Another dream story, but I don't think I got exactly what I wanted here.

In the End
Words: 1465


It was the last day of our world and I could not find Galliol any place that I looked. He was not in the apartment we shared with it’s view of the dark, sickly river. I lingered there, though, for a moment. I took the ring that had been Galliol’s mother’s from the unadorned jewelry box on the dresser. He had never given it to me officially, said he was waiting for just the right time. The opal winked like a single cataract’d eye on my finger.

He was not downstairs in the grimy little deli where the owner had shot himself and was lying still next to the open cooler of liquor. The bottles were sweating unpleasantly. I tucked a smallish bottle of tequila inside my coat, figuring that no one would miss it now and I could certainly put it to use. I tried not to look at the owner as I passed by, but I saw him from the corners of my eyes. His features looked perfectly normal, but the top of his head was…missing. Just gone.

He was not in any of the alleyways between the cramped buildings. I thought I heard a child-I could not tell if it was a boy or a girl-crying down one, but it was dark and I couldn’t see anything. Baria, who lived down the street and was always in the deli mornings complaining about lackluster bagels, ran by me. She had a little girl underneath her arm, maybe three or four. The little girl wasn’t moving, but Baria didn’t seem to notice.

I found Galliol in the street with his camera. He crouched on one knee, the tiny, intricate workings of his camera clicking and sputtering as he took picture after picture. I stood behind him for a moment, taking in the scene. The streets were empty, but for us, the tall buildings blank and sightless. If I spoke, it would have echoed. As it was, the little juttering clicks of the camera seemed to come at us from all sides.

Galliol did not speak, did not seem to notice my presence. I leaned down and looped my arm through his. “Come on,” I said, “we have to go now.”

The ships had landed crookedly. They piled awkwardly around one another, throwing up big piles of earth where their metal feet had dug into the dirt. Carved long wounds into our land. Thick lines of people swarmed around the ships’ dark mouths. In their arms they clutched unwieldy packages, haphazard piles of clothes. The faceless soldiers walked placidly up and down the queues, long, dark weapons easy in their belts. Galliol simply stared. He clutched his camera to him like a child.

“Hey,” I said, twisting him around until he faced me. His brown eyes were distant and unfocused. It was a bit awkward, as he was so much taller than me, but I pressed my hands to the back of his neck (his flesh gave underneath mine like it had no nerves or muscles at all) and I pulled his face down to rest against mine. “Hey,” I said, and his mouth was unresponsive beneath mine. “Hey,” I said again, and realized that I was crying.

Galliol and I got separated in the line. He just kept moving forward, one foot in front of another with a terrifying focus. I strayed behind, dawdled in line. We had time, I took it.

“Where’s Galliol?” asked Josa, who sounded out of breath. I shook my head and pointed towards the far end of the line, where Galliol stood with his camera in both his hands, staring into the dark lens. Josa narrowed his eyes, he looked so like Galliol from that angle, though for brothers they had never had any great resemblance. “Is he alright?” he asked.

I shrugged and tried to laugh, it came out small and strangled. “Who’s alright?” I said. Josa took my arm in a familiar way that I disliked, I edged away from him. Up and down the lines the soldiers did not look at us. In the distance, the light was getting bigger, it made strange shadows on all of our faces. “Do you think-” I began and heard indistinct shouting from the metal mouth of one of the ships.

Galliol was struggling with one of the soldiers. Neither of them said anything, and the only noise was the push and pull of their bodies. Galliol clutched the camera to him, the solider attempted to wrestle it away. “Galliol!” I said, and he did not look at me, but the soldier tilted his head like a cat. Galliol ran and the soldier did not follow him. The light in the sky was huge and bright, and there was nowhere to go.

I moved to follow him and Josa pulled me back urgently. “Where are you going?” he hissed into my ear. I didn’t say anything, just shook myself out of his grip and moved after Galliol. He had vanished already, somewhere between the high gray buildings. I ran from the long line, some of the others turned to look at me and the soldiers didn’t move.

“Where are you going?” Josa asked again, his breath ragged and urgent right behind me.

“After him,” I said, and ran.

I met Galliol on the bank of a river, I was eating an egg salad sandwich and reading a little book of poetry. I cannot remember the name of the author, it seems all of sudden like I should, like it’s important. He took a picture of me. In it, I look thoughtful and weary, there is a long strand of hair stuck to the corner of my mouth. We keep that picture on top of our crappy television set, along with one of me and Galliol at the carnival, laughing at the top of a Ferris wheel.

“We don’t have time for this,” Josa complained, keeping pace with me. I stared down long alleyways, my head swinging back and forth like a dog with a scent.

“Then go back,” I told him shortly.

“Orla,” and it sounded like he was crying, “don’t do this, come back with me. Galliol’s gone, everything’s gone.”

Once, when Galliol and I had been dating for about a year, Josa came up behind me while I smoked over the kitchen sink. He grabbed my hips and danced us slowly across the tile floor. He smelled like cologne, not anything like Galliol, who just smelled like white soap and boy. I just stopped, planted my feet and smoked like it was the last cigarette I was ever going to see. He dropped his hands and his head until it was almost touching my shoulder. “I’m so goddamned drunk,” is what he said.

He grabbed my hands, pulled me back abruptly. I did not look at his face, but I could tell he was crying in earnest now. “Come back with me,” he was saying, over and over again until it was wasn’t words, just strange slurring sounds. I pulled my hands out of his one at a time. The skin was red and wet where he had touched me.

“Go back now, Josa,” is what I said.

I found Galliol on the second floor of a warehouse. I think he was trying to get to roof. He had slipped, gone over a railing, maybe on the third or the fourth floor. He was sitting up, resting his elbows on the window sill as I climbed up to him.

He turned and he smiled at me and I think I could feel my heart breaking. I sat down beside him, his legs stretching out uselessly beside me. He was bleeding from an open cut just above his eyebrow. I licked my thumb and wiped the red away.

He looked at me, looked at my face and my wild hair, my torn shirt, my dirty tennis shoes. He looked at my hand, where his mother’s opal stared up at us. “I should have given you this a while ago,” he said, touching my ring finger.

“Yeah,” I said. Dust choked my throat.

Outside the window, the light was getting big and yellow. I thought I could hear the sound of the ships firing their great engines. But that may have just been my imagination. Galliol turned to me and raised his camera to his eye. He looked like some bleak machine, he appeared to have no face at all. I stared steadily into the dark lens. The camera gave an orderly, brittle snap and he lowered it, revealing his dark and lovely eyes.

“Beautiful,” he said.

And then we turned and watched out the window as the light got bigger and bigger, burning everything it touched. Inside and out.