Knock On Wood

A ROUGH DRAFT; constructive criticism is appreciated. A young couple navigate their last days on earth while waiting for their inevitable deaths, and they discover what it really means to be human

Two shadows emerge from a dark bedroom like bears coming out of hibernation. They move into the kitchen, and the moon casts lights and shadows into the room, illuminating everything. The silhouettes are holding hands, and they huddle close to each other. Tears have stained their cheeks, and both of their hair is matted down with mud and leaves.

One shadow has a soft, slender figure that could only belong to a female. The other has broad shoulders and muscular legs, which were obtained from days of running.

“What time is it?” the girl whispers frantically, her eyes darting around the room.

“It’s probably two,” the boy replies.

“I don’t know about you, Blaine, but I’d probably be sleeping right now.” the girl lets out a soft, half-hearted laugh. Blaine forces a smile and pulls his girlfriend closer to him.

“Oh, Eva. How I’d love to be asleep right now.”

I’d love to be in bed right now, rather than running away from my perhaps inevitable death.

Blaine thinks as he leads Eva into the dining room, which normally would be bright and saturated, its walls red and accentuated by the many pictures encompassing Blaine and his family. Now, it was dark and sending grotesque shadows across the room that resembled demons.

“I’m scared.” Eva murmurs, breaking the silence. Blaine exhales and drops her hand to stroke her cheek.

“Listen to me,” he begins, staring into those piercing green eyes that first reeled him in, “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next couple hours, but I’ll be at your side, even after the sun does or doesn’t rise.”

“And then?”

“Shhh,” Blaine presses his fingers to her lips.

“Let’s not think about the future.”

Neither of them knew what the sunrise would hold, or what was in store for them. All they knew was that exactly five days ago, they were told that the world was going to end.

Five days earlier

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.....

Eva’s hand smacks her alarm as she groans, stretching her arms out. Rubbing her eyes, she leaps out of her blankets and almost hits her head on her mahogany dresser. Damn, she thinks to herself. She pulls her window curtains apart, and casts a furtive glance out the window. It’s a typical day in Harpswell, Maine: the birds are chirping, the water is still, and the ever pungent smell of mud lingers.

Eva steps downstairs, pausing to press her finger against a portrait of her deceased grandfather. I miss you, gramps. She ruminates, lost in the nostalgic memories she has of her grandfather.

“Honey, are you going to eat breakfast?” her mother’s shrill voice awakens her.

“Yeah mom, I’m right here.” Eva mumbles, continuing down the stairs. She walks into the kitchen and sits down at the table. She reaches for a slice of toast and begins to butter it when her father walks in, whistling.

“Hey, sweetie.” he babbles into his wife's ears. She laughs and swats him away.

“You know I hate it when people talk directly into my ears,” she scolds.

Eva’s father backs away, widening his eyes like a kicked puppy. His wife lets out a faint smile and beckons for him to come closer.

They talk in hushed voices, so that Eva can’t hear them.

“When should we tell them?” her mother frets.

“They’re going to find out when they get to school, anyway.” her father replies.

“I don’t want them to worry,” her mother says, looking away. Eva’s father cups her mother's face and looks into her eyes. “I’d rather they hear it now, so that they don’t panic later.”

Suddenly, Eva’s brother storms down the stairs.

“Jordan, Eva, we have some news,” their mother says, clearing her throat.

“Last night, an alert was let out that the magnetic field has started to reverse. The ozone layer is breaking apart, and soon, we will all be roasting like pigs over a fire. I think I’d rather die that way than the way I’m going to explain next,” Eva’s father stammered.

“A black hole is starting to pass by, wrecking the orbits of our sister planets. Neptune has flung out of orbit, and it collided with an asteroid early this morning. NASA had to cancel ten of their spacecrafts, and all astronauts are heading back here. Already, two crafts have been killed, ending the lives of over twenty two people. And next, we’re all going to...perish. Expire. Slip away, breathe our last breaths. And I want you to know that in five days, we won’t see the moon rise. After the sun touches our land, scientists predict that we will all be dead.”

Two days later, 62 hours remaining until the end

Eva is sitting with her ex-girlfriend at lunch. After three months of hatred, they come to peace in their relationship. They giggle and snort like they used to before. They talk about their plans and how they want to die.

“I’m going to die in bed, sleeping.” Eva jokes, and her ex, Cassie, smiles knowingly.

“I’ll probably be awake. Too scared to sleep.” she bites her lip.

