I am sitting in my living room, sipping a glass of lemonade, reading the newspaper. It is a bright, sunny day. I can hear children playing outside in the street, they have set up a basketball hoop. The suburbs are pleasant, it is a weekend, so no cars disturb their play. Everything is calm and peaceful.
I glance up at the clock, before remembering it hasn’t worked in years. I keep telling my wife I’m going to go downtown and get it repaired, but I never do. The hands point to 8:37, but I know it must be much later in the day than that. The face of the clock has a single crack down the middle, like a lightning bolt. I glance down at my watch instead. It reads 2:46.
I finish my lemonade and put the empty glass in the kitchen sink, rinsing it with some water. I look outside and hear the chirping of birds mix with the laughter of children. My wife is taking a nap in our bedroom, as is customary on weekend afternoons. I decide I will go and join her.
I move the glass to the dishwasher, but it’s not full enough to turn on just yet. I’ll leave it for later. I am about to turn away from the window and shuffle away to the bedroom, when suddenly there is a bright flash, brighter than anything I have ever seen in my entire life. In an instant I feel my skin become sunburned from the radiance, and I close my eyes instinctively. Bright points of light dance behind my closed eyelids.
I open my eyes to see a mushroom cloud blooming over the roofs of the houses, dwarfing the height of anything I’d ever seen up until that point. I know the shockwave is coming soon. I know that I have only seconds before I am nothing more than ashes. The end of my life, once a murky, indeterminate point in the future, has instantly been revealed, clarified in a single instant. Any action I take in the next few moments will be the last thing I ever do.
Do I run and wake my wife? Do I tell her I love her one last time? Or do I just let her sleep, let her enjoy her last moments in peace? There isn’t long to choose, I have to make a decision soon, before it is too late. But I can’t. I am paralyzed, frozen with indecision. I fear that my choice will be made for me, that my last moments will be spent standing before the window, too terrified to even move.
Everything is silent. Sound travels slower than light. Even though I’ve seen the explosion, I haven’t heard it yet. The birds stopped chirping and the children stopped laughing the second the bomb went off. I wonder if they too know it is the end.
Just as I begin to move, to make a decision as to how I will spend the last seconds of my life, my ear drums burst from the loudest sound I have ever heard, will ever hear. Everything goes white.
- - -
I wake up from bed, crying out from fear. The walls are shaking, I can hear things falling from the walls. I don’t know if I am truly awake or if I am still dreaming. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. I see my wife also sat up in bed, rubbing sleep from her bleary eyes while asking what is happening. I hold on to her as tight as I can, fearing for our lives. I told her that I wouldn’t ever let her go, that I loved her more than the world, that no matter what, everything would be alright.
- - -
The earthquake wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed initially. Bigger than any I’d ever lived through, sure, but nothing terrible. A few things are damaged, glasses and other breakables mostly. The TV fell off the stand and shattered, but we still had the warranty, so it was no big deal. Frankly I am surprised that the quake had been as mild as it was, seismologists had been warning us for years that the next one would practically level the city, and here we were with the worst damage being some broken mugs. It is an absolute relief after the dream I’d had.
My wife and I take the day off from work from our respective jobs to spend time getting everything cleaned up, that way we wouldn’t have to worry about it when we got back home in the evening. The cleaning isn’t too difficult of a task, mainly it is just a matter of putting back up pictures, cleaning up shards of glass, that sort of thing.
Luckily we still have power on, so I pour my wife and I each a glass of cold lemonade from the pitcher I’d put in the refrigerator the night before. She smiles at me as I hand her the glass, and I smile back.
An hour later, we are sorting things that have fallen off the walls and shelves into three separate piles; broken, damaged, and undamaged. Anything broken is going to be sent off to the landfill. Damaged items we can either get repaired or try to donate. The undamaged items we can put back where they belong once we finish sorting everything.
As we sit, sorting the fallen items, I feel a warm sense of relief flow through me. The dream I’d had really shook me up quite a bit, but everything is alright now. It really is going to all be okay. I feel optimistic about my wife and I’s long and happy future together.
I reach for the next item to examine, and my blood suddenly runs ice cold. The object I hold in my hand is a clock, one we usually keep on the mantelpiece. The glass is cracked from its fall to the floor, a jagged line in the vague shape of a lightning bolt. The clock is stopped, it seems that the mechanism is broken. The time reads 8:37.