What Comes After

August 9

I woke up this morning and realized that Charles never told me what time we were meeting. I assumed that it was sometime around when we usually met, which was around two or three in the afternoon. But because of this, I had to ask Mom for an extension, and that's when things started to go downhill.

"Mom," I said. "I might be gone for a bit longer than the permitted hour today."

"And why is that?" she asked while sweeping the floor.

"Charles and I were supposed to be meeting at the library today," I said. "But I'm not exactly sure when we're meeting, so I might have to be out for over an hour."

"Okay," Mom said and put the broom to the side. "So how's the gardening going?"

My heart began to beat faster as I tried formulating a lie. "It's doing well. The fruit-vegetable plants, like the tomatoes and eggplants, have mostly died, but the root vegetables are doing fine."

The whole garden was dead, but if I told Mom that, she might bar me from ever leaving the house. "Do you think we're going to have a harvest soon?"

"Maybe," I said and shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know."

Mom picked up the broom and began sweeping the dust into a corner. "After what happened to your father yesterday, I think we might need to stop going out so much."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Maybe limit your meetings with Charles to one time a week," Mom said. "All that ash in the air isn't great for your lungs, even with the masks on."

"But—"

"He'll understand," Mom replied before I could say anything.

"What about the garden and—"

"You said it yourself that the garden is dead," Mom said. "Even though I'm not a great gardener, everyone can tell that there's nothing that'll really grow in these conditions."

I knew that I had already lost this battle. "So what?"

"You both can see each other once a week," Mom said. "Indoors only, though. Nothing farther than the library. No intense exercise or work."

"That's a lot of restrictions."

"I want you to be safe, that's all," Mom said.

"And it's starting this week?"

"Yes," Mom said.

I nodded and walked away to put on some clothes and a backpack since if I were going to the library, I might as well get some books. I tightly fastened a mask around my face and walked outside, heading towards the library.

The sky was gray like usual, ashes caking the cracked asphalt streets and roofs of the nearby houses. The wind had died down from the previous few days, though the smell of salt lingered in the air. The empty houses, long abandoned by everyone who lived here, stood proud, like monuments of a past long gone.

It was strange to think about what life would be like if the apocalypse didn't happen. Today, I'd most likely be walking, or possibly driving if I took the driver's test, to school to take photos for my junior year. The sun would be shining through cloudless skies, surrounded by a faded cerulean sky. We would all be complaining about the heat and eating popsicles to cool ourselves off and maybe even going down to the beach to bathe in the amber sunshine as the sun descended behind the horizon.

But now, school may never reopen and there's no gasoline to power any of the cars. The sun is shrouded in gray all the time, the blue sky disappearing into the ashes, as the day struggles to hit the high forties. The beaches are deadly, the tsunami tides washing away the seaside manors, sinking and pounding them every day until nothing will remain. And with all the ash in the air clinging to our dreams and hopes, it's hard to imagine a different future if the asteroid had never struck.

When I got to the library, there was virtually no one there. Just one lonely volunteer sitting in the desk position, reading a book under a lamplight. When I entered, they looked at me and nodded before going back to their book. I guess with the world ending, reading up all the good literature is not a bad idea.

I waited for what felt like twenty minutes before I decided to go up to the library volunteer, but then stopped myself because it would be kinda weird to ask if someone had seen another person walk into the library earlier. So I just sat on the bench and waited.

After about ten minutes, Charles walked through the door. "Took you long enough," I said.

"It's a long walk to the library," he replied.

He stood in front of me. He looked better, his face less sallow, his walk with a little more energy, his eyes glinting with a bit more life.

"Your family doing alright?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "A lot better. Thanks."

"Anytime," I said. "So what's with the whole meeting in the library thing?"

"I thought it was obvious," he said. "We should probably get a flashlight and get going."

We went up to the library volunteer and asked for a flashlight. "Don't steal any batteries," he said and looked at us seriously.

"Of course not," Charles said.

"Have fun then," the volunteer said and leaned back in his chair, fully engrossed in his book. There didn't seem to be anyone else in the library and we disappeared into the shadows of the building, armed with only a flashlight.

