertips touched her face in the mirror. “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry. I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to see.”
In the mirror’s reflection, the news anchors returned to their seats.
“Well, uh… We’re waiting on the full report, but the asteroid has been diverted.” The news anchor laughed, “It’s truly a miracle. It seems you may be sleeping safely tonight after all.”
There was silence. The sun peeked through her window.
An unknown emotion surged through her. She met her eyes again.
“I meant it,” she whispered.
Andromeda is an American writer and poet, who often explores themes related to psychology, philosophy, and spirituality.
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