Armageddon Season

A Story by Owen J Kato

A tale of the disappointment that is reality and how one young boy attempts to overcome it since he was raised on nothing but TV and TV dinners-the microwavable kind. And there is also a cat.

Armageddon Season

By Owen Kato

The earth was desolate: trees stripped of leaves, gardens free of flowers, wind-shattered garbage, bent over rusted street signs, white sneakers hung from their laces over electrical wires, mounds of dirty snow lined the sides of cracked streets; and at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac, on the outskirts of a city, stood a crooked alabaster house; and inside, a dark haired boy of seven sat, cross-legged, eyes locked on the glowing screen of an old plasma TV, absorbing the afternoon news.

On the screen, a man with a red tie tight around his neck spoke: “We are going to build a wall! We are going to build it wide! We are going to build it tall!”

“Hahaha, he rhymed, he’s a rapper,” cheered the boy, flicking his greasy hair out of his eyes and pointing to the TV.

The man with the red tie continued: “We will keep them out! All of them! And make our country great again!” Then the image of the man shrunk and another man"a newscaster with a receding hairline, came on and spoke: “And in other news, China has formally surrendered knowledge, that it does, in fact, have nuclear weapons stored in their satellites that orbit our planet.” The man smiled. “And with this information, N.O.R.A.D. is starting a complete investigation and we will have more on this coming shortly after the short break.”

“Rad!” The boy pounded his small fists on the stained living room carpet. “Weapons in space! Mom will love this!”

The mesh screen door to the house creaked open. A scrawny girl with long legs walked in with straight black hair that ran down to the small of her back. She wore black tights and a black faded hoodie that looked nearly as old as she was. “Hey, Ollie,” she said.

The boy turned away from the TV. “Yo!”

The girl tossed her backpack on a worn, brown couch and walked towards a pleather recliner. “What’s on?”

“Men doing things and talking about things. They are going to build a wall to keep the taco people out.”

The girl narrowed her eyes. “Taco people?”

“Yeah, Taylen,” said Ollie, turning back to the TV.

Taylen flipped herself up on a pleather recliner that was more stained yellow foam, than pleather. She stretched her long narrow torso like a cheetah and slid down so that she was able to watch the T.V. upside down with her head hanging off the chair. “Shouldn’t watch this crap, Mom says. If she comes out, she’ll flip.”

“Nothing else on.” Ollie turned to his older sister with an eager smile on his face. “Hey, can I ride my bike today?”

“Mom says you have to have an adult with you if you’re going to go outside with all the stuff that’s happened to kids these days.” Taylen reached into her hoodie’s pouch and pulled out her smartphone; its screen was cracked, taped together with Scotch tape.

Ollie frowned. “You’re an adult.”

“It’s too dangerous out there.”

“I just want to ride for a bit. Please, Taylen. I’ll do the dishes tonight.”

“You’re too small to reach up to the sink.”

“Please.”

Taylen sighed. “It’s too dangerous and it will get dark soon. And there’s black ice.”

“Black… ice?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it really black?”

Taylen thumbed away at her smartphone, the glow shining off her blue eyes.

“Is it really black, Taylen?”

“Chill out, and it’s un-seeable.”

“Like the future...”

“Yes.”

Ollie rose up, as tall as he could, and stood over his sister. “Whatcha up to, Taylen?”

Taylen flicked her thumbs: left, left, right, right, left, left; right. “Nothing. And stop saying my name, it’s annoying.”

“Are you on the looking for love app again?”

“Turn off the TV, it’s bad for you.”

Ollie searched the living room, found the remote tucked between the cushions in the couch and clicked off the plasma. Then he ran up to his older sister again. “Why do you go on the love app?” he asked.

“Ugh, never mind.” Taylen rolled her eyes.

“Mom says it’s for adults. And you’re only sixteen.”

“Guys my age suck.”

A yell came down the hallway from a room where a radio blared a very raspy voice"a voice that sounded like it had been talking its entire life without pause. A voice that droned on about: new world orders, secret societies and shattered democracy. But even over the deathly radio voice, came: “You kids feed yourselves tonight. Like always, there’s frozen dinners in the freezer"pasta or whatever. Mom’s listening to her radio.”

“What-f*****g-ever, Mom,” yelled back Taylen grudgingly.

Ignoring his mother, Ollie, went up to the front window and peered around the cul-de-sac. Most of the houses were empty. No lights were on. Wind rolled aluminum soda cans back and forth, and kited newspapers and other assorted litter through the winter air.

