think about the first call you’d make as the world ends

Hard choices already.

Previously… I’d been blogging about self-love and philosophy - until they told us there’s no way to save Earth. It’s over. And it’s just the beginning.

October 1 2029. Ontario.

I call my sister first.

Of course I do. I’ve always wondered what I would do when the world ends. Who would I call? Whose voice would matter to me most, would carry me through? Who would hear me in that moment?

I brace myself and press on her funny little picture on my phone’s favourites. Idly, I plug in the phone, thinking how grateful I am that the power is still on, the phone towers functioning. For how long? The news is playing on my laptop. It doesn’t matter what station you watch. For this news, there’s no spin. It’s over.

“Tricia?” I say when the call goes through but no one answers. “You there?”

“Kitty,” she whispers. “Oh, my god.”

She’s using the nickname she gave me as a kid. She usually does, but it’s never sounded more childlike, even when she first learned to say it. Everyone else calls me Katherine, but Tricia gets to call me Kitty.

“I know. Where are you?”

“At fucking work. Of course I’m working when the world falls apart. Oh my god, what the fuck am I going to do? I have clients coming in for a photoshoot in ten minutes. Am I supposed to be the one who tells this picture-perfect family of four that the world is... what? Is this real? What’s going to happen, Kitty?” She’s crying, almost whimpering. I’m reminded of an animal in a corner, and I wonder how many predator/prey scenes are playing out across the globe right now.

How many men with guns are deciding now’s the time?

I close my laptop. I can’t listen and listen at the same time.

“You need to get here,” I say, interrupting her.

“What? How? I can’t just... leave work.”

We both let the utter smallness of that concern settle between us.

“You need to go home, get your animals and your precious and important things, and drive here. Take the back roads, but know they’ll be full too.” I pause. There are so many decisions she needs to make. I’m grateful I’m the person being run toward, not the runner. “You need to take dad’s gun.”

A fresh sob rips from her throat through the phone. My gut clenches against her pain. I struggle to stay present but iterations of this conversation are echoing back from my future. I’m going to have to have this conversation again and again, telling women how to leave their lives and come to where they’ll be safe.

And then I have to make it safe.

“What about Dad?”

I exhale. I think about my dad taking us shooting. My sister propping the .22 up, leaning in to line up the sight, her breath coming long and slow, then the shot firing, the target fluttering from the whipping through it. My dad picking up the binoculars and grinning at her, a rare and cherished sight.

“Bullseye,” he’d said with pride.

“Tell Dad he has to come later. After everything is set up.”

“He’s going to be so sad, Kitty. I don’t think I can just leave him.”

“Tricia, you heard what the UN just said. Every world leader announcing this, in unison. Saying it’s over. There’s no hope for this planet. Think about what the next months and years are going to look like. No gas at the gas station, no food on the shelves. It will be like COVID times ten. Who’s going to want to work when there’s just no point anymore? It’s going to get really bad, but right now, things aren’t desperate. People are going to try to be with their families. But it might not be long before things get ugly. You know you need to come here. We need to do this. It’s time.”

I always knew it would come to this. I’d spent the last ten years feeling like Cassandra, telling everyone how bad things were, how much worse they could get. Feeling like I was fighting against people’s last hopes. With my loved ones telling me I was overreacting, overthinking, overdoing it. Always too much. Until now.

“Okay,” she says, suddenly strong. I know my sister and I know she has to disconnect from her feelings in order to cope with this. “Okay. I’ll go home and get the cats. I’ll... talk to Dad. I’ll call you from the road, okay? It’ll be a few hours.”

“Okay. I love you. I love you so much. I’m so sorry.” I’m older by 2 years. I should have stopped this. I should have sat in traffic with signs, I should have superglued myself to the Mayor, I should have...

But it’s too late. And I will regret not doing more for the rest of my life. We all will.

The least I can do is offer hospice. Palliative care, at the end.

“I love you, too,” Tricia says. We both struggle to hang up.

I put my phone on silent and open my laptop back up, muting it before I get sucked into the news.

I have a blog post to write.