What Comes After

August 8

The sky became darker today. It's like the universe read my diary and decided to just make ash clouds denser just to mess with me.

Everyone except for Grandma and Grandpa went stick gathering today. We grabbed a small wagon from the garage, Dad's hatchet, and a couple of plastic bags and walked to the woods. Everything was eerily silent in the woods. All the leaves shed by the trees laid on the ground, dull and weighed down by the ash, leaving the branches bare, looking like skeleton bones.

I went through the woods, gathering dried up sticks and small branches and other kindling. How many months until the natural gas runs out and the water pumps and filtration plants shut down? It must be happening soon because if the government is running out of food, then they're probably running out of resources to keep those places powered.

I filled my bag up with sticks and walked to our meeting place, a stump by a tree with a USA banner hanging from it for some odd reason. May had already finished gathering the sticks, and I could tell from the look of her face that she was very annoyed by the way that Dad was cutting the tree.

"What he's doing is so inefficient," she said. "He could literally go anywhere and get a better axe, but instead, he's using that basically useless one. It's literally wasting everyone's time, like, why does he have to be so inefficient?"

It's actually quite funny when May rants about inefficiency. For all the time-wasting that she does daily, it's almost a bit ironic that she finds it annoying that other people are wasting time.

"Well, there's nowhere to buy axes," I said. "It's not like the Home Depot is open or anything."

"No, duh," she said. "But the Hunters will probably have a good axe, maybe even a chainsaw or something since they go camping a lot."

"Dad doesn't want us to take stuff from other people though," I said.

"Well that's a stupid rule," May said. "We're in the apocalypse. Who cares about taking other people's stuff? And anyways, they told us to take it. It's been a bit less than a month since they've left, and they haven't come back."

"Well, if you have a problem, go ask Dad about it."

"Well, it's not like he'll listen anyways," May muttered. "We all should've gone with Leon. At least there, I might see some of my friends."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Practically all of my friends left in the first few weeks—"

"But what about Clara?" I asked.

"That birthday party was her farewell party," May replied. "And my two other friends that came said that their families were leaving in less than a month."

"And you never told any of us because..."

"It's none of your business," she said. "So, yeah. Now you and Mira are practically the only people my age that I can talk to, and Mira is a stretch since she's like ten years older than me."

"She's not a decade older than you."

"Seems like it, and who cares anyways?" she replied.

Just after she said that, I heard Dad coughing. He was leaning forwards and coughing deeply into the mask. Mira and Mom came running from the woods as May and I went towards Dad, leaving our bags of sticks behind at the stump.

"What happened?" Mira asked.

"I'm fine," Dad said. "It was just a mild cough."

"That wasn't mild," Mom said. "Did you take off your mask?"

"No, no, I didn't," Dad said, but Mom gave him a hard look.

"It was only for a couple of minutes," Dad said. "I had trouble breathing and needed to take in a breath of fresh air."

"We're heading back," Mom said. "We've been outside too long anyways."

"No," Dad said. "I'm finishing chopping down this tree."

Dad took the axe and swung at the trunk of the tree.

"Avi," Mom said, and I knew things were getting serious since she sparingly uses Dad's first name. "We are leaving right now."

"I need to gather the wood," Dad said and looked at Mom. "We're going to need it to stay warm for the long winter ahead."

"We've already gathered enough wood," Mom replied. "And we can gather more later on next week—"

"We can't wait," Dad said, cutting off Mom. "It's getting colder and colder every single day. It's nearly noon right now, and it feels colder than most winter nights."

"So, what?" Mom asked. "You're going to just stand there and chop down the tree, your lungs filling with ash because you're taking off your mask to breathe."

"Yes," Dad replied defiantly.

"There's no point preparing for a future if you're going to be dead by the time it arrives."

"Well, at least you guys will stay alive," Dad said, his voice raised.

"Stop," Mom said. "I don't want you to even think that any of us are going to die."

