What Comes After

July 7

The world is really closing in. And it hasn't even been a week since everything has changed. Is this what life is going to be like forever?

Mom said that I couldn't go to the community garden.

"Why not?" I asked.

"It's too dangerous out there," she said. "It's not good for your lungs—"

"I'll wear an air mask," I blurted out.

"I'm not going to let your lungs get destroyed," she said. "Go and spend some time with May or Mira."

"I'm already spending time with you guys. I have to live in this house all day, all night!"

"Figure out a way to get used to it," Mom said. "No one is leaving the house."

I feel like Mom and Dad just don't understand me. It's suffocating staying at home. With me sharing a bedroom with Mira and May to Grandpa and Grandma living in our house, it's like there's no privacy or any room for me to breathe. And I don't know, but I almost feel guilty about thinking about this because there are people who are facing a whole lot worse, and I'm here complaining that my house doesn't have any space.

The whole day was boring. Only Dad's phone has power. The rest of ours have slowly died over the past week. May's was first, then Mira's, Mom's, and finally mine last night. Without much sunlight, the solar panels rarely charge anything, and the solar paneled phone packet charger doesn't work anymore since the sunlight has been so scarce.

Grandma and Grandpa have been taking the lead for cooking ever since they've been here. Today, they made a type of sweet bun using beets. Normally, they're made with taro, but there was none, so we had to deal with purplish colored beets. The buns weren't bad, a little bitter and tough, and I wish we had taro. But it's hard to complain because I'm always hungry. I wish we had electricity and the internet and everything. Then I could order a pizza or something.

I've been thinking about the wish list a lot. I've got some ideas, but I don't know if they're possible. Writing a book is something that I've thought about, but that seems boring and impossible, especially during the summer. First kiss, losing my virginity, and those other love stuff feel too cliche, and I don't know if I'm all into those types of things. Breaking the law, but I've done it. Visiting foreign places, doing something daring and new, experiencing the world all feel like pipe dreams right now. I keep shooting down any idea that I come up with.

So I decided to ask Mira about it. "Do you have any dreams?"

"Do you mean daydream and nightmare stuff," she said. "Or dream dreams."

"Dream dreams," I said. "Like future stuff."

"I mean, yeah," she said. "Finding love, traveling the world, having a good time with life. That kind of stuff."

"But do you think you'll ever be able to accomplish them with everything that's been going on?" I asked.

"Probably," she said. "I could modify a couple of them to accomplish them, but yeah."

She continued. "What's all of this future dream stuff about anyways?"

"I, I was just—"

"Neal, don't lie to me," she said. "I'm your sister. You can talk to me."

I didn't know what to do. I don't really like to tell Mira stuff about my personal life, but if I lied again, more cracks would form between us. So I let her in a little. "It's just something Charles and I were talking about."

"Do you want to accomplish your dreams?"

"I'd like to," I said. "But I don't even know what I want. I feel like everything that I think of just feels ingenuine or impossible to achieve."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know what I want," I said. "I mean, how do you even know that this is what I want to try to accomplish."

"Listen to your heart."

"Literally don't understand that phrase."

"Like if you go into the future and look back onto yourself, what would you say to your previous self to do? To experience?"

"That just feels like regret."

"Regrets are dreams people realized too late."

And that line stuck with me. I don't know why, but it just did. What do I want right now? What do I want for my future? What do I want to do that I'll regret never doing when I'm sick and dying?

And the answer is still: I don't know.

July 8

I caught May doing something she shouldn't have, but I don't know if I should tell Mom or Dad or anyone. And the nightmare has come back.

The sky was ashy gray, a deep and dark one, as I splashed around shallow waters. I looked down and saw— not sand— but ash between my toes. The water was murky gray with a tinge of blue. It began to snow, small grey flecks drifting from the sky and touching the water.

I began to run, but the sea was endless. My legs felt like syrup. Every step that I took felt like a step backwards. The snow came down in flurries, whipping gales of gray. A person was calling out, but I couldn't hear anything. I looked backwards and there was a shadow of a volcano in the distance.

There was a boom, and a bright flash of fiery goldens and oranges lighting up the sky. Then there was this steady rumble that turned into a roar. I saw it coming, and I ran. But I felt like I was in quicksand and all that I could do was watch. The roar grew louder, and a wall of gray appeared on the horizon. It grew closer and closer until it hit me like a wall of bricks, and I woke up sweaty and shaking.

I went to the kitchen, and that's when I saw May. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said, but it was pretty clear that she was doing something. She was in front of the pantry.

"Don't lie," I said. "What are you actually doing though?"

"Fine," she said. "I'm hungry okay. I'm just grabbing a can of pears. It's not a big deal."

"We could die if we run out of food. That's why we're on rations, so we'll always have enough."

"Literally everything is going to be fine," she said. "Stop being so serious."

"Look outside," I said and pointed to the window. "The sky is filled with ash. Food won't be able to grow without sunlight and we'll start running out of food and begin to starve. Rationing is the only way to prevent that."

"The government will figure things out. It has to. There's other ways to grow food. They could make giant greenhouses."

"Without oil or gas, no machines run. We won't be able to build anything to feed the amount of people in this country," I said. "I'm telling Mom and Dad about this."

"Then I'll tell them about the time that you skipped piano practice for two months during the summer."

"I'll tell them about the time that you got an F on your geometry quiz."

"I'll tell them about the time that you—"

"Fine," I said. "Congratulations. You win. No more mutual blackmailing."

"Great," she said. "So can I go now?"

"Just think about what I said, please."

