The End of the World (2 page)

“Hello, my boy,” he said, in his usual jovial tone.

“Good evening, Father.”

“Has your mother given you the big news?”

“She has…yes.”

“And?”

“It’s…it’s quite a shock, I must admit.”

“But aren’t you excited?”

“Well…yes, sort of…and no,” I mumbled, trying to summon a little enthusiasm for something that was sounding increasingly perilous.

“No? Why ever not?”

“I don’t know, I…I’m just not sure how I feel about it.”

“You don’t have to feel anything about it, you can just be happy for us.”

“Oh, I am – for you. I just don’t know that I am for me. I haven’t had time to think it all through yet. I need time to digest it.”

“We’re not asking you to eat it, dear boy, just that you be happy that it’s on its way.”

“What’s on its way?” I asked, sensing a crossed line.

“I thought you said your mother told you?”

“She did.”

My mother then turned away awkwardly, a far off look in her eyes. “Oh…no, I didn’t. Not that,” she said, enigmatically.

“Not what?” I asked.

She then turned to face me with an expression of such eerily serene calm that I couldn’t quite distinguish whether it was genuine or contrived. “I’m pregnant,” she said, softly.

“What?” I cried, as people tend to do when they’ve heard exactly what’s been said but still ask anyway.  

“I’m sorry, darling,” she whispered.

“Pregnant? But…how can you be? It’s not possible.”

“Everything is possible!” she declared, her mood suddenly switching back to the more strident end of her palette.

“Yes, but…why? How?”

“The why is not for me to say – this is far, far bigger than you or I. Frankly, I’m surprised that you have the gall to posit such a question. As for the how, I believe we went over that several times during reproduction instruction, but, to recap, it is the result of your father’s sex organ being repeatedly thrust into my genital canal, culminating in the release of vast quantities of sperm into my uterus, one or two of which leech onto one of my eggs that have made the journey down through my fallopian tube, propagating yet another…” She waved her hand dismissively in my direction. “One of you.”

“I remember the lessons, Mother, every one – by heart. What I mean is…well…surely you’re too old? Aren’t you?”

“Apparently not.”

“Which is why you must leave,” my father interjected.

“But isn’t it dangerous?” I asked, not knowing my mother’s true age – no one did, of course – but sure in the knowledge that she was well past what could be considered safe.

“Out there? Yes, extremely,” she countered.

“To make room for the new one,” my father interjected again, seemingly following his own personal line of conversation rather than the one we were engaged in.

“No, I mean for you – at your age?”

“Most likely,” she said, offhandedly. “But when viewed against the dangers awaiting you out there my risks pale by comparison.”

“It’s the cycle of life,” my father added.

“But why do you keep painting such a bleak picture of it, Mother?” I asked, a sense of dread beginning to creep upon me. “Haven’t you always told me what a beautiful place the world is? How full it is of extraordinary people and places and experiences?”

“Oh, it is, it is,” she said, her mood suddenly light and playful again. “It’s romantic and charming and dazzling and inspiring, full of wonder and astonishment. So many glorious sensations all waiting to course through your veins and make you feel what it truly means to be alive. It can be absolute heaven – as I very much hope you will soon discover.” Then her wistful smile dropped just as quickly as it had appeared and she fixed me with a steely gaze. “But it can also be the death of you,” she added, gravely.

I was becoming more uneasy with each passing moment. If, as now seemed apparent, I was to be forcibly pushed from the nest, I was determined it would not be without a fight. After all, according to my mother’s grim predictions, my life was already in the balance. I turned toward my father with a look of defiance.

“And what if I were to say no?” I asked, firmly.

“Then you’d have every right to,” he replied. “No one would stop you. It’s a word, nothing more. No one owns it.”

“Very well, then – no,” I declared.

“No what?” he said.

“No, I’m not going. I don’t want to. I suddenly find the prospect wholly unattractive and I refuse to go. No.”

“No?” my father repeated.

“Yes, no,”

“No?” my mother chimed in.

“No.”

My father scratched his chin and paused for a moment. “We hadn’t planned on no,” he said finally, seemingly thrown off-kilter by my sudden refusal to leave.

“Then re-plan,” I suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Valentine,” my mother said, sailing across the room for no apparent reason. “You can’t alter the course of history on a whim.”

“History hasn’t happened yet. We’re talking about the future and I don’t want to go, so the answer is no.”

“I’m sorry, my boy, but the subject isn’t up for discussion,” my father asserted, suddenly sounding far more sure of himself. “Your leaving here isn’t an option, it’s a requirement. The matter is closed.”

“But you said I could say no if I wanted.”

“And so you did, exercising your right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to listen. You cannot expect your mother and I to be held hostage to your every demand. Your words are non-binding. There is no contingency plan for this – it’s a fait accompli, I’m afraid.”

“I just want to stay here, that’s all,” I implored.

My mother suddenly swished herself across the room again, for reasons known only to her, and clutched at her abdomen. “Oh, Valentine, how can you be so selfish? Can’t you stop for one moment and think about my poor baby? This frail little partially formed human being? I am with child, for heavens sake! Why must everything always be about you?”

