End Times

End Times

 

Paul walked through the airport, broken glass snapping beneath his shoes.  There were occasional puddles of water that made walking even more dangerous.  He passed an elderly couple, wearing matching floral print shirts and whispering fiercely to each other.  Just as they were passing each other, the man’s feet slid from underneath him, and only Paul’s steadying hand prevented him from having a face full of glass.  The older man clapped Paul on the shoulder gratefully, and his wife said something in what Paul assumed was German.  He nodded in response, and the couple continued on their way, still talking nonstop.   The airport was full of such whispering, shouting, hustling and huddling, such confusion, that it was a wonder any plane was getting off the ground.  Paul weaved his way through the chaos and stopped by the exit doors.  He gazed out into the parking lot, looking past the smashed and dented cars to the distant rainforests of St. Lucia.  The sky was clear and beautiful, the calmness of the forest  very appealing against the insanity of the airport. A man in dirty overalls was sitting by the exit doors, smoking a cigarette, staring out the window like Paul.  A broom lay at his feet, next to a pile of broken glass.  The man reached into his pocket and grabbed a pack, lighting his next cigarette off the dying cherry of his first.  Without a word, he offered one to Paul, who shook his head.  They continued to stare out into the distance, the warm breeze blowing the janitor’s smoke back into the airport. 

            A battered taxi pulled up to the curb, a worried looking family of four scrambling out of the back.  The driver helped unload their luggage and waved as they hurried inside.  Paul stepped over the pile of glass, moving against the flow of the group.  The driver leaned against his cab, absentmindedly picking at his shattered windshield.  Paul walked over, shifting the strap of his bag onto his other shoulder. 

            “You still on shift?” Paul asked.

            “Where are you coming from?” the man replied, throwing a chip of glass to the curb.

            “Ireland.”

            “Is it any better there?”

            “No better than anyplace else.” Paul dropped his luggage to the ground.  “What happened here?”

            “Hail storm.  Big as your fist, some as big as your head.  Rolled in with no warning, left just as quick.”  A grin ran across the taxi driver’s face.  “Hop in.  Just don’t get cut.  Where do you want to go?”

            “Do you know where Finn O’Malley’s bar is?”

            The driver laughed and raised his hands to the sky.  “Didn’t you get enough of Irish bars in Ireland?”

 

            The road through the rainforest was little more than a single lane, full of ruts and potholes.  Sunlight filtered through the canopy as the cab bounced along. 

            “Why are you here anyway?”  The driver held one hand casually on the wheel.  He had to speak loudly over the squeal of the engine.  Apparently huge hail stones had not done this car any favors. 

            “It’s complicated.”

The driver turned around completely, staring Paul squarely in the face.  Paul met his gaze briefly, then shifted back in the seat and focused on the tear in the upholstery next to him. The driver sighed and returned his eyes to the road.  “Fair enough.  What have you heard about the rest of the world?”

            “I dunno what to say.  Ireland is a mess.  California is under water, although that’s last year’s news.  Japan is under a sheet of ice.  Mudslides and flooding all over South America.  No one is really doing well.”

            “Maybe we shouldn’t complain about the hail.  Doesn’t sound so bad now, eh?”  the driver laughed and shook his head.  Paul had a decent idea of what was happening, and he wasn’t laughing.  His journey had taken him all over the world, relying on clues, rumors, bribes, threats, and outright guesses.  The troubles began soon after his own travels had, and Paul had moved through the flow of refugees, taking note of their wild stories and hopes of finding some sanctuary.  Some said it was part of a natural weather cycle.  Some said it was the end of the world.  Paul had his own agenda, and he had witnessed enough to know that no place was safe.  Waiting out a week long thunderstorm in India, Paul had seen countless cows vaporized by lightning strikes. 

            “Hey, I heard on the radio this morning that Ireland got burnt up by volcanoes.  You left just in time, huh?”  The driver once again turned around to speak directly to Paul.

            “I guess.  CNN was showing some footage back at the airport, so it has to be true, right?”  Paul and countless others had watched some shaky helicopter camera work from one of the few functioning televisions in the airport bar in St. Lucia.  The River Liffey explodes in steam as lava flowed along the middle of Dublin.  Paul had stood on O’Connell Street Bridge over the Liffey a short time ago, weighing his options.  A few weeks of searching through all of Dublin’s pubs had finally turned up some information.  He had walked into this particular place and noticed the huge stone fireplace in the back.  It was a man’s face, mouth wide open.  Wood crackled and spit in the stone man’s mouth, lending a glow to the patron’s seating close by.  It immediately felt right, felt like a place where she would have stayed.  Paul stepped to the bar, reaching into his pocket for a worn, often folded picture. 

            “Have you seen this woman lately?” He held the picture out to the bartender, who stood fiddling with the cap on a bottle of whiskey.  The man lifted his head, staring blankly at Paul. 

            “That’s a hell of a question” he answered, putting down the bottle. 

            “Please.  Just look.” Paul stood still, arm extended.  The bartender sighed and leaned forward, squinting slightly.  He glanced into Paul’s haggard, drawn visage, then into Paul’s smiling face in the photo, his arm around a blonde with a mischievous grin in a dark hooded sweatshirt. 

            “I’ll be damned” the man whispered.

            “What?” Paul’s arm shook and then fell to the polished wood of the bar.  A puddle of spilled beer soaked into his shirt sleeve as his arm trembled, but his grip on the picture stayed strong.  The bartender’s eyes still had not left the photo.

