When the World Ends

Christmas

It wasn't a white Christmas, but a gray one.

She'd kept track of the dates, marking the day off on her mini calendar for this year. I hadn't; the days, the time, the year--none of it mattered anymore, not to me. But they mattered to her.

She loved birthdays, but she also loved every holiday. She loved giving gifts. So, weeks before it actually was Christmas, she'd started reminding me how far away the holiday was.

Twenty four days until Christmas, Keane!

Twenty three more days, Keane!

Keane! Christmas is in twenty days!

Fifteen days!

Ten days!

This went on the entire month of December, but I didn't mind. Her eyes sparkled whenever she mentioned the holiday, and I didn't want to ruin that split second in which the hurt was absent.

Because it would return quickly enough, as it was, to its permanent residence in her eyes.

On the: Thirteen days until Christmas! mark, we were passing through a smaller city that wasn't as ruined as the others we'd passed through. The buildings there seemed to be sturdier as well, because very few had fallen or looked as if they would fall.

Figuring this would be a perfect place to scavenge, we went around the buildings and looked around. I remember that there was a large, purple building that looked as if it used to be a bakery. She'd pointed it out, and we'd looked through it, but all that it had contained was already taken, or a mushy mess on the floor.

There were very few other people that we crossed, and most of them were sitting on the steps of what looked to be there homes. This place wasn't dangerous, we'd hoped, and we'd been right to hope so. It seemed that normal people--as normal as could be at the end of the world--who'd lived here had remained in their town. This had made me both happy and sad--they'd tried to carry on normal-ish lives, but now I know the cold would've killed those who'd stayed.

We scavenged through several stores, and saw many others doing the same. There was no order yet in this town. Most of the items were already taken, though, and together we only came up with a box of cereal and some Febreze.

Then, as we were leaving, I spotted something. I'd told her that I needed to use the restroom--which really meant that I was going to pee by a bush--and to wait outside for me, because I'd go out the back entrance. She'd said ok, and then, after she'd walked out of sight, I'd run over to the item I'd spotted and scooped it up.

It was a mini sewing machine--a handheld one--that came in a box with thread and fabric included. Id remembered that she liked to sew things such as plushies and bags, and so I'd gone around the store looking for more thread and fabric.

In the end, I'd come out with a gift bag, a rainbow of thread colors, and about twenty fat quarters. It had seemed that nobody was interested in hobbies at the end of the world--but I knew this would make her happy.

And, to make it even better, I'd come across a sudoku book and added it in as well.

I'd stuffed the gift bag in my backpack, and walked out the door, counting down the days in my head. What had she said? Oh, yeah.

Thirteen days to go!

On Christmas, it was snowing an ashy gray. We couldn't make snow cones, and it was too cold to play in the snow--which was always there, anyways. But we'd found shelter, in a house with no holes in its roof or walls, and that still had windows, too. That has seemed to be a Christmas gift from life itself.

We'd made a fire, and she'd pulled out some food she'd been saving. There was no fresh meat, but we ate beef jerky and Hostess snack cakes--nearly their entire variety of Zingers, Twinkies, and so forth--, as well as drank soda and some sparkling cider that she'd found. She'd told me she would save the other bottle for New Years, and I'd realized that, somehow, we would probably still be alive into that new year. And that both frightened and excited me.

We put a fire in the fireplace, and we drank hot cocoa. We'd curled up on actual carpet, and found some actual pillows. She'd told me that this home had no cars, so the people must not have been home when the world had ended. Or they'd upped and left when it did.

We'd sang Christmas songs. We'd laughed and told jokes and stories. We'd already known all of each other's stories, mostly, but we'd told them again, anyways. And she'd smiled.

We'd exchanged gifts. She'd gotten me a hat--blue, my favorite color--and some matching gloves. She'd also found a box of my favorite candy, and a copy of one of my favorite books.

Then, it had been my turn. When I'd given her the gift, she'd looked both happy and sad at one time, somehow. I'd asked her if she liked it, and she insisted that she did. She must have, because she'd stayed up all night making plushies and drawstring bags without the strings. She also made the two of us stockings, and showed me mine the next day, which had been filled to the brim with octopus and alpaca plushies.

The next day, after she'd shown me the stocking and we'd gotten packed and ready to leave, I'd thought about her reaction to the gift. And I'd realized that it wasn't that she hadn't liked it, but something else.

It had reminded her of what the world was before, and the friends who she'd always seen gifts for.

It had reminded her of the world back when she'd hated me.

And, also, the person she had been before. And the person she had been in love with.