“What did Robert say?” I ask while I still can.
“Whatever happened with you,” Ike says. “Whatever happened—you’re the first it’s happened to, so we’ll see. Maybe it’s a domino in an eventual collapse.” We’re all pretty quiet. “Nothing new, really. But we think we can say for sure that this isn’t going to last forever. Unless it does.”
“Okay,” I say. And I leap. I lunge with my knife, and nobody else in the history of the world would even flinch, but Carl is Carl, so he grabs the table and flips it up like a shield. I use my elbow to blow through it pretty easily. The table is in pieces, and Ike runs back. My father stops cooking and swings a hot, pancakey pan at Carl. Carl ducks it, and as he does, I swing my knife at his neck. He dodges two good slashes, then kicks me hard in the ribs. I crash back into the dishwasher. Rib broken for sure. I get up and focus. I smile because I, Ama Grace Knife Queen Adusei, am a fighter, the greatest ever. Lately I don’t get to fight much. Or now I fight differently. But these fights, with fists and knives, I have more practice in. I jump forward again. Carl grabs my wrist and twists so I drop my knife.
“You are supreme and infinite, Carl, and I am very sorry for all that I have done,” I say as I knee him in the ribs, and before even bringing my leg back down, I’m in a backflip and kicking into his chin. He stumbles back.
“BITCH!” Carl screams, and makes to grab the gun out of the rubble that’s forming out of the kitchen. I kick him in the gut and throw him out toward the living room.
“Sorry, Udon Rosher,” I say while charging. He punches me in the mouth, and I see black, then the world comes back to me. “I meant no disrespect. I know you’re strong. I just want you to know I am sorry for the things I did to you.”
“Fuck you,” Carl says, and he’s coming at me with his flurry of heavy punches. He misses with a big right, and his fist goes through the wall. As he tries to pull his arm out, I get behind him and punch down on his neck in a way I know will make him crumble. Then I rip off the shirt on his head, and it’s like I hit the master switch. “Hellio YUPRA! Ki Udon Rosher! TRENT!” Carl screams as he holds his eye. Weeping on his knees. “Okay! Okay! Hellio yupra.” Even when I’m not touching him, he screams and claws at his own eye. He becomes a little bit of the old Carl. I hit him another time, hard at the base of his neck, to keep him from moving. His paralyzed body does nothing, and his face keeps doing so much.
“Udon Rosher, ki love, okay,” I say.
“End it!” Carl screams, keeping one eye open. Outside, the hot rain has stopped. I drag Carl upstairs and make sure he’s comfortable in my bed. He screams and screams in Carama, and I understand him very well. He spits and cries. I sit with him. “I know you’re going to get through all this,” I say. When his voice is coarse and he can’t scream anymore, I leave him.
My father and brother are in Ike’s room. Ike is writing something. My father is coloring in a coloring book. “Ama!” my father says.
“Ama,” Ike says.
“We’re good,” I say. My rib is broken, and I’m kinda bleeding out of my ear. “Still want to go watch?” I ask. These are my guys. I’m blessed knowing I can protect them.
Outside, the hot rain makes the air smell like burning rubber, but you can still smell the fresh wet earth underneath so it’s not all bad. Once we were all keeping things through the Flash, it became a tradition for everyone on our street to watch it together, to disappear all at once. Then we stopped doing that.
We press ourselves to the side of our house facing west. I’m dizzy and happy. Breathing hurts, but still I feel as infinite as ever. Still supreme. We get on the wall. Our wall. I lean my back against it, and I feel the wet seep through. A long time ago, Ike explained to us how nuclear radiation, besides destroying stuff, bleached everything it didn’t make disappear and that our bodies, if they were right up against something, would leave shadows that would last forever. For a long time we tried to use our bodies to send messages to the future. Hoping that after we were gone, if the Loop broke, the future would see us and know. I’d make little hearts with my hands, or sometimes we’d all hug each other to show them, like, love was a thing even for all of us who lived through the wars that ended everything. Now when we do it, it’s mostly for fun.
“What are you going to do?” my father says.
“I think I’m going to do this,” Ike says, looking up at us. He does a thing where he spreads his legs a little wider and acts like he’s flexing both arms above his head. That’s my brother. He’s not too smart to be fun sometimes.
“Okay,” my father says. “I’m going to do the animal man.” He grabs a branch from the maple I snapped and puts it on his head so he’ll look like he has feathers. The future will think he’s an alien. Me, I’ve already picked one leg up and tucked it into my knee. It’s pretty hard to breathe, but it’s not that hard.
“Dancer,” I say before he asks. That’s kind of my signature. I’ve done different versions of it, but this one is the best I can do with a broken rib and a knocked-around head. I have one leg on the ground, and then I bring one arm and crane it above my head. We only have to wait a minute.
There’s a faraway light. Then a roar like long, slow thunder. The roar doesn’t stop; it gets louder, and then it’s so loud you can’t hear anything. The faraway light grows, and it’s yellowish at first, and in the beginning it looks like something that’s meant to help you, like another sun. Then it grows taller than any building, greater than a mountain. You can see it’s eating the world, and no matter what, it is coming for you. Rushing toward you. And by the time it’s blinding, you are terrified and humbled. Watching it, you know it’s the kind of thing you should only get to see once. Something that happens once and then never again. We’ve all seen it so many times, but I still cry, because when it comes, I know for sure we are infinite. All you feel is infinite, knowing all the falls and leaps and sweet and death that’s ever been will be trumped by the wall of nuclear flying at you. You of all people. Then, before you’re gone, you know that all that’s ever been will still be, even if there are no tomorrows. Even the apocalypse isn’t the end. That, you could only know when you’re standing before a light so bright it obliterates you. And if you are alone, posed like a dancer, when it comes, you feel silly and scared. And if you are with your family, or anyone at all, when it comes, you feel silly and scared, but at least not alone.
LaShawn M. Wanak
SISTER ROSETTA THARPE AND MEMPHIS MINNIE SING THE STUMPS DOWN GOOD
Rosetta knelt to look at the stump in the corner of her client’s bedroom. It had the likeness of a ten-year-old boy: four feet tall, dressed in an oversized shirt and suspenders. And its features were flawless, from the newsboy’s cap cocked on its tight curls to its pupil-less eyes fringed with long eyelashes. The only oddity was that the stump’s hands were unformed, shapeless blobs. It was easy to believe that a sculptor had chiseled a boy out of wood and had stepped away just before finishing its hands.
Rosetta sucked in her breath through her cloth face mask. The SPC hadn’t told her that her first stump extermination would look like a child.
“Why did it take you so long to report this?” she asked the woman who rented the apartment.
“Went to visit my sister in St. Louis last week. When we got back, there it was.” The bedroom door opened, revealing a gaggle of gawking kids. The woman shooed them back, then frowned at the white man maneuvering a medium-sized crate into the bedroom. She sidled up to Rosetta and whispered, “He gotta be here too?”