“Well, I’ll be there for you,” Eva says, touching Cassie’s arm. It’s clear that their feelings for each other are still there. It’s too late to rekindle anything, though. Too late to begin something that will only end in tears and pain.

Three days later, 36 hours remaining until the end

On Thursday, Eva meets up with Blaine. “Are you ready?” she asks. Never would she have guessed that “Are you ready?” would be their most used line of the week. “Yeah.” Blaine replies nervously.

It was 4:45 PM, and Blaine was about to meet his birth mom for the very first time. She was reading poetry at an open mic night. They enter the building, noticing the calm ambience: the dark room, the smell of cookies, and the many people gathered for a night of poetry.

They sit down next to each other and listen to many poems, many of which are reminiscent of childhood memories, and how they hope to hold onto them while they die.

Finally, Blaine’s mom steps up to the podium.

Her hair is long and tangled, and her eyes are a dark gray. She looks sad, and Eva wishes she could hug her.

Then, she speaks.

“Hello, it’s Rosemary again,” she chuckles, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“I’d like to read a poem, as per usual.”

“ I thought that you

were my only sunshine

but now, I think that you

are really my only

moonlight,

because even in the

darkest of times,

I have you right by

my side.

yes, I gave you

Away.

I’ve tried to reach

the stars but I guess

I should just be an

astronaut so that

I can be with you again.” She speaks loudly and clearly, her strong voice rising and falling to fit the tone of the poem. Eva looks over at Blaine, who’s crying, tears spilling on his cheeks. He snaps his fingers, nodding, completely understanding what the poem means.

12 hours left until the end

Blaine clutches his mother’s poetry, sobbing.

His mother had killed herself less than two hours after bonding with her son, and it had devastated him. Now, he only had her poems, her words.

Spilled milk

Spilled ink

Spilled misfortune

Spilled tears

Lethargy is what I’m currently made of right now

Spilled still.

• Rosemary N, 34.

And his favorite poem:

I remember

Watching you all

Night long

After staying with

You

All morning long.

Your soft cheeks,

Red from screaming

Oh how I wish that

They were red from

Pride.

Your blue eyes

Deep and endless

A pool I can never

Swim in.

Your lips, ready

To take on the world.

My son.

There was no time to grieve. Jupiter had just exploded, sending thousands of molten rock everywhere. Asteroids have been pummeling Earth, penetrating even the highest and strongest of mountains, similar to that of how alcohol ravaged Rosemary’s life.

Blaine was beginning to find poetry everywhere, even in a torn up world where death was inevitable.

And now, at 5:22 PM, Blaine was running away from it.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Blaine swats Eva’s hand away.

He gets up and tries to wipe the mud off of his pants, but it’s useless.

So this is how I’m living the last twelve hours of my life, he thought. Falling down and getting up, only to fall back down again, to the point of death.

“Isn’t it ironic that we were studying the blueshift and redshifts in AP Physics?” Eva blurts, after holding the thought in her head for so long.

“Well, Mr. Dalton never could have guessed that this would happen. Not even with the Doppler effect, or any microscope. The escape velocity of the rogue black holes was too large. So we’re either going to die from another planet crashing into us, the black hole sucking us all in like a grisly vacuum, or we will all just catch fire, and this time there won’t be a stop, drop, and roll. It’ll just be stop, drop and-” Blaine snorted.

“And...,” Eva motions with her hand to continue.

“Nothing comes after ‘and’. We’ll all just be dead.”

“So there’ll just be an exodus of humanity. Myriads of years later, I wonder if anything will conquer what was the beloved America.”

“Probably ashes and prokaryotic cells.” Blaine muses.

“Nevertheless, let’s keep going. I want to see Henry one last time.”

Henry is Blaine’s lovable chocolate lab, who enjoys running up to strangers and knocking them over, licking their faces.

It is almost 6:30 now, and they are in West Harpswell, about three hours away from Blaine’s home.

“S**t. S**t, s**t.” Eva sputtered, dragging the body behind her.

“Babe, just leave him. It’s better to leave things the way they are,” Blaine protested, throwing his hands in the air.

“Shut up. Don’t you want to leave things behind a little better?”

“Why would I want to do that when the world is ending, and everyone I love is dying?”

“Because I want to leave my garden blooming, because after winter, the snow will melt and life will come after death.” Eva explained. Blaine snorted and started turning around.

“How can you say that? You have no right to say that, because life will not rise out of this. When things burn, they turn to ashes. And, I’m afraid, the sun will no longer shine. Ashes won’t turn to diamonds and dreams left deferred will deflate like the rest of humanity. The caged bird will never fly, and the circle of life will come to an end. Now, leave my mom’s boyfriend and let’s go home.”