"Neal, stop worrying so much. Everything will go back to normal. The government has to make it work."

May grabbed a bag of chips lying in the pantry and opened it. "You want some?"

"No," I said. "I'm going back to sleep."

I went back to sleep. The sky was very dark, and it was easy to pretend that it was nighttime. I was pretty tired in the morning, and I hoped that the nightmare wouldn't come back. It didn't, and I woke up sometime in the middle of the afternoon for lunch.

The air smelled good like actual food. I went out of my room and heard the sizzling of a pan. After a month or so of eating canned food straight from the can, someone was cooking actual food.

"Good morning sleeping beauty," Dad said.

"What are you guys making?"

"Omelet," he said. "Your Mom found some dried egg whites in the pantry. They're going to be a bit white, but hopefully they'll taste alright."

"Why are you guys making this?" I asked. "Did someone die or something?"

Dad chuckled. "Nothing happened. Just good for morale."

"Okay," I said. "Then, what do you want from me?"

"Nothing," Dad said. "Just eat up and enjoy."

"Okay," I said and then ate the omelet. It tasted a bit strange, but that's probably because of the color. The stark whiteness of the omelet was unnerving. I was going to go back to my room, but then Dad told me to call Mira and May to the dining table.

"Why?" I asked.

"Just do it," he said.

So I called Mira and May to the dining table, and we sat there awkwardly for a good moment while Dad rummaged through some old closet. He pulled out a skinny box. "We're playing Monopoly!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Family bonding activity."

"I'm out of here," May said.

"May," he said. "Sit down at the table."

"Family bonding activity. More like dictator mandated torture," she said. "We can't even play Monopoly. It takes too long to finish."

"Are there any other board games?" I asked.

"I'll go check," Mira said. "There might be some in our room."

Dad looked into the closet. "Scrabble?" he asked.

"I literally don't want to play word games in summer," May said.

"Stop complaining May," he said. "I don't like this attitude."

"I think the biggest issue is that it needs so much manual counting because there isn't a computer to just add everything up," I said, trying to stem the argument.

"Fine," Dad said. "We'll play something else."

He rummaged through the closet for a couple more minutes and muttered underneath his breath about all the random stuff that was just lying around. Mira came back with Sorry! When we opened up the box, there were only four colors of pieces. Dad didn't want to play the board game because he wanted Mom to play too, but Mira, May, and I outvoted him. Mom said that she didn't mind and joined her parents in the guest bedroom.

We laid out the pieces. "I'm going first," May said.

No one objected, so we let her draw the first card. It was a one, so she moved her piece out of the starting location. She drew a couple more ones and twos after while Dad and Mira only drew one of them. I had the worst luck. None of my cards were one or two.

"I give up," I said. "This is hopeless."

"Ha, ha," May said. "Take an 'L'"

"Someday, something good will happen to you," Mira said.

"I thought we chose this game because it wouldn't take us days to finish," I replied.

"Whatever you get on your next card will bring you out of jail," Dad said. "Free pass."

I managed to get a twelve. "If you win this game," May said. "Remember that you cheated your way to a victory."

"It was allowed cheating," I said. "Equity for the unfortunate."

We drew cards and moved pieces around. I managed to knock some of Mira's pieces to the start, but it didn't matter. May had such a great head start that she managed to get all of her pieces into the end and won pretty easily. "I won," she crowed.

"We need a rematch," I said. "But without the rigged deck. I'm shuffling this time."

"Should we continue," Dad said. "Or start a new game."

"New one," Mira said. "I'm not going to even get close to winning since someone kept knocking all of my pieces out."

"Sorry," I said. "Ha. Ha. You get the pun."

"Shame," May said. "Never say that again."

Just as Dad was moving the pieces back, there was a knock on the door. Dad went to answer it, and he and another man spoke for a minute or so before Dad said that he had to go to a community meeting. Apparently, it was very important. Mira and I cleaned up the table and then we went and did other stuff— mostly laying around and doing nothing since there was absolutely nothing to do.

Dad came back late, sometime around eight. Mira and May were asleep, but I was still awake even though it was dead silent outside— no crickets, no cars, nothing. I wanted a glass of water and grabbed a cup and started walking towards the kitchen when I heard Mom and Dad talking.

"—cutting off natural gas," Dad said.

"They can't do that to us," Mom said. "There's no way anyone would allow this."

"The council just doesn't have enough money to maintain the pipelines and the state is running out of power to keep the factories on."

"What about the water purification plants," Mom said. "Or sewage."

"There are rumors that they're all closing in October," Dad said. "They're still finalizing the dates, but that's it."

"How are we going to survive?" Mom asked. "It's getting colder every day. How are we going to keep ourselves warm? How are we even going to not starve? If the water plants are shutting down, they might stop the food deliveries. We don't have an infinite amount of food, and we can't grow any more."

"We'll figure it out. We can cut down trees and I'm sure the fireplace will work. There's a river nearby and if we run out of food, I'm sure we will be able to figure it out," Dad replied. "We will be able to."

"What if this is too much?" Mom said. "What if—"

"Don't say that," Dad said. "We have to keep hope."

I began walking down the hallway loudly. It felt too strange to listen to their conversation. I felt like I was eavesdropping on a private, intimate conversation. "What are you doing up so late?" Dad asked.

"Getting water," I said. "It's not even that late. It's eight-nine o'clock right now."

Mom and Dad stared at me strangely as I filled up my water glass. I think that they know I heard their conversation. I drank some water and went into my room. Everything seems to be getting worse every day. Hopefully the ash is gone tomorrow.