If the World was Ending

Inspired by and using lines from “If the World was Ending” by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels and “To Die For” by Sam Smith

Ari’s phone vibrated next to him on the old couch — the only sound in the crushing silence surrounding him. He let it ring for a few seconds, slowly inching further into the too-soft cushions with each buzz. Finally, he picked it up, squinting at the bright screen. The light was so dim outside, like it always was these days. It took a second for his bleary eyes to process the name on the caller ID and picture behind it.

Julia. Her name was still surrounded by those little purple hearts she put in her contact, and her picture was still that one of her with her arms thrown across his back in a bear-hug, her eyes closed in a smile. They were in a sunflower field, the greens and yellows so bright that they seemed impossible, even more now. Ari reached to his shoulder, sure he could still feel the ghost of her hands around him. He felt a dull ache in his chest. She was the last person that Ari expected to hear from.

The buzzing continued; it wasn’t that he didn’t want to pick it up, he just couldn’t make himself hit the button to accept the call. It was like that with a lot of things recently, things he would normally do or even enjoy but now couldn’t bother putting any energy into. Finally, as the phone reached its last ring, he picked up. The picture with all its bright colors disappeared, replaced with Julia’s face, looking in stark contrast to her gleeful smile in the picture. Like Ari was sure his was, her face was pale and wan, dark circles looking like purple bruises beneath her blue eyes. Her eyes used to remind him of a summer sky on the brightest days. Now they looked more like a storm, the kind that never seems to rage, only weigh down with suffocating clouds for days. The kind of storm that had been hovering outside for days. There were red circles rimming her pupils, like she had just stopped crying, or maybe was just about to.

“Hey,” she said. Her voice echoed around the room that felt too empty, bouncing off the wood-paneled walls filled with pictures that felt like part of a distant past.

Something about that felt too simple, just “hey.” But Ari wasn’t sure what else there was to start with. There was so much to say, and he doubted Julia wanted to say it any more than he did. They had talked a little after they decided to cut off their relationship a while ago, sending videos or jokes, saying things like “thought you’d like this” or “reminded me of you.” But it was never the same, and eventually their communications faded out. Ari had told himself he’d moved on, but he knew he hadn’t. Knew he probably never would. He let himself wonder if maybe Julia hadn’t moved on either.

“Hey,” Ari answered. His voice sounded thin, like he was catching a cold. He tried to smile, but he knew it looked forced. He let it drop.

He wondered if she remembered the fight too, if she was thinking about it. Fight wasn’t even the right word. They were sitting together on the same couch he was on now, the one that he felt like he had been sunken into for days. They were watching one of those sci-fi, end of the world movies Julia loved to watch only to talk about how unrealistic they were. Ari had never told her, but those kinds of movies always scared him, the idea of one day living in a perfectly normal world, and the next being gone without even getting to say goodbye. Usually, he would just sit and nod and remind himself it wasn't real as Julia babbled on about the more realistic ways all the characters could die. The words had slipped from his mouth when he asked her if she would come over if the world started to end, or at least call him. Julia took one look at him and laughed, like this was one of the jokes she was constantly making. And when she realized he was serious, she got annoyed, asking him why he would even ask something like that. Acting like he had ruined the movie for some ridiculous worry. Acting like she didn’t even care about his unvoiced fear that he would be left alone. Then Ari got mad too, trying to explain that he wasn’t joking. She left pretty quickly after that, saying they could finish the movie next weekend. Ari had hoped that they wouldn’t finish it then, but now regretted that wish every single day. They hadn’t seen each other face to face since then.

Julia’s eyes jumped from side from side, the way they always did when she was uncomfortable. Ari wondered if she regretted calling him. He felt his heart sink a little. “How, um ‒” she cleared her throat and looked to the side again. “How have you been?” She shook her head a little, as if she realized how ridiculous that question must seem.

Ari smiled sadly at her. “How good can you be when the world is imminently ending?”

She chuckled, though at the end it sounded more like a sniffle. “Yeah, fair enough. You look better than me at least.” Ari could tell she was trying to joke, but it didn’t have the usual mischievous tone or loud laugh that usually accompanied her teases. It was one of the things Ari loved the most about her, the way she seemed able to cheer people up no matter what. It hurt to see that even she seemed to have lost that spark.

“I think you look beautiful.” He hadn’t meant to say that. It wasn’t the kind of thing you casually said to the girl you broke up with a year ago. But Julia didn’t recoil or look angry, so maybe those kinds of rules went out the window now.

Instead, Julia snorted. “That makes one of us.” She looked around distractedly once again. “I mean, what’s it matter, I guess. It’s not like looking pretty is going to make any difference,” she rambled, then took in a shaky inhale. For a moment Ari was sure she was going to cry.

He turned away, holding back tears himself. “Where were you when you found out?” He knew he didn’t have to say what he was talking about. He was sure it carved into her memory the way it was carved into his. They told the world that they would all be gone within a week over a phone notification, like they would tell them a particularly bad rainstorm was coming. They didn’t even have the decency to record a message to explain.

