The End of the Bucket List

                                                      by Ian Reeve

“That end of the world guy has gone,” says Annie. "His sandwich board it still there, like he just dropped it."

She’s standing by the window looking down into the street. The window is closed, but there’s a ventilation grill along the top that lets enough of the stiff breeze in to billow the curtains precariously close to a delicate porcalain ornament. She closes the grill and most of the billowing stops.

“There were some guys chucking bricks at him just now,” I reply. “Guess they didn't like it being shoved in their faces like that.”

As if on cue the ground shakes again, the third tremor that day. Just a small one this time. Just enough to rattle the cutlery in the kitchen and widen the cracks in the ceiling. We both tense up, wondering if we should hide under the table or something and whether there was any point in doing that anyway, but it passes after just a few seconds and we both breathe deeply in relief.

 “Guess we get to live a little longer,” I say.

Annie goes back to the window and stares up into the sky. “I keep thinking we should be able to see it,” she says. “How close is it now?”

“It'll all be over long before it’s close enough to see,” I tell her, going over to her and putting my hands on her shoulders.

She turns around to enter my arms and we hug each other. At least we're together, I think. We patched things up and mended our relationship, just in time. Amazing how people can get so worked up over such trivially unimportant things. We lost two years because I couldn't handle the idea of her having her own career. I wanted her to stay at home. Have my babies, be my housekeeper. She wanted more, and when I put my foot down she walked out on me. It's not like I didn't know what she wanted from her life. I knew she had that doctorate in architecture. Did I think she'd done all that study and hard work not to use her qualifications? In hindsight, I can see that I was jealous of her, of the fact that she was smarter than me. Gods, but what a small, petty person I was! No wonder she left me. I just thank whatever gods there may be that I had this chance to make it right.

“I made this bucket list, you know,” I say, just for something to say.

 She pulls away from me a few inches and stares into my face, smiling in amusement. “You did? What was on it?”

“All the usual rubbish. Go see Rome, swim with the dolphins, that sort of thing. The first thing on the list, though, was make up with Annie, and I soon realised that that was the only thing I really wanted to do. I crossed everything else off, just left that one thing. Make up with Annie, any way you can. Whatever it takes. Beg if necessary.”

“Well, you can cross it off now,” she says and kisses me. I kiss her back, wondering how many more kisses we'll have time for.

"I'm sorry for how I was," I tell her. "I feel like such an idiot."

"You don't have to keep saying it," she replies, but she's smiling. "Once was enough. All I ever wanted was for you to accept me as an equal."

"You'll never be my equal. You outclass me in a thousand ways. What you ever saw in an idiot like me, I'll never know."

"You're not so bad."

She cut herself off as if she'd been about to say more, but I know what it would have been. Once you get past your pride and stubbornness. I can't argue with that so I just hold her close as I try to pretend that we've still got time ahead of us. The time I so foolishly threw away.

The mobs that made it so difficult and dangerous to get there are gone now, I see as I take my turn at the window. The wind is growing in strength, billowing the curtains again, and I move the little porcelain statue to safety. All kinds of rubbish are blowing down the street now. Tree branches, litter. The parasol from someone’s garden. Everyone still alive has been driven indoors, sheltering. The sky is still a clear, cloudless blue, though, which strikes me as horribly wrong, and I turn away from it with a sick feeling of horror. Annie closes the curtains, turning the room into our own small refuge where we can pretend we’re safe.

I turn on the radio, hoping for some news on how the rest of the world is holding out, but the only station still on the air has some guy reading verses from the bible. Revelations by the sound of it. From the tone of his voice, I can almost see his wild, staring eyes and the whiteness of his knuckles as he grips the large, old style microphone. I turn it off and go to put a CD in the hi-fi instead, but the power's off.

“I think we should get drunk,” says Annie seriously. “I've got a bottle of vodka, and I really don't want to be sober when the atmosphere gets sucked away.”

“I think we'd better be quick,” I reply. “That's not normal wind out there.”

She nods and goes into the next room, returning with a bottle and two glasses. She gets a grip on the screw top but then has to collapse into an armchair when the building is shaken by another earth tremor, a much worse one this time. We hear things falling and windows shattering and we hold onto each other while we wonder whether this is it, the end. Will the building collapse on top of us? At least we’re together, I think, and I feel a moment of pity for all the poor souls separated from their loved ones during these last times. All the people who’ll have to die alone. I was almost one of them, I remind myself. Thank God I had the sense to swallow my pride and beg for forgiveness. I hug her tighter, and I think that maybe dying won't be so bad if the last thing I'm aware of is the scent of her hair.

The tremor passes, but the wind is gathering strength, and we can now hear that it’s blowing heavier objects. There's the occasional clatter of roof tiles and the crash as something heavier, a tree or a fence panel, falls to the ground. There’s no gusting. The wind is steady, like a wind tunnel, and soon it will be strong enough to blow whole buildings away. Annie trembles and holds onto me tighter.

 I refuse to believe it was all for nothing,” she mumbles into my shoulder. “The Egyptians, the Romans, the world wars. My grandmother used to tell me about the war. What was all that sacrifice for if it’s all ending now?”

“I remember something someone said once,” I reply. “Don't be sorry it’s over. Be glad it happened. He was talking about a party, but I think it would make a pretty good epitaph for the whole human race.”

I feel her nodding. “At least it wasn't our fault,” she says. “We didn't have a nuclear war or something. If a bunch of aliens turns up one day, they won't think how stupid we were. This was just a great cosmic accident. It wasn't our fault.”

"What I’m glad for is that the apocalypse is, well, apocalyptic,” I reply. “If it all has to end, this is how it should end, in a great glorious spectacle. The world will end not with a bang but by being torn apart by the gravity of a rogue neutron star, one of the most powerful forces in the universe.”

There's a new noise coming from the street outside and I'm drawn back to the window by curiosity. There's water running down the centre of the street. Not rainwater, the skies are still clear. This water is green and smells of the sea, whipped up into a froth by the now almost hurricane force wind. “We're nearly a hundred feet above sea level here,” I say to myself. “That's one hell of a high tide.” The water is rising even as I watch. We're on the third floor, but I suspect that won't keep us dry for long.

Annie drags me away from the window. “I think you should add something to your bucket list,” she says. She's trembling, and she clings hold of my arm as if I might try to get away from her.

 What's that?” I ask.

“Make love to your beautiful wife one last time, if we've still got time,”

"Now that’s one hell of a way to end a bucket list,” I agree as she pulls me towards the bedroom.