Last Wishes

Only three hours left. I’m walking as fast as I can and trying not to aggravate my old netball injury. Kyle works at Ol’s Café. That’s the one three roads away from the high street where I work. It’s an unchained, cheap and cheerful place in north-west London where I can grab a large Americano, a croissant and a muffin for under three quid; even though I’ve not had a pay rise in a couple of years but can still treat myself now and then. It’s even got one of those ugly by sweet murals painted by local school kids hanging on the wall.

Finding Kyle there today is a long shot because everyone was told to stay home if they wanted. That we wouldn’t be stopped by the police if we needed to leave the house for some reason: to restock supplies, or visit our nearest and dearest; or to just go for a walk to remind ourselves that we are still breathing, for now.

There’s no cars, or buses, or cyclists. No traffic at all. But it’s not completely quiet. There’s a whispering in the air, the sort seashells make only when you jam one hard against your ear. I spot a few people here and there, walking past the discount and charity shops, looking into darkened windows. A lot of places are boarded up, their doors standing ajar with looted debris trailing out onto the pavement. It’s sad and troubling. I really hope Kyle decided to go to work one last time. I wouldn’t be out here otherwise.

I’m sweating like a human Niagara Falls, but taking off my jacket is a bad idea. The effects of the atmosphere have made it difficult to be outside for too long. It grew more noticeable each time you stepped outside. The air took a breath and held it, as if it too couldn’t believe what was happening.

I take off the jacket. If Kyle is at the café, I don’t want to him to see me looking all clammy and scared. Stupid really; what difference does it make, now? Maybe every difference, even for a little bit.

I imagine he isn’t like that – superficial or whatever. It sounds terrible to think, but he’s the sort of man you could see working in a café for the rest of his life. He has this way about him: easy-going but hard-working. As if he could just point at the coffee-making machine and it would get straight to work, right after he’d given it a thorough, careful clean. All right, Kyle – because it’s you.

It took me a while to notice that he had a stutter. It only comes out when the café’s super-busy and he’s rushed off his feet. Apologises even if it takes him an extra minute to get all of his words out. His voice reminds me of lying face down onto freshly washed and dried cotton sheets.

One day, I arrived at the café before it opened. I hadn’t slept very well the night before. At that time of the day, the sun is quietly creeping up and over things, but fails, because that first blast of sunlight is always the brightest. I stood outside like a right fool, shivering – it was bright, but not warm.

Kyle rocked up on a moped. He often wears the same thing: crushed jeans and a beige sweater or cardigan. Usually his clothes are partially hidden under his apron, but you can catch them clinging to him if you look hard enough.

“Hey,” he said, hopping up and down as he rushed to the door to open up. “The coffee maker’s on the fritz. I bust it last night by accident changing the filters. Thought I’d turned it off. Made a huge mess.”

He turned to look at me. His smile could solve world hunger.

I remember mumbling something about him not worrying about it, but the words got lost at the back of my throat.

He asked me my name. For some stupid reason I lied.

“You know mine by now, right…right?” he said, winking.

I nodded crazily like a horny teenager.

“If I had one…last wish,” he said, slowly, the key halfway in the lock, his eyes on his hands, staring at something beyond them. “I’d buy this place a fancier coffee-making machine.” He turned the lock and flung the door open.
    
I’m almost there. Another twenty minutes or so. A journey that takes thirty or so minutes by bus is now an hour and then some on foot. My feet are moving and my head’s trying to keep up with them.

I’m out of breath. It feels good to be out of breath. I should have set out sooner. I should have done a lot of things.

The beginning of the end came with a boom. A deep, thundering, God-like boom that rocked parts of North America and caused a tsunami to ride the oceans all the way to the Asian continent.

The news apps were beside themselves trying to keep the world – and themselves – up to speed with what had happened. A comet had fallen into the sea. An exploding star had blown up (for reasons unknown) ten million years ago, and only now could be heard echoing throughout our known galaxies. Someone had set off an accidental nuke – world war three was about to kick off. A series of gas explosions from factories in rural China had created global sonic waves. Bada-boom. It took a joint effort from NASA and other countries’ space programmes to prepare and launch a rocket probe into space, in record time. To search the skies beyond ours to figure out what the heck was going on. The wait for news was interminable and cost everyone, everywhere, unproductive but crucial minutes.

Kyle whizzed around the café getting it ready for the day.

Once in from the cold, my confidence warmed up. “So, what am I able to drink?” I chanced.

He pulled out a chair and pointed at it. I sat down. He strolled into the back without replying, leaving me in the cosy dankness of the café. It smelled a little bit like burnt almond-flavoured bread. The shutters were still down, but sunlight tiptoed in between the eyelash-wide slats, giving everything a classy art-house film feel. Traffic from outside was few and far between – the buzzing of busy but nonchalant bees.

