What Comes After

August 24

The sky is getting lighter.

But the winds were really rough in the forests. Even with all the cushioning from the dying trees, we could still feel the sting of the winter winds on our cheeks. When I looked up at the sky while I was picking up sticks, I could see slight movements of clouds in the sky, breaking the monotony of the normally unmoving gray. Maybe that clear sky day (or hopefully week) will finally come.

I think the brighter skies filled everyone with a little more life. I felt giddy almost, like the last week of middle school, where no one did any work since we were all just waiting for summer break. Mom and Dad managed to chop down all two trees and bring the small logs of wood back without dying from exhaustion, though Dad let out a couple of loud, almost heaving, coughs that reverberated through the woods.

After we got back, Mom, Dad, and May began testing out the greenhouse system. They moved the whole set-up closer to our house's heating vents, so that instead of using the heater machines and wasting batteries, they could essentially kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Hopefully natural gas doesn't run out any time soon, not just for our sakes but also for the plants' and Charles' sakes.

In the meantime, May and I had to set up the phone charging stations with the solar chargers.

"How are we going to make this as efficient as possible?" I asked.

"Maybe we should move them around?" she suggested. "You know because the sun rises from the west and sets in the east."

"I think it's the opposite."

"Who cares?" she said.

"I mean, if you're trapped in the woods all alone without a compass and—"

"Okay, get it," she said. "Sunrise east. Sunset west. Now move on."

So we set up two phone charging stations, one on the east side of the house and one on the west side, right in front of the windows. May opened the curtains wide open, letting the even brighter sunlight wash into our kitchen counter, before Mom shut them close.

"What are you doing?" May asked. "I was trying to charge the panels."

"It's unsafe letting people know we've got access to power," she said.

"It's a couple of phone solar panels. It's not like anyone cares."

"I don't think we want to know if someone cares," Mom said and May nodded. Normally, she'd come up with a snarky retort or a disgusted groan or some reaction, but ever since that plaza incident and maybe even before that, she's lost some of that spark. It's like she's afraid of dying or something.

So we closed the translucent level of the curtain but left the opaque one alone. There was a slight reduction of light, but for the most part, I think there was enough light making it onto the panels for them to work decently. "Maybe we should try using the aluminum foil strategy for these too."

"Maybe," she said. "Anything to keep ourselves alive."

And we spent most of the afternoon just taping aluminum foil to the old cereal box cardboard, hoping that it'll work. "I thought that guns and weapons would be our saving graces during the apocalypse, but who knew that scissors and tape would be the real heroes?"

"I think everyone that doesn't watch movies would know that," I said. "Now that you're in the apocalypse, would you rather have those fancy yoga pants that you can't even wear anymore because the ash will ruin it or those trusty pairs of scissors."

"Pants, obviously," she said. "You can steal a pair of scissors from any other house, but it'll take too many houses to find another pair of these pants."

She continued. "Also, speaking of stealing from houses, did you notice the broken-in windows of the houses around us?"

"When'd you notice?"

"I saw a couple of them back when we were running away from the plaza after the whole incident," she replied. "Those people are smart, you know, taking while the houses are still available."

"I mean it's dangerous too," I said. "Especially with the whole neighborhood watch program starting. Not to mention the glass cutting people and the whole issue if the house isn't actually deserted."

"A little glass hasn't hurt anyone," she said. "And it's super obvious to see whether someone actually is living in the house or not."

She said in a lower whisper. "Maybe you and I should try doing that sometime, you know, like what we did with the Hunters."

"No way," I said. "I can't handle another one of your plans and all the lying and the close calls, where I have to do everything."

"Just suck it up," she said. "Better than being dead."

"We're not going to die."

"Whatever you say to make yourself feel better," she replied and went back to taping aluminum foil to cardboard. "Someday you're going to regret not doing this."

"Well that someday is not going to happen."

By the time that we had finished taping the aluminum foil to the cardboard pieces and tried setting them up to best reflect light, the sun was already setting, and everyone was hungry. When I went to check up on how Mom and Mira worked on the greenhouse, Mira asked, "So how is it?"

"It looks great," I said, and it really did. They'd changed up the design a bit, where instead of having the clear, plastic sheet draping on the sides, they decided to fully utilize the plastic sheeting by solely making the top plastic and instead of clear, plastic sides, they had aluminum foil walls built from plastic box covers and Styrofoam with taped foil on them. By the time they were done, they'd already finished one roll of aluminum foil, with only one more left, but their design was already as large as a table tennis table.