“Me? What happened to you all of a sudden? I thought you were the one pleading with father not to throw me into the path of imminent death?”

“Really? When was this?” my father asked, rubbing his chin again.

My mother simply rolled her eyes. “Oh, honestly, must you take everything at face value? Didn’t we teach you of the duplicity of human nature during ethics instruction?”

“Yes, but…but you’re my mother.”

“As if that had anything to do with anything. I’m your mother, yes, so of course I’m going to tell you such things. That’s what we do. We’re maternal and loving and protective, and at times like this we have an obligation to say the things our children want to hear. But it’s a role we play, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Well…no, not all. But what a person says and what a person feels isn’t necessarily going to be the same thing. Sometimes people simply say things to make someone else feel better. It doesn’t make it true, it just makes it appropriate. Really, Valentine, you must try not to be quite so literal minded about it all. It’ll only end in tears.”

Strangely enough, just at that moment those were the very things I could feel welling up in my eyes. “So you…you don’t really…love me?”

“Oh, my darling, of course I love you – of course I do. Come here…come and let me give you an affectionate hug.”

Before I’d had a chance to move, my mother was already sailing towards me, her arms outstretched, and moving in a sort of slow motion, as if re-enacting a scene from a romantic film she’d once seen.  She wrapped her arms around me and applied just enough pressure to suggest affection.

“There, you see – pure love.”

I felt consoled but not entirely convinced. And rightfully so, as her mood suddenly switched again as soon as she’d released me from her embrace.

“But I’m afraid the time has come for you to stop thinking of me as your mother,” she declared. “I’m so much more than that. I have a life beyond you – beyond all of this. I have dreams and aspirations of my own. Dreams you stole from me. I cannot remain tethered to you like some tired old workhorse. I need to run free, to gallop through fresh pastures, to feel the wind in my mane and the grass beneath my hooves.”

My mother’s equestrian petitions did little to assuage my feelings of abandonment.

“But you won’t be running free,” I argued. “You’ll be giving birth again. Anyway, why can’t I stay here with the baby? I’ll be no trouble – less trouble than the baby, I shouldn’t wonder.”

She swished away again, this time with attitude. “You’re all grown up – it’s time you moved on. You can’t keep moping about here all day. You need a job. You need a life.”

“Anyway, there’s no room for you,” my father added.

“But it’s a baby – how much room does it need?”

My father became adamant again. “It needs your bedroom. This isn’t a big house, Valentine, but it is all I can afford. Had I been more successful in life, financially speaking, then yes, we could’ve all been one big happy family. But I wasn’t, so feel free to point the finger of blame squarely at me when discussing your unhappy youth in later life. Either way, economic necessity requires you to leave us and make your own way in this world. I wish it were otherwise, but there you are.”

My mother then said something that threw me completely off my guard – as she was wont to do, of course.

“Your father’s right, darling,” she cooed, in an odd, girlish tone.

Had I just heard right? ‘Your father’s right, darling’? I’d never heard her utter such a thing in all my life. Where had it come from? It sounded like a meek response from an obedient housewife; like something she’d picked up from an old June Allyson film. The effects of pregnancy were clearly kicking in.

“What is he right about? Right about what?”

“Everything. All of it. It all makes sense…in the big picture.”

Oddly enough, just at that moment I actually was beginning to see the big picture. I realised that whatever I felt or said meant absolutely nothing. This was all a set-up concocted between the two of them, and no matter what, they wanted me out. Was my mother even pregnant? I decided, in desperation, to call a bluff that I already suspected would be futile and doomed to failure.

“All right…all right, if that is your wish, I will leave this place. But mark my words, no matter what you say, no matter how much you plead with me at the actual, painful, cord-cutting moment of departure, I shall remain steadfast and resolute. There will be no turning back. I will be leaving for good. You may never, ever see me again. Ever.”

I walked towards the living room door with as much gravitas as I could muster.

“Farewell…birth parents.”

“Bye, darling!” responded my mother, brightly.

“Goodbye, my boy,” my father added. “And don’t you worry – you’ll do just fine out there. We’ve schooled you well, taught you honesty and truth, and shielded you from life’s iniquities. A hale and hearty lad like you simply cannot fail.”

I stood in the doorway, sensing failure but clinging to hope.

“I mean it – I
really
mean it. This is it. Really it.”

“We know,” they replied in unison.

I stopped and stared at them for a moment. Could these really be the same two people who had always been so zealous in their private parenting? Could all those years of shielding, nurturing, protection and home schooling be tossed aside so readily, so casually? And all because of the intrusion of a little foetus that, medically speaking, had little chance of survival, and even then was certain to be plagued with horrendous birth defects. I felt like an endangered specie, injured and taken in by some well-meaning refuge, bottle-fed and brought back to health, only to be shoved back in the wild, domesticated and declawed.

Were my parents cuckoo? Or, more frighteningly, were they actually cuckoos? Whatever the case the game was up and I was being booted out. My bluff calling having failed, I made one last dramatic gesture in an attempt to get through to them. I remained eerily silent and slowly and quietly closed the door behind me, imagining the stricken cries of separation anxiety that would ensue as I did so. None came, so I leaned in closer, my ear next to the keyhole, and heard the voice of my father first.