To The Bitter End

Everyone has a story, though most people don't like telling theirs. They're often too full of regret, missed chances where daydreamers make a different choice. That's what set Henry apart from the pack: he never regretted anything. Even as the bombs were dropping and every camera and eye in the world was turned up toward the heavens, while people jammed the phone lines trying to make up with estranged relatives, lovers, and friends, while people dropped to their knees and begged God for forgiveness, Henry set in his hotel room and chainsmoked. He had no olive branches to extend. He didn't appreciate the concept of "the one that got away" because none ever had. And wasn't praying because he was fairly sure that there was no afterlife.

"So this is it, huh?" Henry thought to himself. "Un-fucking-believable." Sure, they had been at war, but when in the last century hadn't they been? Still, nukes flying through the air was... ridiculous. Lunatics were always running around the streets moaning about the world coming to an end. Now they were triumphant. Look, they shouted, look how the fire raineth down! They would be gloating even as mankind's greatest fury tore through their vaporizing flesh. Some people love being right no matter what.

"I wonder how long we have?" Henry thought. He stared out his room's window at the ocean waves crashing onto shore. The Pacific was dirty and cold. CNN was playing on the television, forgotten. The view now static, centered on an abandoned podium. The ticker was still zipping across the lower portion of the screen: WORLD SHOCKED------NUCLEAR OFFENSIVE CONDEMNED BY UN-----SWIFT COUNTERATTACKS SIGNAL DOOMSDAY------MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON US ALL-----I LOVE YOU SANDY. Just that scrolling by over and over again. Henry had tried to imagine the guy that keys in the words for the ticker, when he realized what the score was, or, rather, that no one was keeping score anymore. Henry imagined that CNN employee writing a farewell to his, or her, mother or daighter or lover, etc. And, he or she had also sent out a prayer of sorts. A prayer that was being repeated over and over on television screens all over the world.

Henry lit another cigarette. "Smoke 'em if ya got 'em," Henry thought to himself and chuckled. At least he wasn't going to die of cancer or emphysema like people nagged about these days. That was a small victory. "Just keep your mind off of it," Henry told himself. "Let it be a surprise." It was then that CNN blinked out of existence and the "dead-air screen" came on in all of its gaudy-colored, geomeric glory.

A funny patch of light caught his eye. It was near a palm tree outside and to the left of the building his room was in. It was eleven o'clock in the evening, but it looked like the sun was already rising, bathing the tree in a dim glow that was still bright enough to cast a shadow. "Of course," mused Henry," I'm facing away from America. I'm missing our finale."

Numbly, he walked out on to the Mexican beach and faced the northeast. The distant mushroom cloud was rapidly fading. Was that Los Angelos? Or Dallas? He knew he'd probably never know. He didn't know if he was glad he was on vacation or not. Henry thought maybe he might finally have something to regret: not dying in his homeland. Maybe.

He knew the xenos probably wouldn't bomb Mexico directly, but he also knew the fallout would spread quickly, challenging the detonation survivors with a second round of poisoned hell. Again, he wondered how long they had.

He lit another cigarette standing there on the beach, barefoot, barechested and breathing in some of the last fresh, salty air there would be for 20,000 years. "The bombs were never big enough for the brass," Henry thought while behind him, across the Pacific but still visible if Henry turned around, the sky was bleached for a moment in a few key spots low on the horizon.