She stands on the balcony, just staring off into the distance. He knows the move has been tough for his sister, leaving the countryside she loves so much for the crowded streets of New York City, but it is for the best. Their father has a new job and can finally support his son and daughter instead of relying on the child support checks that came from their estranged mother every so often. Still, it hurts to see her so subdued. She used to be so bubbly and full of life, staying up every night chatting with her boyfriend, which had annoyed her brother so much until she didn't do it any more. He feels sorry for all the times he yelled at her to shut up and go to bed, wishing he had a sister who didn't piss him off so much. Now, he would do anything to get that girl back.
She holds a bottle in her hand, letting it dangle over the side. He walks up and leans on the railing as well and says, "Be careful you don't drop that."
"What if I did?" Her eyes are slightly unfocused and glazed over, and he suspects she may have found their father's secret alcohol stash, even though the bottle reads "Root Beer" on the side.
"First of all, I don't think the owners of the building would appreciate hearing that we were throwing things off the balcony, and second of all, you could hurt someone."
"And?"
"And, what?"
"What if someone did get hurt?" Her brother looks at her, at her dark, blank eyes. No, not blank; there's an intensity held within that he didn't notice before, but it frightens him now. "I mean, at this height, I bet it could even kill someone if it hit them in the right place."
Swallowing, he moves a short distance away from her, but enough that he could grab her if she--what? What would she do, jump off the balcony? This is his little sister. She would never do something like that, right? "Don't talk about things like that. You're scaring me."
"You're the one who brought it up."
"And now I'm ending this conversion."
They stay silent for a few minutes, his sister occasionally taking small swigs from her bottle. He doesn't have the heart to take the definitely spiked drink from her, knowing that she is dealing with her pain her way. Then: "But what if they did?" She turns on him, her breath reeking of the root beer. He'd never liked that cloying, overly-sweet smell all soda has. "What if someone, right now, just died?"
"Seriously, where is this coming from?" he demands, shoving her gently away from him. His heart flutters nervously when she hits the railing. "Are you really that drunk?"
"You still haven't answered my question. If I died, right here and now, what the hell do you think would happen?"
Not seeing any other option but to answer, he says, "Well, Dad and I would be sad, and we'd take your body and have a nice funeral, and we'd invite all our friends, and we'd all cry when they bury you six feet under. Are you happy now? Can we please just go inside?"
"Yes." She turns and grips the railing with one hand, taking another drink from her bottle. "That is what would happen to me, but what about the world? What would happen to the world without my presence gracing it?"
He waits for her.
She walks up to him and says four words: "It will go on." She pushes past him and walks inside, and he trails after her.
Watching as she makes no attempt to hide pulling out a bottle of vodka and clumsily pours some into her bottle, he says, "Why are you thinking about this stuff? And stop drinking that." He walks over and tries to take the bottle, but she holds up a finger and takes a long, slow drink.
"I'm not done yet."
Her ominous words send shivers down his spine.
"Yes, the world will go on, but for how long? How long do you think this place is gonna last?"
"Years. Years and years, and by the time it does end, I promise you won't be around. Therefore, there's no reason to think about it." He tries to grab the bottle again, but she stumbles out of his reach.
"Are you sure? Are you really sure? What if the sun explodes, or turns into a black hole or something, huh? What's gonna happen then?"
Giving up on the bottle, he goes to close the door, just in case her talk of her own demise has inspired her to do something drastic. "People have already looked into that. The sun is definitely dying, yes, but it won't actually die for millions of years. They've even figured out how to avoid being obliterated when that does happen."
She skips in front of him before he reaches the door. "So that's out of the question, at least for now. But there are so many other possibilities, so many other apocalypses that we need to discuss. What about zombies?"
"That's not gonna happen."
"But it could. In school, we learned about this plant that infects ants with a pollen or something that takes over their brains, and then the ant will go to the nearest tree and latch on, and soon a new plant will grow out of the ant. What if the plant mutates or some crazy crap like that? What if it will be able to take over human minds? We'd all be a bunch of plant zombies, chomping on trees and having plants grow from our bodies."
"Still, that's not gonna happen." He says it harshly, trying to make her stop, but she continues to persist.
"One more. One more. There are so many theories out there on how we're gonna die, you know? Just a few years ago, people believed we were gonna die because the Mayan calendar ended in December of 2012, right? When it didn't, so many people were surprised, but the truth is, Mayans didn't have leap years, so it would have ended back in June or July or something like that. Still, the world did end for some people, because they killed themselves. Yes, instead of allowing the apocalypse to end their lives, they took their own in an act of defiance to whoever decided that everyone would die."
"I doubt that happened."
"Really? It happened before. There was this cult who thought the world would end on a certain day, so they all took a poison that killed them all. That's why I think the third theory is most likely. We're gonna kill ourselves, one way or another. We have the means just sitting around, waiting for some idiot or terrorist to say to themselves, hey, this is a great idea. But how would we do it? A giant, atomic bomb? A third world war? The release of some disease that we've kept locked up for years in a vault underground? I don't doubt our abilities to do it. We are the singular, intelligent race that roams this planet, and it does take some sliver of intelligence to destroy an entire world. The only questions left are When? and How?"
He finally rips the bottle out of her hand and, in a fit of rage, throws it across the room, where it shatters into a billion fragments and sends liquid splattering in all directions. "Listen to me!" he roars, grabbing her shoulders and desperately shaking her. "We are not going to die, alright? Not today, not tomorrow, not until we're a hundred years old and surrounded by children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and you're really freaking me out right now so please just stop talking about death and destruction and dying, okay?"
As if on que, a distant rumble penetrates the silence that came after his tirade. She glides to the door, dreamlike, and looks out over the balcony. "So, bombs after all. Or maybe this is the start of the war? I don't think we'll live to find out."
"What are you--" He freezes, the blood draining from his face as he sees five huge airplanes soaring circling in the sky above. "Y-y-you don't know that they're gonna do that," he stammers. He backs into the apartment, thinking that maybe he'll call the police, or something. Or something. What would the police do? Hell, they've probably already seen the planes and crapped their pants in fear, as well. How had it come to this? Is this some kind of sick joke sent by whatever god rules the heavens, as payment for all that his sister said?
"Accept your fate, dear brother." His sister is so calm, a strange smile pulling at her lips. "We are simply actors in the play known as 'Life,' and our final scene has come. Give the audience what they want, and just go with the plot twist."
She stands on the balcony, just staring off into the distance as the world comes crashing down around her.