"It doesn't matter what we think," Dad said. "I think that everything's going to get better, but it's not happening. We need to prepare for the worst, and if we don't gather enough wood right now when the weather is still bearable, then we'll all freeze to death in winter."

"Gathering one extra log will not prevent us from freezing," Mom replied. "It'll only give us a couple of extra hours of warmth—"

"Every hour matters," Dad said.

"That's not my point," Mom said. "Sacrificing yourself to get one extra log is pointless. We need everyone to be healthy and strong for the times ahead. Flu season is coming up soon, and no one here knows if the hospital is even open, so if you damage your lungs and get sick, you might die."

"So go put your hatchet in the wagon, and let's go," Mom said.

Dad gripped the hatchet tightly and nearly went to keep chopping down the tree, but I could see the gears shifting in his mind. Mom was right. Sacrificing yourself pointlessly won't help anyone and will only make things worse. He sighed and dropped the hatchet in the wagon. "I'll finish cutting down the tree next week."

"You won't be doing it by yourself," Mom replied. "Next week, you and I are going to be doing alternating shifts."

"But—"

"No, buts," Mom said. "It's happening."

Dad shook his head and sighed. When Mom wants something, she'll always get it. There's virtually no talking her out of something once she's put her mind to it. We pulled the wagon behind us, creaking softly as the chilly ocean breeze brushed our faces.

Once we got home, May jumped into the shower, and then I went after her. The shower is about the only place in the house where it's actually warm, thanks to the fact that our house has an old-fashioned water heating system reliant on natural gas with no electrical components. I can't even imagine how people with electrical water heaters are showering.

When I got out of the shower, I went to my room to call Mira to shower after me. I saw her looking down at something on the desk. I knocked on the wall. "It's your turn to shower."

She quickly dropped some small pieces of paper before turning around and plastering a smile on her face. "Give me two or three minutes."

"What—" I said before pausing for a second. "What were you looking at?"

She sighed. "Just some old photos."

I went over and peered at the photos on the desk. Mira and Leon were smiling into the camera, dressed in traditional Indian clothes. "I don't remember this," I said. "When was it taken?"

"Early in the morning," Mira replied. "You guys were probably asleep."

There was silence in the room. Mira had a small smile on, her thumb placed just under Leon's grinning face in the photo. "You miss him?" I asked.

"I do," she replied. "I really do."

Another awkward silence graced the room. "I'm sorry," I blurted out, breaking the silence.

I have no idea what went through my brain at that moment, but that just came out. Mira looked at me quizzically. "Sorry for what?"

I could've said something about being sorry for her loss or something along the lines of that, but I chose to say what was on my mind. It would be better that way.

"For lying to you about Leon in June and being part of the reason that you stayed and didn't go off with Leon or—"

"It's not your fault," she replied, cutting me off. "Don't blame yourself."

"But it is," I said. "And I guess I feel so guilty about it, you know, because I feel like I'm the reason that you're not happy and living your best life and—"

"I chose to stay because I wanted to stay," she said. "And it was the hardest choice I've made in my life because it meant that I had to lose my husband."

"And even if you never told that lie, if whatever you think made me stay here never happened. I'd always chosen to stay because it's right," she said.

I wanted to believe her, but there was something familiar about how she said her last part, where part of it felt like a bit of the truth and part of it felt like a lie, something that I do a lot when I'm too afraid to tell the truth. But it felt nice, you know, being absolved of any guilt, even if part of it didn't feel real.

"Anyways," Mira said. "I better go shower since the water's getting cold."

"Yep, go ahead," I said.

Nothing much happened after that. Dinner was just awkward. Mom and Dad weren't really looking at each other. Mira, May, and I were just sitting there in silence and eating mushy corn. The only people that were talking were Grandma and Grandpa, who were talking in Taiwanese, which only Mom knew how to speak, so the rest of us just sat there as they chatted away.

Tomorrow, Charles and I are meeting for my bucket list. I'm not completely sure why we're meeting in the library, but hopefully, it'll make sense soon enough. I hope he and his family are doing better now.