Ollie, hands against the window glass, watched an orange tabby cat stalk across the cracked asphalt of his driveway. “Taylen, Sampson is back!” he cheered.

“Who?”

“That cool cat, Sampson!”

On all fours, Ollie, walked like a cat to the front door and started to turn the knob. “No, you can’t go outside!” said Taylen.

“Why? Sampson’s outside. Come on, let me go ride my bike.”

Taylen said: “It was my bike. I don’t understand why you want to ride a pink bike.”

“It’s the only bike we got after the governments took Dad to fight in the wars,” said Ollie, looking away from the window.

“I hate my ex-boyfriend,” said Taylen.

Ollie thought, and said: “Is that why you go on the love app?”

“I dunno.”

Ollie put his head down, his long hair came down like a curtain, hiding his face. “Is that why you brought that guy home and Mom came after him with a bat when he found you and him in your room trying not to make noises but making noises?”

Taylen shrugged, and stretched more in her chair.

“How many have you loved with?”

“Seventeen or so.”

“Is that a lot?”

“One day you will be proud of yourself if you get to that many. Especially with ears like that.”

With his hands, Ollie touched his big ears that poked out like an elves from the side of his head and frowned. Then he finger-combed his long, thick black hair over them, ran, slid on the carpet and flicked on the TV. A woman in a blue blazer talked: “The nation is divided in its opinion. A nation divided will fall. We are better together.”

“F*****g shut that s**t off, Ollie,” said Taylen, itching at her crouch.

“Shut off your app. It’s hurting you. You cry all the time to sleep.”

“You scream in your sleep.”

“That’s cuz I have evil dreams.”

“Then stop watching the News.”

Ollie said: “Let me go outside and ride.”

“Did Mom take the wheels off yet?”

“No.”

“You’re, like, seven. You’ll look like a loser riding around with training wheels.”

“Mom says I should keep them on till I am twelve.”

“Mom’s crazy.”

“Why?”

“She got a Geiger counter once she heard of the radiation coming from across the ocean.”

Ollie’s face tightened in thought. “What’s a ginger counter?” he said.

“Measures radiation,” answered Taylen simply.

“Is that why I can’t go outside and ride?”

Taylen flipped off the chair and landed, knees on the carpet; it was a rather childish maneuver. She then crawled to her younger brother and sat cross-legged and looked him in the eye. “Yes. Radiation is why you can’t go outside. Acid rain, too.”

“You mean acid snow?” Ollie looked bewildered. “But you were just outside to go to school?”

“But I had a mask and an umbrella.”

Ollie’s face twisted. “But, but, Mom said it’s better to have a rain shower than a regular shower because of the flowered in the water.”

“Flu-or-ide.”

“Yeah, floweraid.”

“It’s January, it’s cold. I’m not having a ‘rain shower’. Mom can yell at me for showering regularly, I don’t care.” Taylen flicked a strand of long hair away from her face.

Ollie copied the motion with his own hair, which was nearly as long as his sister’s. “I hope one day Mom lets me go to school just like you.”

In the master bedroom down the hall, light escaped through the cracks between the door and its frame. The raspy radio voice preached on: “Our world is in a state of denial. They have gone too far, taken too much.”

“If I get a mask can I go out and ride my bike?”

On her smartphone’s screen, Taylen read a message notification: Brett: Yeah babe the steakhouse on Yorkshire works at 6. I have a car and a place for after if you want too. :)

Taylen smirked at seeing it. “Ugh, fine,” she said, thumb-typing something fast and then flicking her app closed with her index finger.

Ollie grinned. “Can I go pet Sampson?”

“Sure. Whatever. Just don’t take too long, I’ve got dinner at six and I have to get ready.”

Excited, Ollie got up and ran into the garage. He looked around at the laminate panelling and shelves. He ambled over to the door in the floor"one his Dad had built before he left for the war after he lost his job at the motor plant. “I know what I need,” he said, pulling open the door. Below him was a narrow wooden stairway that led into a dark room"a make-shift bunker. The metal walls of it lined with shelves and on those shelves were bottles of water, cans of ginseng-upped energy drinks and non-perishable foods. There was a cabinet at the end of a tight hall lit with only a single dim lightbulb. Ollie moved towards it. The cabinet had no lock. He swung the door open. On differing shelves was a fire extinguisher, a large first aid kit, an oxygen tank, a locked black box and a shiny, white motorcycle helmet with a black tinted visor. He grinned as his hands reached for the helmet. Then he dusted it off and slowly lowered it over his head. It fit big and he had to adjust it with his hands so that he could see. Then he grinned again and flipped the visor down. “I am the White Knight,” he proclaimed to the darkness.