“Do you still believe that home is where the heart is?” Eva challenged, her green eyes sharp and narrowed down at Blaine.

“I...” Blaine sighed, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“Now listen. I’m sorry about your mom’s boyfriend...and your mom. But you listen to me.

Death doesn’t separate

the sheep from the goats

Death will come at any time

And steal what you’ve loved

Death comes in like a storm

But after the rain

Always comes a rainbow

Hearts will break

And tears will be shed

But you never forget

The feelings inside your head.”

Blaine just stared at a random spot in the distance, not saying anything.

“That was a poem by your mother, Blaine.” Eva whispered, as a single tear rolled down Blaine’s cheek. She moved closer to him and wiped it away with her thumb.

That was yesterday, and Eva can still remember that moment, the memory etched into her mind forever.

They trek on, marching through muddy marshes and crawling through strangers yards. The whole way, all Blaine can think about is how humanity had failed him. One could juxtapose him with Eva, for she is thinking about how humanity had spun her a good web.

Eva collapses onto the ground, fanning herself with a stray pamphlet. “It’s so hot,” she moans, Blaine nodding in agreement. “Muy caliente,” he concedes.

“And you were saying that it was...frío or however you say it. Cold.” Eva teases, her ponytail bobbing up and down. They’re laying down on a grassy field, looking up at the sky.

“Whatever. How do you say it in French?” Blaine asks.

“En français? Nous disons il fait chaud.” Eva translates.

A few beats of silence pass by, and then Blaine breaks the silence.

“I love how there’s so many ways to say ‘I love you.”’

“J'aime comment il y a tellement de façons de dire je t'aime aussi.” Eva replies with a grin.

“Yeah, sure.” Blaine chuckles.

The cool wind nips at their toes, their socks soaking wet, and their shoes long gone.

“I wish we could just lay here,” Eva murmurs.

7 hours later, 4 hours remaining until the end.

Blaine pushes the doors to his house open, and immediately runs up the stairs. “There you are,” he squeals, like a fifth grader getting a multiplication problem right.  Henry wags his tail in excitement. He gnaws at a leaf in Blaine’s hair, and Blaine pats his nose away. “Down, boy.” he laughs. He walks downstairs and then it hits him- his father isn’t home. “Dad?” he shouts.

Oh, no, Eva thinks.

“Dad!?” he screams. He runs back up the stairs and tears his father’s room apart.

“Relax, relax. He might be out helping neighbors.” Eva reassures Blaine.

“My dad said that he wouldn’t leave the house,” Blaine protests, his lip quivering.

He sinks down into the ground, sobbing. Eva sits down next to him, and rubs his back, whispering words of kindness into his ears, putting salt into a wound that won’t ever heal.

Present moment: 5 minutes left until the end

“Are you ready?” Blaine tentatively asks. Eva nods and Blaine opens the door. Eva gulps, and starts going out. Before the night air completely engulfs her, she turns around and knocks on the wooden door for luck.  

Blaine and Eva head outside and take in the view: catastrophe. Death. Bodies. And a beautiful, full moon.

“Let’s take one last photo together, with the moon behind us.” Eva offers.

Blaine reluctantly retrieves his father's old phone and holds it up into the cool sky, and presses the capture button. Click.

One more photograph that will only yellow, but not from age. Blaine thinks as he wraps his arms around his girlfriend. They cuddle for a second, not wanting to waste any more time.

What little time they have left, five minutes.

But a lot can happen in five minutes. A simple text can ruin a friendship in five minutes, a heart can stop beating in five minutes, a baby could breathe its first breath in five minutes. An airplane could launch in five minutes, a photograph could develop in the next five minutes.

Time is an abstract idea that cannot be held. Time is a concept that has been taken for granted, and it’s been based off of the stars and moon.

Time. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Right now, someone is waking up. Somewhere else in the world, a child is starving. Time surrounds us all and separates us, but really only physically. We can still exist and cooperate as one with the time we have because time is running out.

Tick, tick, tick, tock.

Eva and Blaine sit down and stare into each other’s eyes.  They see galaxies of emotions and stars and black holes in each other. There’s not enough space for them to express their feelings for one another because there’s not enough time

They’re running out of time

Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock....

A lot can happen in five seconds. A stranger can look up and smile. A butterfly can spread its wings.

And the world can end.

Author's Note

so yeah, any helpful comments???