Pale light streamed through the library windows, illuminating the dust that's floating in the air. I turned to Charles. "We're not just looking at books about Hawaii, right?"

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe not. You'll see."

We turned a corner, heading into the geography section, tall shelves lined with books that no one will ever check out again. "We're definitely looking at books about Hawaii," I said.

"Well, like pretty much every bookworm would say, books can transport you to different places," he said. "Obviously we can't go to Hawaii, so it's the best I've got."

"Well, you could've been a bit more creative," I said. "Just saying."

"My first idea was for us to pretend we were in Hawaii, you know. Dress up in Hawaiian shirts, crank up a heater somewhere, dress in flip-flops and pretend we were doing the Hawaiian dance," he replied. "But everyone would think we're crazy. Hell, I'd think I was crazy if I saw myself doing that."

"Yeah, it was probably better if we didn't go with your original idea," I said.

He nodded and pointed the flashlight at the shelves. "Found it."

I grabbed the book from the shelf and pointed my flashlight at it. Ten Hidden Gems of the Hawaiian Islands. I flipped the page open, seeing photos with small captions under them.

"This doesn't even count as a book," I said. "I thought it'd be a reading book or something."

"If it's got a cover and pages with words on them, then it's a book."

"What happened to using my imagination to get transported to another world?"

"I'm making your life easier with images," he replied. "Anyways, let's just get started. Since you've got a limited amount of time anyways."

"Actually, I got a couple hours of leeway today."

"How? Your mom seems pretty determined when she wants something enforced," he replied. "Not to mean that in any offensive way or anything."

"Yeah, she's like that," I said. "I'll tell you about it later."

I grabbed the book and flipped it open to the first entry, Punalu'u Beach. I remembered going there, or some other nearby beach with black sand, with my family once, during a trip to Hawaii. The black sand looked like pebbles of coal, blanketing the beach like a midnight storm, and there were turtles bathing on the sand, surrounded with caution tape to protect them. "It's beautiful," Charles said.

"Yeah," I said. "I think I've been here."

"How was it?" he asked.

"I honestly don't remember," I said. "The only things that I remembered were that the beach was just pitch black and there were tons of turtles lying around."

"What do you think happened to this place? When the tides rose and all."

"Washed away, probably," I replied. "Though maybe it survived because of the volcanoes. It's like nothing nice is left anymore."

"The library is here," he said. "That's something nice."

"Fine," I said. "Nothing beachy is left anymore."

"Well, I mean our beach—"

"Nothing safe and beachy is left anymore," I replied. "Happy now?"

He smiled. "But—"

"Great, we're moving on," I said and flipped the page.

"No, wait," he said and grabbed my hand. "I just want to have one last look."

He gazed at the photos of sunsets on the black sand beach. I wasn't sure if he was more enamored with the beach or the sun.

"It must've been beautiful when it existed," he said. "Man, I miss what the world used to be."

"Me too," I said and flipped the page, revealing a secluded waterfall surrounded by a bamboo forest. Light filtered through the canopy of the trees, captured in the photograph dancing on the first floor. There was something so entrancing about that picture, something ethereal and almost alien about it.

"It's very green," I said all of a sudden.

"Wow. That's so deep," he said sarcastically. "That's like me saying that the sky is blue."

"But it isn't," I said, and there was an awkward pause in between us.

"How weird will it be when we have kids in the future and when we show them these pictures, they'll wonder why the sky is blue in them?" he asked.

"Pretty weird, I guess."

"Yeah," he said and sighed. "It's a weird thing to say, but I miss the old sky."

"Honestly, who doesn't?" I asked. "No threat of oncoming ashfalls or ash storms. The worst thing that'll come from it is a little bit of rain."

"Or snow," he said.

"It doesn't snow here."

"Actually, a couple winters back, it got cold enough to snow in the mountains. It was a pretty big deal."

"That's not even relevant," I said.

"Well, if I move, then it'll be relevant."

"You guys are moving?" I asked all of a sudden.

"No, no," he said. "It was just a hypothetical."

But there was something about the way he said it that made it feel less like a random hypothetical and more like a consideration, like they were seriously thinking about moving away.