Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice
Well I've seen how the world ends,
And it fucking sucks.
OoO
I woke up slowly. It was a Saturday, and I loved taking my time. Not having to get up and work made me feel incredibly relaxed. I had time to stretch and get used to the bright light coming in the window. I must've forgotten to shut the curtains last night, I thought.
Memories of the previous night drifted back to me and I smiled. My boyfriend, David, and I were at my parents' house for a cookout. It was the Fourth of July, my favorite holiday. As the fireworks went off over head, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Of course, I said yes. I loved David unconditionally; we had been together since we were seventeen, eight years of happiness.
Rolling over, I draped my arm over David's chest. He liked to sleep on his back, I liked that. It gave me a chance to look at his muscles. His abs weren't greatly apparent and weren't large, but I liked them. I also liked running my hand on them, but he was ticklish.
"Mary, stop it," David chuckled as I touch his abs. Sometimes, I missed him calling me Alice and I missed calling him Dave. However, by our second year of college, he decided that we needed to be mature. So I stopped going by Alice and instead went by Mary. I hated it at first but I gradually got used to it.
"What do you want for breakfast?" I asked him, as I got out of bed.
"I want you." David pulled me down so that I sat next to him. I liked the idea of having some nice morning sex, but I was hungry. I had heard my stomach growl quite a few times already.
"Later, darling," I said, kissing him softly. It was the lingering kind of kiss that he adored and I knew it had quenched his desires for the moment.
"Let's have pancakes." When he suggested pancakes, my stomach growled again and David laughed. I walked into our bathroom and grabbed something to tie my hair back with. Then I put a large tee shirt on over the underwear and bra that I was already wearing.
I walked to the small kitchen and began making breakfast. I heard David get in the shower. We had all the ingredients, but I wasn't exactly the tallest person. As I stood on my tip toes to get the Bisquick mix the phone starting ringing.
Looking at the caller id I saw that it was my mother. I had just spoken to her last night, but I had a feeling that she would be calling today to talk about the wedding. Despite telling her that we didn't have any date in mind and wanted to take it slow, she was already diving in head first.
"Hi, Mom," I said.
"How did you know it was me?" Mom asked, sounding just as surprised as ever.
"We have caller id, Mom."
"Oh right, right. Any who, I was thinking about the wedding." I looked down at the ring on my left hand. It was beautiful, and it was certainly sparkly enough.
"Are you still there, Alice?"
"Yes Mom." That was one thing about her that I secretly liked, she still called me Alice. 'Your father wanted to name you Mary, I never really liked it,' she said to me when I told her that I wanted to be called Mary. I could still hear her babbling, and I made the occasional 'uh huh' or grunt so she would know I was listening.
"Well, your father wants me to stop bothering you. I used air quotes around 'bothering', just so you know," she said. I laughed at my parents' eccentricity, they certainly could be odd. However, I loved them to death and I hoped my marriage to David would last as long and be as happy as theirs.
"I'm making breakfast, Mom, but I promise to call you back."
"If you don't call back, it's alright; we're going out today anyways."
"Where are you going?" They hadn't said anything about going somewhere at the cookout. It surprised me because usually my mother gushed about their plans.
"It's just a little Sunday drive to the coast, sweet heart."
"But it's Saturday."
"Yes, yes it is. Talk to you later, Alice."
"Bye Mom." I hung up the phone, confused, but also amused by her cryptic answers. My parents were a big part of my life. When David wanted to buy an apartment together, I was constantly calculating how long the drive would be from each potential place to my parents' home.
"Where are my pancakes?" David asked, walking up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I turned around and looked up at him. He had shaved and the smell of his after shave was intoxicating. I never understood why it attracted me so much. I suppose that was something the engineers of the after shave tried to accomplish.
"My mom called." He nodded in understanding and kissed my forehead. Then he took the mix from the shelf and started helping me make breakfast.
OoO
"I'm just saying that you should read the books," I told my sister. We were Skyping that afternoon and discussing The Lord of the Rings trilogy. David had gone out to play baseball with some of his buddies. I decided to stay inside because the day was looking dreary. When it started to rain I was glad that I had stayed home. David called and told me their game had ended but were going to a local bar to hang out.
