[2013]A Dinner Conversation About The Coming Apocalypse

Dinner Conversation About The Coming Apocalypse

"Honey, I'm home!" he said as he walked into the house and sat his tools on the small hutch in the entryway. The smell of roasting meat filled the house, and man was he hungry! Being that he was married, and had already announced his presence in the house - he actually froze, and paused - almost in an indignant manner, waiting for reply. For recognition. Mercifully it came quickly.

"There's my big man!", the beautiful woman spoke through a geniune smile, as she walked through a doorway and toward him "How was your day at work Honey? Did today go well?

The mans rugged face and dour expression eased a little at the sight of his woman. His mind latched onto that concept in a primal and protective - yet wholly selfish way - HIS woman! With the practiced and automatic motions that come from a true intimacy the man found himself hugging his wife tightly, without thought or intent. It simply happened. The same way that it happened every day, six days per week, when he walked in the door from his job.

"Today was an OK day Baby. Not the worst, and certainly not the best ever... his words trailing off as he broke eye contact and began to glance, almost inperceptibly towards the floor. The kind of slight change in glance that even a close friend would not notice. Something so subtle as to be almost invisible... to everyone but a loving wife. She instantly and instinctively knew, today had been one of the worst. A bad day in a very long string of bad days. Her heart ached a little because she knew that this man, whom she loved so dearly, was pouring his very essence into his work - a job that, like some abstract vampire, was sucking the life from his body and leaving him with so very little to give to her. She was jealous of his job. She hated it - though she'd never say so outloud. Not even to him. Not even to her husband. But, oh God, how she loathed that job.

Her disdain for his employment, employer, and situation never showed. She was, after all, a woman and was much more skilled at masking those subtle nuances than any man would be. Women had to be better at this game of hidden communication - nature intended it to be so. After all, if one had to rely upon a man to tell you how he was feeling? Well nothing would ever get accomplished. A mans home may be his castle, but the woman gives it stone. Thus, when he finally regained his slight lapse of composure, she was still there. Still loving staring directly at him... into him... letting him know that it was all alright and that she would make it all better before he finally trailed off to sleep later that night. She would quietly and thanklessly pick up the broken pieces of his soul and lovingly glue them back together - even if he never did have the first clue that this is what she actually did for him each and every night of his life. That was her job. It was her responsiblity - to keep the castle fortified so that the man she loved could feel like the king of something. She owed him that, she felt. He'd always been so kind and gentle to her.

If time would have stopped in that moment - a perfect forever could have been had. But dinner doesn't cook itself, and an unwashed husband, covered in sweat and dirt doesn't eat at the table. So the things that must be done, needed doing.

Sweetie, I ran your bath already. Dinner will be ready in about 30 minutes. You go wind down and relax a bit. OK?

He required no further instruction or prodding. He tenderly and lightly kissed her lips, smiled, and began to walk towards the bath. She stayed in her spot, waiting for him to turn the corner. Sometimes it was his custom to stop, mid step, and remember something he'd forgotten to gripe about and would spin around furiously, expecting her to be there to listen. She truly hoped today was not one of those days. She was worried that her roast needed basting and turning - and the pot filled with boiling potato needed to be stirred. She sighed an imperceptible sigh of relief as he turned the corner, into the hall that led to the bath. No spontaneous "Oh, YEAH! And let me tell you about what....." today. Relieved, she turned and walked towards the kitchen.

In the half an hour between their greeting and dinner, a strange thing happened. Well, not strange in the sense that it was uncommon, - because it most certainly was not uncommon at all. It was strange in the sense that it was just one of those things that doesn't make sense. Over the course of that half hour, as he soaked in the bath, his angst left him. His aches and pains and mental anguish all melted away. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, she somehow took up the mantle and got herself quite worked up over the stresses that the world was putting her beloved husband through.

They'd met at the door, her chipper, and he stressed-out. They sat to dinner with him relaxed as a drunken sloth on Sunday - and with her boiling as hotly as the potato water had been just minutes before.

The uncomfortable silence lasted for about 1/1000th of a second. Such is the way of things between people who are truly bonded. What would take a newlywed couple six hours to get to? An older couple, such as this, could arrive at instantly. No need for nervousness, apprehension, or pretentions. Theirs was a pure sort of communication that many spend their entire lives never knowing, or understanding.

Her voice broke the silence.

"Honey is the food good?"