Ollie crawled up the steep stairs and out of the garage. He ran down the hall to the room with the radio blaring. “Mom, Mom!” He opened the door.

The room smelt like a soiled hospital bed. The morbid stench made Ollie slide his hand under the motorcycle helmet and pinch his nose. Wrappers of various sodium infused food products were discarded in layers over the carpet. Clothes that reeked of over-wear and riddled with stains of all colours lay in heaps. On the bed was a woman in a nightgown with moons on it lay, curled up in dirty light pink bedsheets. She had bags under her eyes, a saggy face, and neck flab like that of a turkey. Kleenex was in her hand. The radio blared, but over it: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” she shrieked, noticing Ollie. She leapt up and jumped twice"to the other side of the room. “Stormtroopers!” she said.

“Mom, Mom, I found protection.” Ollie knocked on his Father’s motorcycle helmet with his knuckles and stood proudly.

The woman narrowed her eyes. “Don’t come in here!” she said. “And put that back.”

“Can I have a mask?”

“Why?” sniffled out his Mom.

“Safety from them.”

The woman reached to her bedside table, opened the top drawer and handed Ollie a white particle mask in a plastic wrapper. “Keep that with you. It will save your respiratory system from the chemicals they drop from the sky. Oh, and ask your sister if she checked the mail on her way home from school. I need my cheque.”

“Okie dokie, Mom” Ollie saluted.

The woman looked at her son, desperately. “The radiation will get here,” she warned. “That’s what they say. It will get here.”

“Where’s it come from?”

“The reactor meltdown in the ocean.”

“I hope the ocean is okay.” Ollie ran out the room and made sure to shut the door behind him, carefully. He walked down the hall, helmet over his head, holding the plastic wrapper that stored an N95 particle mask. First, he went into his room to get two more t-shirts. He had been saving the other two white t-shirts that his mother had bought him in a three-pack at the local Wal-Mart weeks ago for a special occasion: going outside. In his room, he took off his Father’s helmet, ripped the remainder of the plastic that enveloped the two pristine white shirts and layered them under the stained one he already had on prior.

He headed out the door.

Back in the living room, Taylen lay on her flat stomach on the carpet, thumbing at her smartphone. “Hey! Look what I found,” said Ollie.

“Ahhh!” Taylen leapt to her feet and gave Ollie a good look, “What the f**k, Ollie!”

“Dad’s helmet, and Mom gave me a mask. Can you help me put it on?”

Taylen blinked several times.

“Can we go outside?” Ollie nodded and pulled at his three t-shirts that hung nearly to his knees.

Taylen groaned, pocketed her smartphone and walked into the garage. There, in a dusty corner, where her father’s motorcycle used to be, she saw her old bike. Its frame hot pink. Its rubber handlebars, off-white. The banana seat white, too. And two training wheels fastened to the frame. “Hate this bike.” She kicked it.

With careful approach, Taylen searched the old rusty tool box in seek of a star screw driver. When she found it, she went over to her old bike and started to turn the screws that held the training wheels in place.

“Hey, what doing?” yelled Ollie from the garage doorframe, his Father’s motorcycle helmet shiny against the fluorescent garage light.

“You a favor,” grunted Taylen, still twisting screws loose. “You can’t have these things on forever. Mom made me have them until I just stopped riding because kids made fun of me back in the day.”

“I need them though!”

“You don’t need them.” Taylen finished; the bike was now free of the two miniature wheels. “The bike looks so much more adult now, kinda.”

“It’s for a kid.”

“A girl.”

Taylen looked at her brother. His white motorcycle helmet much too large for his head. His white tee shirts much too large for his body. His light grey sweat pants dirty with big holes in the knees. “That helmet looks like a giant golf ball,” she said.

“I am the White Knight.”

“We have to sneak out,” advised Taylen, “so Mom doesn’t notice.”

Ollie nodded.

The winter wind whipped at their uncut hair, as brother and sister both stared down the lone road leading out of their cul-de-sac. Both had white masks covering their mouths and noses. Ollie, resting on his bike seat, with one foot firmly on the ground, the other on a pedal, slowly"and now, ceremoniously"lowered his Father’s helmet over his head.