            “She was here in the winter, almost very day.  Very odd girl.  Never talked much but drank plenty.  One day she up and left, said she wanted to bring the magic of Guinness to the tropics.”  He tapped a faded postcard taped to the mirror behind the bar.  A picture of a palm tree a on a sandy beach, the edge of the card slightly torn.  Wish you were here in St. Lucia was printed in black capital letters next to the palm tree.  “The wife and I went there a few years ago on holiday.  Beautiful place” the bartender continued.

            “Are you sure it was her?” Paul asked, and with shaking hand raised the picture again. 

            “Sure.  I think so” the bartender shrugged.  “Makes as much sense as anything else these days, right?”

 

            Paul left the pub, hands still trembling and his heart pounding in his chest.  The wind ripped at his jacket and forced him to duck his head.  He several blocks, turning at random on the streets of Dublin until he ended up on O’Connell.  Stopping halfway across the bridge, he stared down at the slow moving Liffey.  Was this another lead that would prove false like the time in Australia?  The bartender wasn’t sure, but it seemed like he recognized her face in the picture.  And coming to Ireland in the first place came from a hint as seemingly tenuous, that handwritten  guest register in the hostel in Prague and a couple of questions asked of the night manager there. 

            “Hey man.  What were you saying about Prague?”  Paul glanced to his left, startled by the weaving approach of drunken man.  The stranger had day’s growth of beard, a wrinkled button down shirts that was half tucked into a pair of equally wrinkled pants.  A faded orange baseball cap sat slightly askew on his head.  “I’d like to go there someday.”

            Paul could smell the booze on his breath from several feet away. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was talking out loud.”

            “Oh hey, that’s okay man.  Hey, have you seen my friend Dan?”  the stranger asked.  “He’s short.”

            Paul shook his head. “Sorry.  I haven’t had much luck with finding people myself.” 

            The stranger took a moment to digest Paul’s answer.  “Thanks though.  Dan and I will help you out, if I can find him first.”  He stumbled past Paul, continuing down the bridge.  Paul turned back to the river, lost in thought for a moment.  The drunken stranger had not gotten ten steps away when a small earthquake shook the bridge, sending the man tumbling and forcing Paul to grab the stone in front of him.  The stranger lost his hat in the fall, and a strong gust of wind blew it over the edge and into the Liffey. 

            “Hey.  Oh man” the stranger muttered.  “This sucks.”

 

The taxi hit an enormous pothole, and Paul was slammed against the door, his left shoulder exploding with sharp pain.  He groaned and grabbed his arm, and the taxi driver looked back. 

“Sorry about that.   You okay there.”

“Don’t worry about it” Paul said, massaging his shoulder. 

“Almost there now.” The driver followed the hard curve of the road and then straightened out, pointing to a small house standing tall on stilts. 

“Are you sure this is the place?”  Paul asked. 

“Consider yourself lucky I’ve heard of it.  It hasn’t been here but a month or two.  The driver pointed to a shack positioned between the stilts of the house.   Paul could see a few plastic shamrocks nailed to the door. 

“Thanks for the ride.” He dug through his pockets, pulling out a handful of cash.  Dollars, euros, pesos, a few baht from Thailand.  He dropped the contents of his pockets onto the front seat.  The driver looked at the pile of bills and coins, then looked back at Paul. 

“Hope you find what you’re looking for.  Enjoy today, there might not be a tomorrow.”  The driver laughed and waved again as Paul walked toward Finn O’Malleys. 

He stopped at the door, sweating in the heat and shaking at the knees.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to open the door or turn around and see if the cab had gotten too far away to take him back to the airport.  He stood, locked in indecision, until a blond figure walked past the only window in the shack, oblivious to his arrival.  Paul grasped the handle of door and swung it open, plastic shamrocks shifting with the movement. 

            She turned around as the door opened.  “Welcome to Finn O’Mall . . .” Her mouth snapped shut when she saw Paul, and she quickly moved behind the flimsy wooden bar.  She stared at her hands, refusing to look up.  “Paul,” she said quietly. 

            “Illyana.” The forces of his memories slammed into his consciousness.  He remembered waking up and finding her gone, no trace, no indication of where she went.  It was as if she had never existed.  Like a piece of glass had eviscerated him, torn him open and skewered his heart.  The frantic despair, the worry, the anger he had pushed away to form a shelter of numbness that allowed him to continue his journey for answers.  The façade of that numbness disappeared in her presence, and everything he had been holding back for years crashed into his head.  He sat down at the bar, rubbing away the pain in his left shoulder.  He felt nervous and shy, just like when he had first met her.  She fidgeted behind the bar, fingernail tapping against an empty pint glass.  Paul’s glance followed form the finger up her arm and into her face, thinner than the one of his memory.   She blushed and crossed her arms, staring back at Paul.

            “What happened to your arm?” she asked, gaze shifting to his side.
            “Nothing much.  Just a little sore, that’s all.”  Paul had torn something in his shoulder helping dig out a trapped family in Pennsylvania at the beginning of his exodus.  A hurricane had dropped a tractor trailer on their house.  His shoulder never healed completely, and the rough taxi ride had kick started the old ache. 

            “You know the main crop in St. Lucia is bananas?  Anything that falls on the ground is fair game.  It’s like their own welfare system.  Bananas and Guinness, not too bad to live on.” Her eyes slide back to the glass and she started tapping it again.  “It’s good to see you Paul,” she said quietly. 

            “Illyana, why did you leave?”