The Last Day on Earth

Lucy nodded. She wondered what all the people who didn’t have a convenient relative with a remote farm would do. Steve? What would Steve do? His whole family lived in the city. Maybe he could come with her.

They spent the rest of the evening reminiscing about their university years, and contemplated futures that would never come to pass.

CHAPTER THREE

Present…

“Lucy! Look!” Liz’s cry brought Lucy out of her reverie. A mob of kangaroos came bounding out of the trees and raced off into the open paddocks next to the creek. Lucy smiled. She never tired of the sight. She gazed around at the landscape and wondered what would survive. Probably not the kangaroos unfortunately. But possibly a lot of the plants. Well, not these exact plants, but their seeds. The Australian bush was designed to regenerate after devastating fires. That was if they weren’t in the middle of a giant crater tomorrow of course. She thought that even those seeds might have trouble then.

Liz and Lucy rode on in companionable silence.

“Do you have any regrets, Mum?”

“A million.”

“Like what?”

Liz looked over at her daughter.

“Not seeing you grow up and marry and have children of your own, or making any use of that university degree.”

“Yeah, well, that’s on my list of regrets too. I meant for you personally though.”

“I don’t know, Lucy. I’ve had a pretty good life. I would have liked to go back to Europe with your father, and I wish we had gone to visit Claire and the boys more often. I always wanted to go to Hawaii.” Liz paused and thought for a moment. “When it comes down to it though, I think I did pretty well. Your Dad and I still love each other after 34 years together, we raised two wonderful girls, I enjoyed my job most of the time and your Dad loved running the farm. I never did record my album though.”

“It would have been a best-seller, I’m sure,” Lucy grinned.

“Like your book,” Liz winked.

“Mmm yeah, like my book. You know, that’s one thing I really do regret. I mean, not like it matters, even if I did there’d be no-one around to read it after tonight, but just to know that I could actually finish one, you know?” Lucy thought of all the half started stories tucked away in files on her laptop. She had always thought that she’d have time to finish them off one day.

“I always wanted a son.” Lucy looked over at her mother in surprise. “We tried for another baby after you, but it just never happened.”

“I never knew. I’m sorry, Mum.”

Liz shrugged. “That’s life. Then Claire decided to raise her family in Canada. I never thought my grandchildren would be on the other side of the world most of the time.”

“She was thinking about coming back, you know.”

“Was she?”

“Yeah. She told me the last time I talked to her before… you know. They were looking into getting Tom’s qualifications transferred.”

“Really? Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

“Mum… I’m scared.”

Liz reached over and grasped Lucy’s hand.

“Me too, love, me too.”

Lucy knocked on the peeling green door. She turned to wave to her mother. Liz waved back and nudged Kunama back in the direction they’d come from. Lightning whinnied from under the tree she’d tied him to.

“Who’s there?” a familiar voice called out.

“It’s me. Lucy.” She tried to open the door. It was locked.

“Lucy who?”

“Lucy Black!”

“Oh.” The door clicked, then opened. Tim, Lucy’s unofficial fiancé from the age of four (he’d never given her a ring) and pseudo-husband from the age of seven when his older sister Bethany had married them on the primary school oval, stood in the doorway in his track pants and a dirty t-shirt that proudly proclaimed Long Live Dumbledore.

Lucy frowned at him. “What other Lucy were you expecting?”

“You could have been Lucy Whitmore.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“And why would Lucy Whitmore be visiting you?” Lucy Whitmore had been the reason she’d been referred to as “the other Lucy” for most of high school. As far as Lucy Black knew, Lucy Whitmore had never said more than five words to Tim.

“Well, she slept with all the other guys in our year, I thought she might not want to die without having sampled the full dozen.”

“Keep dreaming,” Lucy snorted.

Tim stood back and let her in. She handed him the backpack.

“Oooh, goodies,” he said as he started riffling through it. “Mmm bread. Eat this with me.”

He led the way down the dark hallway to the bright kitchen. Sunlight was streaming in through the large windows. Lucy blinked. It was a mess.

“No point cleaning up! The asteroid will do that for me,” he said as he caught Lucy looking around at the piles of dishes and food wrappers. Lucy shrugged. He had a point. Although, personally, Lucy wouldn’t want to spend her last few days or weeks surrounded by squalor. But then again, Lucy thought, Tim had lived surrounded by squalor ever since he’d moved out from home and no longer had his mother to clean up after him. It was just strange to see this, his mother’s usually sparkling kitchen, in such a state.