VFW Hall

It’s not the end of the world. Not yet. Fallout drifts like dead leaves, settling on roofs in the housing plan where the old mines have slept for years.

The firestorms and shockwaves came and went, leaving survivors who don’t know what they’re surviving for. The houses, proud once, lean now, cinderblock corners giving way like a boxer after the last hit, crumbling slow but sure.

It’s not the end.

Not cancer, either. Though the kids in these houses cough at night, and their parents don’t talk about it, the mortgage bills keep arriving, outliving some of the people who signed them.

No, it’s my father in the fire hall, where the air is hot, dry, brimming with talk. Neighbors huddle like sheep in a too-small pen. He sits in the corner, a map spread before him. His street is there, bold and thick-lined. Too bold. Too thick. It looks to him like a river cutting through the mess.

On the closed-circuit screen, the news runs endless loops. Atomic winter and fire, more things broken than anyone can count. I watch him when he leaves to walk the hallway at home. He tilts subtly at first, his body leaning like a roof beginning to sag. He measures the slope with his steps but doesn’t say what he knows.

It’s not the end of the world. But it feels like it could be.