Taylen had a black toque on and a dark grey infinity scarf coiling around her neck. “Aren’t you freezing?” she asked her brother, glancing at his t-shirts, at his white fingerless gloves he had found on the road near a storm drain.

“Mom says I have a thermometer problem,” said Ollie. “My body gets too hot.”

Taylen looked down to her brother’s hands. “Well at least you found warm gloves.”

“It’s nice to be outside, you know? This place isn’t so bad.”

Taylen ignored her younger brother, and said: “I’ll push you, don’t go too far.”

“Think I’ll fall?”

Taylen said nothing.

Ollie readied himself; flipping his visor down and he started breathing heavily. The mist of his breath, however, did not escape the N95 mask he had strapped around his mouth and nose. “I’m ready, Taylen, push!”

Taylen did so. “Pedal faster, pedal,” she instructed.

Ollie stopped and planted a foot on the asphalt, causing the bike to lean slightly. He looked back. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry, just try.” Taylen pushed again. Ollie started pedalling. The pink bike’s wheels started moving faster than her long legs could run. She stopped and watched her brother ride forward. “The White Knight rides off to save the World!” she yelled, making a faint smile, and holding a flat hand over her eyes, watching him go.

Ollie pedalled frantically with a wide grin on his face. “I’m free!” He thrust a fist towards the grey sky. “I’m freaking free!” He pedalled faster, harder.

Taylen’s face went tight. “Ollie! Don’t go too far. Ollie!” She started running after the pink bike.

“Huh?” Ollie turned back, his handle bars turned too. The bike flipped over itself and him with it. “Ahhhhh,” Ollie roared, clutching at his arm, his body rocking back and forth on the cracked asphalt, his sneakers stamping against the ground. His Father’s white helmet rolled on down the broken road like a bowling ball.

Taylen ran up to him, took off her toque and knelt down. “You alright?”

“My arm is broke,” said Ollie, favoring it by rubbing it with his hand.

Taylen looked at his arm, the skidding against asphalt had caused a bright red rash"grinding the top layers of Ollie’s skin right off. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” She placed her toque up against it so her brother couldn’t see. “We need to get inside. The sun’s going down.”

“I can’t move,” groaned Ollie. His face bright red, tight.

“You can move.” Taylen looked around, for anyone. “Just get up,” she said.

Sampson came up nonchalantly as cats do; purring, doing figure-eight’s and rubbing his soft fur up against the fallen boy. “Oh, Sampson,” Ollie said, rising to a sitting position, forgetting the pain.

Sampson said: “Pur, pur pur.”

Ollie patted the big tabby. “Oh, Sampson you are the best.”

Taylen stared out west, at the dying sunlight through the silhouetted telephone wires and burnt out street lights. “Yes, yes, that’s all fine,” she said. “Let’s go inside.” She walked over and picked up her Father’s white motorcycle helmet that was rocking on the road.

“Okay,” said Ollie, lifting the pink bike and walking towards home with it. Sampson departed, off to the side of the street, leapt on a sun-bleached, yellow fence and walked it towards a neighbor’s backyard.

“We’ll fix your arm and then I got to get ready,” Taylen said.

“Taylen,” said Ollie, looking to his sister.

“Yeah.” She tucked her Father’s motorcycle helmet under her slender arm.

“Can you stay tonight?”

Taylen looked ahead; towards their house, bitterly. “No.”

“Can you eat with me?”

“I’ll eat with you tomorrow. I’ve got a date.”

“Eat with me today. Do other stuff to-morrow.”

“It’s steak. I want a steak, not microwave salty-ham and soggy pasta.”

“Please.” Ollie put his sister’s toque over his head; to keep his ears warm.

“I took you for a bike ride.”

“I fell.”

“We all fall.”

“Mom said that you didn’t.”

“Because I had training wheels.”

“Oh yeah.” Ollie looked up to his older sister. “Please stay. I get so alone when you go.”

Taylen held her Father’s motorcycle helmet out in front of her. It was so shiny she could nearly see herself perfectly in its reflection. “Okay, fine.” She looked down her old bike’s chain, it had fallen off its only gear.

Ollie examined the road rash on his arm and smiled. “I will do the dishes,” he said, “and maybe to-morrow we can go ride again, before the sun goes.”

Taylen’s eyes started to tear up. She placed her Father’s helmet over her head and flipped the visor down. “Maybe.”

“There’s always tomorrow, Taylen,” Ollie said, walking his bike proudly and looking up to the darkening sky then over to his older sister.

“Yes, there’s always tomorrow, usually.”

The End