Jacob probably wouldn’t have slapped the child if they hadn’t been standing at the edge of the world. But they were – like the billion or so humans left, they had watched as the cascade of events had finally pushed the ecosystem over the edge, and the food distribution network and all the other lovely benefits of globalization followed it. The politicians had pontificated the entire time, wrapping everyone in the same spell of helplessness they had for decades, right up until their staffers ate them. Jacob couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a stray dog.
He hadn’t bothered to learn the child’s name or that of the mother, the woman following behind, a sad shadow as they combed through the plastic debris along the shore, searching for anything that might be useful. And the child would. not. stop. crying. Didn’t he understand everyone was hungry now? Everyone was cold? Bitching about it wouldn’t change anything. The human race had rushed towards this inevitable moment seemingly with nothing that could change it.
His hand had left his side and connected to the child’s cheek before he realized what he had done, the cold stinging in his fingertips announcing the violence to his brain. He turned to the boy, anger burning his eyes as if it were the child’s fault. It jolted the mother out of the stupor she had been walking in, though, and she moved faster than anything he had seen, wrapping her arms around her babe in a manner that demonstrated how he had survived this long.
The fierceness in her eyes conversely cooled his own, mellowing it with the shameful recognition of what he had done. He realized, then, they weren’t standing at the edge of the world. They had arrived at the end.
See the author’s published work here.
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