That's when I decided to video chat my sister. Cynthia lived in London. She had moved there the previous summer. I didn't like having my little sister a whole ocean away from me. It sucked and I didn't get to have her with me during cook outs like the one the night before. After David proposed I thought about how happy she would have been to be there.
"I don't need to read the books, the movies are enough for me," Cynthia said.
"The books have much more details though!" I exclaimed impatiently, right as thunder clapped in the sky. It scared me a little and I jumped. Cynthia started to laugh and so I stuck my tongue out at her.
"It's raining for you guys too?" I nodded and she got up. I saw her walk to the big window in her living room and peer out. I could just barely make out the rain streaking down her window.
"Well, big deal, it always rains in London, right?" I asked.
"This rain feels… different."
"Sure, Cynthia." She came and sat back down. I wished she were sitting next to me.
"Shut up, Alice." I sighed and rolled my eyes. Cynthia refused to call me Mary, too. She and my mother were the only ones who didn't do it. However, Cynthia refused to call me Mary all the time, even when David was around. Mom only called me Alice when we were in private.
"Well anyway, I think you should read the books."
"Why? I'd rather watch Orlando Bloom." Cynthia wiggled her eyebrows at the mention of Orlando and I laughed.
"But he's so funny looking with that blonde hair!" I preferred how he looked in Pirates of the Caribbean much more and Cynthia knew it.
"They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!" Cynthia exclaimed and this made me laugh so hard my sides hurt.
"You're ridiculous," I said. I checked my Facebook, so I could no longer see her. However, I had a feeling she was making some sort of funny face at me.
"N-no I-I-I'm n-ot-ot." Quickly, I minimized the Internet and looked at the Skype screen. Cynthia's picture was freezing and then flickering. Something was wrong, but with the storm and the long distance, it didn't surprise me.
"Can you hear me Cynthia?" I asked.
"Y-yeah, sort o-of." The sound was just as messed up as the image. I smiled and put my hand over my heart. Slowly, the glitchy image of Cynthia did the same. We always did this at the end of our Skype calls.
"I'll talk to you later, sis," I said, smiling at her. "I love you."
"Bye, love you." This part was clear, but her image had frozen completely now. However, she must have disconnected because it quickly went completely black.
I checked Facebook one more time and then shut off my laptop. I made myself some tomato soup and turned on Water for Elephants. David texted me and told me that he was still at the bar, and he was having a burger for dinner. I smiled; he always got a burger from that place. I bet the waitresses put in his order as soon as he walked through the door.
When I woke up, it was nearly midnight. I couldn't believe that I had been asleep on the couch that long. The movie was long over and my empty bowl of soup sat on the coffee table. I wondered why David hadn't woken me up when he got home. Standing up, I stretched and shuffled to our room. Surprisingly, he wasn't there; he wasn't anywhere. I checked the entire apartment but David was not home.
I looked at my cell phone, but it was dead. I was just picking up the land line when the power went out. As quickly as I could without walking into something, I got the flashlight out from underneath the kitchen sink. I turned it on and looked around. David always made me make sure the doors were locked when the power went out, so that was the first thing that I did.
Then, I went to the window. The curtains were drawn, so I moved it aside and what I saw shocked me. The wind was blowing so hard, telephone wires were waving and trees were creaking. Multiple trees had fallen already, and there was one car on fire in the street. People were running in and out of buildings. I couldn't hear their shouting, but as I watched them, I could feel their terror. Whatever was happening, was about to become worse, that I knew.
How could this be happening? The river was rushing, flooded from the rain and I heard thunder again. The wind seemed even stronger. Store signs and flags flapped wildly in the gale. A lawn chair flew across the street. Quickly, I let the curtain fall back.
I crept to our room and climbed into bed. Shutting off the flashlight, I set it down on the night stand. It's only a storm, I told myself. I tried thinking back to when I last watched the news. There had been something significant on the weather forecast, but I wasn't paying attention. David had been giving me a foot rub that held my attention much more than the news.
You should've paid better attention, you horny slut, I thought as I tossed and turned, wondering what would happen and what things would look like in the morning.
Just something I've been working on. I'll post a link or the banner on my profile. I'm going to continue with this, but I'm not sure how long it'll take.
