except a couple of old men and an Italian Greyhound in a suburban old home who watched the news not because they enjoyed watching it, but because they had nothing else to do.
It was Sunday, and the old men woke up early forgetting who they had been. They didn’t bother much, knowing memory often played tricks on them. Often, they could remember only half of their lives, the other half remained as elusive as Mars.
After putting on hearing aids and false teeth. After swallowing hordes of pills. After a vegan breakfast and a non-vegan walk outside, they settled in front of the television and watched world affairs and the weather forecast. The dog sat nearby, wagging its tail.
They had a fondness for the weather broadcaster. They called her ‘Weather Girl’. A young pretty woman whose red lips and white flashing teeth reminded them of lost youth and sun-soaked summers.
The pretty woman always smiled, but not today. Today, she wore a semi-black dress and looked super-sober. She looked like a forgotten guest at a late-night funeral.
She announced that all life on earth would go into extinction very soon. Humans, animals, plants, reptiles, flowers, birds, butterflies …all might die out. As she said this, she shed a few tears. Her blue mascara smudged. Tiny purple veins popped under her eyes, and she looked almost poetic.
They felt bad not because the world might end or not but because the young pretty woman with red lips and white flashing teeth was sad. The world could go to hell. As their midday bowel movements bothered them more, they rushed to the toilet. The dog barked at the weather girl.
[First published in Red Fern Review, Fall 2023]
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