"We should've bought more aluminum foil," Mom said. "Who knew how useful it would be?"

"Arts and crafts save the day once again," Mira said while gazing upon their greenhouse. "It's beautiful."

"We should take a picture," Mom said. "Of all five of us. Neal, are the phones charged?"

"I think so," I said as my phone booted up, the loading bar slowly becoming full in the dark waiting screen. Then my bright ocean froth home screen came on, with the phone battery at 5%, just barely alive.

Even though the battery was low, and we needed to use the phone fast before it died, all of us were frozen, mesmerized by the phone as we stared at it. It's so odd that something that we used to take for granted now feels so foreign, the bright turquoise of the home screen felt like it was from another planet.

"Let's just get the photo over with," May said. "Hurry up."

Mom called Dad over, and as Dad set up my phone for a timer, he asked, "So what's the occasion?"

"Greenhouse Day," May said. "Or celebrating how we've survived till day whatever-it-is of the apocalypse."

"I like Greenhouse Day better," Mira replied.

"Let's call it our first day where we're building back life and taking it from the Moon in the sky," Mom said.

'Which movie did that come from?" May asked.

'Why?"

"That was too cheesy to be original."

Mom put her hands to her waists. "Well then I guess I am a cheesy person."

"All right," Dad said and put the phone on a bookshelf before running back towards us. "Everyone say cheese."

The camera flashed and I turned to Dad. "That was an awful pun."

"Who cares?" he said and shrugged. "I liked it."

Dinner was noodle soup, with an emphasis on the soup part since we only had about a handful and a half of noodles in everyone's bowl. Mom made us eat everything, including the soup because of "li li jie xin ku," which basically means that with every grain of rice, there was a lot of work put into making it, so you better finish all your food. And even though my stomach was grumbling at the end of the meal since I wasn't filled, it was nice to have something warm to eat, especially because we had spent half the day freezing outside.

At the end of the meal, Dad said, "So what's everyone grateful for?"

May groaned. "Not this again. And you literally gave us the gratitude curse because we literally almost died in the plaza."

"But we didn't," Dad said. "Maybe our gratitude staved off this darkness."

"Staved off this darkness," May replied. "What century are we in?"

Dad ignored May and turned to the rest of us before pointing his arm towards me. "So Neal, do you want to start us off? And please don't say family like last time unless you want to highlight a certain family member."

He pointed at himself, and I stifled a groan before ignoring him. "Well, I'm grateful for the wind because maybe we'll see the sun again."

Mom added on to me. "Well, I'm grateful for the Sun then. Hopefully there will be sunnier days in the future."

"Gross, Mom," May replied and fake vomited, and Mira and I nodded along with her. "You're really on a cringe-roll."

"Well, do you have anything better?" Mom asked.

"Yeah," May said before turning to the rest of us. "I'm grateful for that stash of tequila in the pantry. Being drunk during the apocalypse sure beats being sober."

No one said anything for a couple of seconds.

"That was a joke, right?" Dad said.

"Obviously," May replied before adding. "I was just trying to tone down the cheesiness. What I am actually grateful for is being alive."

"Wasn't that the same as last week?"

"No," she said. "Last week, I was grateful that I was not dead. This week I'm grateful that I am still breathing. Big difference."

"Okay," Dad said and nodded aimlessly before clearing his throat. "Well, I'm grateful that we've got a greenhouse, even though it's more like a green-box. Hopefully we'll be getting fresh vegetables soon."

"And I'm grateful for tape," Mira said. "Without it, I don't even know how this would even be possible."

"Can I get a toast for tape?" Dad asked and raised his glass of water.

Mira and Mom both raised theirs up with Mom even giving a loud whoop while May buried her face in her knees out of second-hand embarrassment. Everyone but May clinked their glasses together and said, "Cheers."

Before I went to sleep, I gazed at the greenhouse (or as Dad put it "greenbox") that we had built. Even though it's a mishmash of Styrofoam and plastic and reflective metal, there's something beautiful about it, the way that it will be an incubator for life in this world surrounded by death that seeps through every crack in our house. Even with the windows closed, I could smell the lingering scent of the briny ocean and carcasses of kelp and people laying in the sun. Just before I went to sleep, I closed the opaque curtains to make sure that no one would be taking this life away from us.