He returned reading a paper-backed book, nodding to himself. “I can fix…I can fix…fix it. I think,” he said, not looking at me. As he clamped the book closed, I saw that it was the coffee machine’s manual. He tried running his fingers through his afro but they got caught in its curled edges. “I’ll make us hot chocolates.” His face fell. “On the house, obviously.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I had time to kill before I needed to get to work. An admin job that I’d been grateful to find but wouldn’t be upset about if I lost it, like you do your Oyster card sometimes.

I checked that he wasn’t looking in my direction and loosened my shoes. Not completely taking them off, but just enough to feel like I was politely relaxing at a friend’s.

I watched him go to work: steaming the milk and hearing it make that chortling sound as it came under steam. The edge of the spoon scraping the bottoms of the oversized mugs as he whisked the hot chocolate mixture into their depths. He didn’t say anything the entire time – a companionable silence, the sort that comes from getting on with what’s necessary in front of a live studio audience. I felt my body brimming over with the feeling of deeply contented comfort. Ecstatically and foolishly at ease.

He turned on the DAB radio sitting next to the tips jar, its front labelled: ‘We’re only joking, but if you’re in the mood…’

“You got any jobs going where you work?” he suddenly asked.

I said I wasn’t sure. Are you done breaking coffee-making machines?

He laughed. Laughed at something I’d said. “You gotta try sometimes, you know?” he said.

I smiled as if I understood every thought pulsing through his synapses.

That’s when we heard the boom.

There was no earthquake, or the immediate collapsing of buildings. Just the resonance of a sound that came from a place no one could ever imagine was anyplace close to them. What a gigantic death knoll would sound like, if you believed in such things.

The rocket probe returned. Further analysis was needed. The news apps grew quiet. So-called experts hit the internet: a comet was coming to wipe out mankind. The zealots and scaremongers hit the streets: the apocalypse was coming to wipe us all free from sin. My CEO left the country. My parents forced me to move back home. I sat in my old bedroom and gave my childhood teddy a good hard look, waiting for his response. If this is really the end of the world, then tell Kyle how you feel, his button-eyes insisted.
 
The hot chocolate tasted awful, but that was probably because we were both distracted by the barrage of reports falling out of the radio.

Kyle turned it up and got lost in his smartphone, his fingers flying all over it as if he was playing a miniature piano with one hand. With the other, he hurriedly turned the radio’s dial.

He landed on the voice of a DJ who wasn’t playing any music. His lonely voice haunted the café. “It’s not yet official, but it looks like this is the beginning of the end, folks. We at NPC 85.3 have decided to take your final calls in the run up to the end.”

As Kyle walked towards my table, he tripped. His phone hit the floor and scattered into large, compacted pieces.

I offered him mine to use but he declined. “Probably best…not… not to check stuff anymore right now,” he said.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the café window and wished I’d put on more lipstick, to bring out my ebony skin a little more. I cursed myself for thinking such a pathetic thing, even though it was easier to think and feel bad about such rubbish.

“Jenny?” Kyle looked to me, his face set to serious. He’d turned the radio down.

My heart dropped into my gut and gurgled. Why didn't I tell him my real name?

“Do you think it’s true?”

Of course I didn’t. But I did. Like the part of me that knew my sitting there with Kyle would be the first and last. Somehow I’d known because it was so improbable and unexpected. It was as simple as that.

“Probably,” I said, finally.

The DJ’s voice crept towards us and stopped at the edge of our table. “Any type of call. Song requests. Your last thoughts or wishes, or regrets. Anything. We’ll stay on the air until it’s all over. Start calling in, now.”

Kyle downed his hot chocolate and looked forlornly at his broken phone. “I don’t think I can fix the coffee-making machine. It’s…it’s really busted up.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” I said.

He nodded to the thoughts vibrating through his wavering hands. He gave me one last, beautiful smile. He stood and turned the hanging sign on the door over to “open”.

“I’m gonna fork out and buy a better coffee machine,” he said into the glass.

I’ve arrived at Ol’s Café. It’s closed. The shutters are down. It’s all dark inside. Out of business. Nobody’s here.

He didn’t come to work. Why would he? He probably has a girlfriend and a family to spend time with in these final hours. I do too, and I would have made it back in time, right after I’d talked to him. About what? Anything. Nothing. Its funny – now, I have no idea what I’d have said if he’d been here.

I would have made it home. Sat with my folks as the world decayed overhead before seeping into the land as we know it and destroying that too. I won’t make it home to be with my parents. We’ve never been close, even at the end of the world.

No, I don’t know what I would have said to him.

I’m not sure what to do, now. I can feel the air tightening its grip. The sky has transformed into a deep, contemplative purple. It’s an odd, frightening, beautiful colour. Looking at it makes you feel as if what’s coming next could be the start of something amazing. That’s my last wish, I guess. To chat with Kyle one last time. That one time made me feel alive.