He smiled, and nodded, mouth filled with meat - still too stuck in his "maleness" to even see the tsunami that was about to hit him.

I'm glad you like it. Listen darling, we have to talk. This job.... I know it's a lucrative government job. I know it pays our bills and that we are very fortunate to have all of the nice things that we have. But, seriously sweetie, is it worth it? I mean this damned job seems to be killing you. It makes me so frustrated and angry that I could just scream!

The last sentence she uttered was somewhat redundant - as her screaming had begun a full eight words earlier.

From his male point of view, not only did he not even realize the world of hurt he was already in ( that thought would catch up to him about fifteen seconds too late ) - but he had the unmitigated gall to think that he had this covered! He really thought he had the one-stop, fix-all, conversation ending reality. After all; it had worked before. More than once. So he went right to it:

Baby, you know that I am not allowed to discuss my job with you. It's classified! I took an oath and am contractually and legally obligated to never talk about what I do!

As he finished speaking, he was actually foolhearty enough to lower his gaze, with a slight smirk on his lips, preparing to take another bite of the meat that his utensil was currently plunging into. ( for those keeping score - THIS - is when the realization hit him and he suddenly understood the world of hurt/tsunami/Hell yet to come ). Neither the smirk, nor the intention to take another bite, at that moment, lasted long.

Later in their lives, on the few occassions that they discussed this night, he would very animatedly describe how the fire had erupted from her eyes, and her tongue had suddenly become forked and ten feet long - and they both would share a laugh and a tender, deep, moment of eye contact and intimacy. A little celebration of having made it through something trying - together. But this was not the future and those flaming eyes and ten foot long forked tongue were not yet the past. They were the here and the now - and, well, Hell hath no fury...

I AM SICK TO DEATH OF HEARING THAT YOU CANNOT TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR JOB! LISTEN MISTER. I WILL STAND BESIDE YOU, BEHIND YOU, OR EVEN IN FRONT OF YOU NO MATTER WHAT COMES OUR WAY? AND YOU... YOU REPAY ME BY SPEWING THAT SANCTIMONIOUS, PATHETIC, COWARDLY 'CAN'T DISCUSS MY JOB' GARBAGE AT ME? WHEN ALL I AM DOING IS TRYING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU AND MAKE SURE THAT YOU DON'T LET YOUR OWN STUPIDITY GET YOU SICK, KILLED, OR SO WORN OUT THAT YOU'RE NO GOOD TO ANYONE AT ALL? THERE IS NO WAY THAT I AM GOING TO LET YOU PATRONIZE ME ABOUT THIS ANY LONGER. WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS THIS.... AND WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS IT NOW! I AM NOT GOING TO ALLOW YOU TO HIDE BEHIND THIS STONE MASON CODE OF SECRECY ANY LONGER. DO YOU HEAR ME???

By the time she finshed speaking her words she was standing, postured towards him, from across the table, and bowed out like a bushy tree, blown by a strong wind. Her expression was pure rage and her eyes were locked dead onto his - although he had frozen solid, like a rock, and had not yet raised his gaze. Had be been looking up he'd have caught the quirky moment when she did break her seething eye contact with him - only for a fleeting moment... glancing to her left, followed by a momentary change in her facial expression. An outsider, who might have witnessed this event through an open window, would probably have testified about this moment by saying "I am pretty sure that some other woman must have been there because it seems to me that, right after she screamed at him, someone to her left must have said something like 'You go girl'. I say this because she glanced to the left and then had a face full of "You're damned skippy".

It happens that nobody else did witness the damned skippy moment, and the woman took that secret with her to the grave. Maybe she, herself, didn't even notice it. Life is weird that way sometimes. Nonetheless. It happened. It happened and her husband never would know just how lucky he was that he hadn't seen it - because that was the moment that the dam threatened to burst and had he actually had eye contact with her at that exact second? Well he might have found himself back in the bath, washing off the potato and roast from his hair and face.

The man paused for a few seconds. A very long few seconds. Finally, after what seemed like eight forevers and a bonus weekend, he said You're right Baby. Just give me a minute to collect my thoughts. OK? Just, please, sit down... I'll tell you everything. If I can't tell you? Then what's the point anyway?

