Twitter Fingers

Flash Fiction

Twitter Fingers

 

            My Twitter fingers have always been fast, but they weren’t fast enough to warn the world on November 8^th of our impending doom, and they weren’t fast enough today when those dark warnings of Armageddon jumped out of the minds of the street corner crazies into real life.

            When the world ended, I was exactly where I had always promised myself I wouldn’t be, at work, on the phone, listening to an 87-year-old man squawk about the loss of 29 cents from his retirement pay.

            As the man talked my eyes combed through my Twitter feed, stopping occasionally to like or retweet some inane item or other. And there it was, buried among the Ads, the cat pictures and jokes: USA drops the largest bomb known to man on North Korea.

            I re-read the headline, once, then twice, sure that I had read it wrong. Checked to see the source of the tweet, trying to convince myself the truth was a lie, praying to see the Onion, or some obscure link, probably belonging to a bored teenager from another world away, crying out in shock when I saw the MSNBC logo.

            Turning away from the screen, I reached out and pushed the end button on my phone, cutting Mr. 86-yr-old off in mid complaint. Gasps started to travel through the room, sounding like wind rushing through the trees. Someone let out a sharp yelp of surprise.

            I turned and picked up my phone desperate to get a message to the one person that came to my mind. “Noah, stay at school. I’m coming. Mom.” I watched praying for a tiny miracle as the circle spun around and around before the message, text failed, appeared on the screen.

            The gasps and whispers that filled the room had turned into voices overlapping each other, not yet panicked, but getting there fast as people processed the meaning of what had happened. The buck-naked Emperor, the Fool, the Maniac-in-Chief, he had killed us all.

            Noah. I grabbed my purse, not bothering to stop to talk to anyone as I rushed for the door. How long, before the trains stopped running? Damn me for being the tree hugger I was. All for nothing, now.

In the hallway groups had already started to gather, waiting for the elevator, dazed eyes followed me as I made a dash for the stairway. A few peeled away from the group and followed my lead. Silence in the stairwell, except for one woman who sobbed, even as she ran behind me, her voice coming in sharp burst. I could have tried to say something comforting, any of us could have, but none of us had the stomach for the lie. The lie had lead us here after all.

            At the train station I stood, alone. My eyes jumping from my constantly searching cell phone to the empty track, praying for yet another miracle, that I wasn’t too late, sick at the thought that I might be.  The sound of the approaching train striking the iron of the tracks, almost sent me to my knees. I clung to the pole I had been standing next to, fighting back waves of relief-born dizziness.            

            The driver, face tense, hands clenched, barely allowed the door to close before he rocketed away, not bothering to stop at the empty West 3^rd or Flats stop. When we pulled into Tower City, it looked like the aftermath of a playoff game, or parade. As soon as the doors open a crush of people piled on. I put my bag on my lap but didn’t raise my eyes from phone, waiting desperately for acknowledgement that my text had found its target.

            At E. 79^th twitter updated flooding my feed with hysteria, disbelief, and all too true doomsday predictions. Instructions were posted. Pleas for answers. Pleas for mercy directed at North Korea, Pleas for mercy directed at God. I begged to see the message, “text sent, splash across my screen.”

            Shaker Square, my phone rang in my hand. Noah calling, the screen said. I didn’t realize I was crying until the tears touched my tongue.

            “Mom, I’ve been trying to call you for hours…”

            “Listen,” I said cutting him off, unsure of how long the connection would last. “Stay at school, I’m on my way 10 minutes,” I said.

            “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

            “I love…” and he was gone.

            At Avalon, I rushed from the train running to my car at a full sprint.          

            In the car, news anchors had replaced radio personalities. Their voices as afraid as I felt, jumbling together, fighting to be heard repeating the same info over and over, then, “North Korea to retaliate with nuclear response. God help us all.”

            The ride home from the school was quiet, Noah absorbing my resignation. As we walked from the car into our apartment, I put my arm across his shoulders. He leaned into me, the way he hadn’t since he was five.

            Once inside, I took out a bottle of wine, and 2 glasses. What did age mean anymore?

            We sat on the couch, our fat lazy cat beside him. People poured into the streets in New York, filling up Times Square, Harlem, clogging the GW bridge, trying to escape, to where?

            “Remember, when President Obama was elected and we took the Metro into the city?” I asked.

            “Yeah,” Noah said, leaning his head against my shoulder.

            In California, people stood together quietly staring into the sky, waiting. The news anchor a pretty blonde, who had already cried away all her makeup talked about how people were leaping from the Golden Gate Bridge.               

            California blinked away without warning. Signal loss, I said, the truth coming out in the tremor in my voice.

            The New York station picked up the coverage. One brave soul standing in front of the camera, bidding civilization goodbye. Tears streaming down his handsome face.

            “God Bless Ameri…” then nothing.

            “I picked up the wine, filled each glass all the way to the brim.