The Last Day on Earth

They sat like that for a few minutes, soaking up the last rays of the dying sun. Lucy’s eyes followed when Bill pointed wordlessly. A mob of kangaroos bounded across the floodplain next to the creek. They watched in silence until the kangaroos were out of sight.

Bill handed them each a wine glass and balanced his between his knees as he unscrewed the wine bottle. It was one of their usual wines this time, nothing fancy. He poured it into the glasses, and almost spilled his glass all over himself, but was saved by Lucy’s mother’s quick hands. He let the empty bottle roll down into the gutter.

They clinked glasses and sipped the wine. Normally Lucy liked this brand just fine, but it was a bit disappointing to her taste buds after the Grange. They drank in silence, listening to the birds sing out the day, admiring the sunset and taking comfort in each other’s presence.

Lucy watched the sun disappear below the horizon with a sinking heart. Her chest felt tight; she’d just seen her last sunset. They sat in the growing dusk. Bill was the first to stir, slapping at a mosquito on his arm.

“All right, girls. Does anyone know what time it is?” Lucy shook her head. Liz looked down at her watch.

“We’ve got about an hour.” Lucy’s chest felt even tighter at her mother’s words. Bill held them tightly.

“Okay then. Well. Let’s get off this roof for starters.” He slid down to the gutter and manoeuvred himself onto the ladder. Liz started to pass him the glasses. She stopped just short of his waiting hand. Lucy watched her mother carefully as she stared at the glass in her hand. Without warning, Liz flung the glass from her with a cry. It smashed on the brickwork below.

Lucy’s father looked up at them with raised eyebrows. Her mother seemed to deflate a bit. Liz just shrugged at Bill’s questioning look with a wry smile. Lucy looked at the now empty glass in her own hand. She felt a little tipsy from the wine, but she wasn’t drunk and she doubted either of her parents were either.

“Go on, Lucy. It feels good.” Liz gestured for her to throw her glass as well.

“If you say so,” Lucy said, then pulled her arm back and tossed the glass as hard as she could. A satisfying shatter came from behind the bushes. Lucy grinned for a moment at her mother. She looked at her father, but he just shook his head and went down the ladder.

“Gather anything you want to keep, and bring it to the shelter,” Bill told Lucy and Liz. Lucy glanced at Liz. Her mother seemed willing to go along with this scheme of her father’s. Bill told them to meet him at the shelter in ten minutes, and then he strode off into the gathering darkness, whistling for the dogs.

“Do you think…do you think Dad might be right?” Lucy bit her lip and looked at her mother. Liz frowned.

“I honestly don’t know, Lucy. I’d like him to be right, but… I’m also… I’ve been preparing myself.” Lucy nodded.

“I’m still trying to figure out how I feel, as opposed to how I think I ought to feel.” Lucy shook her head. She didn’t have much time left to figure it out. She looked up to see her mother looking sympathetically at her.

“I wish I could fix this for you, Lucy. You have no idea how powerless I’ve felt the past few months. This is not what I wanted for my children. Obviously. When you were born, I swore that I’d do everything in my power to protect you…”

“You could try giving Cecilia ‘The Look.’ That always frightened your students. And me… and probably Dad as well. And maybe even Grandma too.”

Liz smiled wanly. “I could try,” she echoed.

“I don’t like your chances of success though, I don’t know that asteroids have the emotional capacity to be intimidated.”

Liz snorted. “If only. The sheer force of will of the entire planet.”

They reached the hallway that led to the bedrooms and briefly parted ways. Lucy stood in the doorway and surveyed her childhood room. What would she want to keep? There wasn’t much. She grabbed a framed picture of her and Claire when they were kids, and another more recent one of herself and her nephews. She touched the picture of Claire and wondered where her sister was. She pulled down a photo of her and Jess at their university graduation. She hadn’t heard from her best friend since the mobile phone network went down. She missed her.