The End Has Come

Don puts the rifle to his shoulder and aims at the man with the gun. He is the shorter one and is wearing what looks like surgical scrubs. On another day he’d just be some guy checking on his boat on his way to the hospital, but on this day he is like everyone else, desperate. And he has a gun aimed at Don’s son.

The world has changed. Now there are no options. No negotiations. No discussions to be had.

The sun is high in the sky. The sea is calm. The boat barely moves. Don pulls the trigger. The rest is nothing but image and sound. A spray of red. A shout. Zack stumbling toward the boat. Released ropes. Shouts. Zack taking the rifle from Don and holding it steady as he points it toward the crowd gathering on the slip. The slapping sound of ropes and sails. White filling the sky. Steady movement out into a chaotic bay full of sails and froth and boats avoiding collisions only because they are all heading in one direction — the open sea.

* * *

It’s Don’s junior year in college, and the nameless girls in the dream have become a single girl, a classmate named Kiko, and she sways on the deck in a black bikini to the smooth sound of Latin jazz, her hands twisting above her head and reaching toward the sun. Don watches, a beer in one hand. The sky is a pale blue with streaks of white clouds.

The girl would fade from Don’s dream, replaced by someone new, but everything else would remain: The yacht, the open sea, the sun, and the sound of mellow guitar chords matching the flowing sails and the gentle rocking of the boat.

* * *

“Oh my God, Dad. Do we have to hear more jazz?”

The music draws Zack from staring at his phone. For once Don is thankful for annoying his son. Zack had called his girlfriend before the ship had left cell phone range, and as her voice faded, he was left just staring at the screen.

“I like it.” Don elbows his son, hoping to draw his attention from the dead man lying in his own blood on the dock, his girlfriend’s final words, and the uncertainty of a future they haven’t even started to grasp. “Come to think of it, I just put it on repeat.”

“Argh. It’s like from the dark ages.”

Don smiles and thinks of bare feet dancing across a gleaming deck. He glances at Zack, whose lips are set in a thin line as he stares into the distance, the phone hanging from his hand.

“You’re right. We should listen to your music. What do you want to hear?”

Zack turns to him and shakes his head. “I’m just kidding, Dad. You know I don’t care about music.”

Don wonders if Zack cares about anything. He was apathetic when he was at home with his girlfriend, surrounded by friends. Here on the boat it seems to be even worse.

“Maybe we should start playing Salsa or music like that,” Don says. “I was thinking we could eventually dock in Rio. You could go dancing with some Brazilian girls.” He smiles, hoping it doesn’t seem forced.

Zack looks at his phone and then shakes his head. “Play whatever you like, Dad.”

“Well, if Salsa dancing isn’t your thing, what else would you like to do when we get back to civilization? Where would you like to live? That kind of thing.” When Zack doesn’t reply, Don adds, “It’s good to think about the future.”

“I’ll think about it when I have one.” Zack turns away and looks toward the horizon, the sun is bright, and the sky is blue.

* * *

They are South of the Sargasso Sea and approaching Barbados, searching for better fishing. The trouble is that after the asteroid impact, South American countries had set up heavily armed coast guards to keep undocumented refugees out. The orders were shoot to kill, and the only thing that saved Don on a few occasions was that the patrol boats were relatively small and stayed near the coast. He and Zack had been fired upon several times, and each time Don turned back out to the Atlantic and pursuit ended quickly.

Zack grabs the binoculars from the shelf under the dash and pulls them up to his eyes. His finger adjusts the focus. “Trouble.”