With that it was done. Oaths forsaken. Contracts nullified. None of that mattered. The most important thing in his world... the only thing in his world... his entire world was her. And she was right. She had every right to know. Besides. What harm could telling her do? He had often wondered why such things were forbidden to discuss to begin with! What did he know? He was a nobody clerk! The kind of things he did should not be secret anyway. He was a simple mason - not some high priest of anything. What the heck could he know?

Calmly, and with intent, he raised his eyes and met her gaze. Then he began to speak...

Baby. A few years ago some guys at the government began doing secret consultations with all sorts of strange folks. Psychics, mystics, priests, sorcerers... just a whole lot of bizarre stuff that I can't even begin to get my mind around. The scuttlebutt is that some researcher somewhere had decoded the secret code hidden in all human cells and that he had predicted a steady rate of decay within it. The theory is that each time people mate, their kids are just a little bit less intelligent than their parents. They tell me that this can skip generations, and fluctuate a bit here and there... so no one living generation can really see it. But they say that it's happening - and that we cannot stop it. So the government consulted with all of these experts, in all of these incomprehensible fields, to try and figure out how long we have, as a species, before we would no longer be able to recognize ourselves if compared to what we are today.

My job, now, is to coalate and record their findings so that future generations can track the devolution of our species. THAT is what I do baby. That is the burden I carry around with me each day lately. You can never mention a word of this to anybody - ever because I could be prosecuted, and even put to death, just for telling you this much. Do you understand my love?"

Her mind and heart in the process of being overwhelmed, her eyes tearing up - even as she tried to hide it - she spoke Yes, Honey, I do understand. I swear. I'll never bring it up again...

As the woman sat there, it seemed as though the life had drained out of her exquisite form. How his heart ached for her. Why hadn't he considered this when he decided to risk all and break his oath of silence? Was he really so self-absorbed and thoughtless that it didn't even occur to him that this information might injur her soul? What a cad he was, and he knew it.

He rose from his seat, walked a few steps around the table, pulled her head to his chest, and held her tightly. Her sobbing began the second her cheek touched his chest.

Is it really true? It's all downhill from here? They can know this? They can even be so jaded and cold as to wonder about how long it will take???

Her pain filled, watery eyes raised to meet his - so desperate to hear a lie... so full of wishing she'd never even asked. For once in his life, the man overcame his gender based emotional blindness and understood. He knew exactly what to say. He knew exactly what she needed to hear. What helped it, even more, is that it was the truth....

Baby, it's a long, long, long time from now. More time than you can imagine. More time than maybe it will take the sun to burn out of the sky. It's nothing for you to cry about. Besides, now that I've told you all about it, I can also tell you, I am almost finished working on this project. Just a few more weeks and it will be complete - and we can go back to being just like we used to be. I've made a lot of money on this project - enough to push my retirement ahead a number of years. I promise you, my most beautiful girl, we're going to have a wonderful, wonderful life together. This will all be over so soon."

Every word he told her was true. Far more true than she could have dared hope. It was a wonderful, wonderful life.

That night, they slept holding one another more tightly than any other night in their entire lives. They loved each other more deeply, in that broken, flawed, and pain filled moment, than either felt was possible. After a long wait - they finally fell asleep, clinging to each other like lost childen in a storm. Maybe, in the end, that's all any of us are anyway. That'a our fatal flaw and our most elegant achievement.

The next morning the man reported to work and sat down at his work station. He picked up his hammer, his chisel, and his job... the stone tablet called the long count. His thoughts were deliberate as he began to carve into the stone...

I don't know what you people are going to be like, more than half a million sunrises from now, but I truly hope our experts are wrong about you....

Then, with busy hands, his mind went back to the important things... thoughts of her and of the future they would share together. Apocalypse be damned, that is the way things should be.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


Dear Hefficide,

I liked, I liked it alot. I didn't see where it was going at first and was really brought in by the title. I like the change up where we discover the apocalypse is not as we imagine. I also enjoyed the interplay between the two characters.

I guess we can wait till the 21st for the rest of the story.. Live Feed

Nice one Heff

Its great in its realism, not far off of what we are now

Wow Heff.. I just read that whole thing hearing, it in Daryl's voice.

Never change your avatar lol.

reply to post by Cyprex




The Walking Dead is filmed about 25 miles from my house. So Daryl's voice is actually probably close to accurate in real life anyway.

This is my favourite story of all your entries Hef. Very subtle, and the dialogue between the two was fantastic. Of course that twist at the end is the icing on the cake.