It was a minute before Julia answered. She switched her curled up position in her fuzzy purple chair, pulling further into herself. She winced as she rearranged her legs, and Ari felt like he was aching too just watching her. He had read somewhere that unusual aches and pains was another effect of impending extinction that they would all start feeling sooner or later. Julia wrapped her arm around herself, as if trying to give herself some warmth, and she started to answer quietly. “In class.” She took a breath. “My professor actually got a phone call since we don’t have coverage down there. After she hung up she just sat down at the desk and started crying.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s almost ironic, you know.” Julia laughed in a hysterical way that sounded more like a hiccup. “Sitting in an astrophysics class, learning about how stars form, and suddenly you hear your professor tell you that ours is going to die in a week.”

“I was out in the park taking pictures,” Ari said. The image was so vivid in his eyes. “I thought the lighting outside was super weird, which I guess the actual sun dying would explain. I was sitting on this bench, watching a little girl run around chasing a dog. She was so happy, I was thinking that it would be a great picture if the mother was okay with it. I was about to ask her when both of our phones went off, with that emergency alert sound. And then it started going off all over the park, and the dog was barking, and then all of a sudden the little girl started crying.” Ari stopped for a moment, and realized dully, as though he wasn’t even a part of himself, that tears were running down his own face. He didn’t want to keep going, but it was like his brain refused to bear the memory alone. “And then ‒ then the mother picked the little girl up, and started to hug her and tell her it’s okay, and then she turned around, and even though she sounded so calm, I just saw tears going down her face.” Ari took another breath, coming in as a gasp. “She looked straight at me, and I couldn’t stop thinking, that little girl has barely gotten to live.” He closed his eyes, trying to force out the horrible memory. Now he was openly crying. He heard a sob from the other end of the phone, and opened his eyes to see Julia crying just as much as him. With a jolt he realized he had never seen her cry before.

“And you know what the worst part is?” Julia suddenly burst out angrily, her voice cracking. “I'm sure that they knew. You know, a scientist who studies the sun came to guest lecture us a month ago? He told us he was doing some ‘fascinating research’ on the sun, and hoped some of us would join him someday. Acted like we were going to even make it to graduation, never mind all the way to becoming even half an astrophysicist.”

There was silence again, as Julia angrily grabbed a tissue from the small table next to her. Ari looked around his house, his eyes landing on a family picture from his eighth grade graduation. His parents were hugging him, and he was hugging his first ever camera they had gotten him as a present. The camera itself was sitting next to the picture, untouched on the wooden shelf like the rest of them since that terrible day. He found it hard to take photographs when there would be no one left to see them in a matter of days. With a sickening feeling he thought about all of the people who would never hug each other again, never get to achieve their dreams. Him. Julia. That little girl at the park. It was so unfair, so incomprehensible.

“Ari?” Julia’s voice was quiet, broken. “Do you remember the last time we actually saw each other? The stupid thing that we argued about? When you asked if I’d call you if the world was ending?”

Ari shook his head. “Julia, please, don’t worry about that. It was a stupid question.”

“No, it wasn’t!” Her voice suddenly sounded somehow both fierce and desperate. “Ari, I was scared. I was so scared of losing you that I couldn’t even think about it, and I was so scared to tell you that I pretended I didn’t care. That’s why I laughed.” She was crying even more now. “You know why I liked all of those dumb movies? It made me feel better seeing all the stupid, unrealistic ways they said the world was ending, so I convince myself that that would never actually happen, so I wouldn’t have to actually face the fact that I do have feelings, and I do care, and I need to tell the people I love that before the stupid world ends!”

Ari’s heart twinged with guilt, even as he blinked in surprise. He had always been so emotional, so willing to share his fears and feelings with Julia, and she had always been the logical one who would listen and make him feel better about whatever irrational thing was bothering him that day. He had never stopped to ask her how she was feeling, and make her know she could tell him anything. He had thought that she really was as happy as she seemed all the time. He felt an ache different than the ones that plagued his joints every day now, one deep in his heart. He wished that they were really together, that he could see more than just a little square of her through the camera. He wanted to hug her, hold her, ask her everything he should’ve before and talk to her until the light in the sky gave out. There was so much left to say, to do.

“Julia, I’m so sorry,” was the only thing he could get out. She didn’t answer.

They sat silently for a few minutes, not sure what else to say. Sunset was coming, a weaker change than usual, but enough that the temperature in his dusty, empty house began to drop. Ari used to like night; it was a closure of the day and whatever happened, and the beginning of a new one. But he hated night now, hated the way there was never a promise that he would see the next day come, Iike he had always assumed. Not only assumed; relied on to keep moving forward.

Suddenly Julia spoke, so quietly that Ari almost didn’t hear her over his own tumultuous thoughts.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered, bringing her head close to the camera as though trying to move through the screen and to Ari.

Ari brought his forehead to the camera, the way Julia used to put her forehead against his own whenever he would get overwhelmed and stressed. His own thoughts quieted, and something like an uneasy peace came over him. “You won’t be,” he answered just as quietly.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Molly Jain, Grade 11

Creative Writing Major

"If the World was Ending" was awarded an Honorable Mention from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards