Pink Champagne at The World’s End
Jenny Gaitskell
Only two hours to go before Asteroid, and Cass is on my doorstep wearing a party frock and her eureka grin. I thought of you, she says. Come with me, up to the Head. It’s gonna be magical!
Not magic but astronomy, and the end of life as we know it. That’s why I’m in pyjamas, about to enjoy a last meal. All these reckless foods I love which don’t love me. Cass says, yes, bring the cheese! Hurry up, we’ll have a million shooting stars to wish on.
There’s a million to one chance that Asteroid will air burst, give or take a couple of zeros. I hate to tell her the likelihood is cataclysmic impact. But we’re gonna be lucky, Cass says, as though we might yet save the world by believing so. Like those moments, years ago and near dawn, in which she almost convinced me that anything is possible. It wasn’t, but I still feel more worthwhile in her company. Ah well, I shall go out to meet my fate in pyjamas. You rock that look, she says.
The promenade is busier than I’d imagined. Prayers and deck chairs, surfers, and long lenses. Out on the bay, there are small boats with bunting. I suppose it’s not every day they’ll meet a tsunami one mile high. That ain’t gonna happen, Cass says. For now, the sea’s a sky-mirror all the colours of a postcard sunset, and on the bandstand they’re playing a brassy Somewhere Beyond the Sea.
We join hedonists and pilgrims climbing the steep green hill to The Head. Cass follows the cliff edge, talks of blushing chalk and the face she can see on the overhang, of sleeping giants and secret smiles. I kick through the safety of long grass, plucking petals from a daisy. At the brow, there’s an old red double-decker bus become a pub. The destination sign reads THE WORLD’S END, for which there is a queue. From its open doors drift bubbles and a reggae version of We’ll Meet Again.
Life is beautiful, Cass says, as it often is for her, and will be for another sixty minutes, assuming I don’t spoil them. She hasn’t noticed the birds are absent. Not one swaggering crow. Trust corvids to foresee catastrophe, though these dancers and dreamers don’t seem to. Jugglers go on juggling, and The World’s End has a bar tariff for heaven’s sake. I might as well splash out on pink champagne, haven’t long enough to get a headache. After Asteroid hits, and before the tidal wave, the shock and heat waves will probably kill us, or the rain of blasted earth. Cool jammies, says the barman.
Cass is beyond the safety signs, sitting on the overhang’s chalky brink, dangling bare feet over the sea. She tells me vertigo feels just like falling in love. I could sit beside her, be a lastminute daredevil, but my gut insists not. Here I shall remain, a standard arm’s length from danger, until it rushes me. Cass doesn’t mind. We drink fizz from the bottle, like raspberry lemonade, passed back and forth with memories. How we used to stay up all night inventing fairytale futures. Her adventures, misadventures. All the things I could have been, many ways I did not save the world. It’s gonna come true when you truly believe in it, she says. Let’s talk about tomorrow. What are you going to wish for?
It’s the last of twilight, there’s a breeze scented coconut by gorse blooms, and a blank where there ought to be constellations. I can’t stop Asteroid, so I wish I could stop time. I wish we could talk nonsense and gaze at deep blue nothing and stay here forever. She raises the bottle in toast, to sweet nothings, she says, to forever. The World’s End is playing a reggae My Way, and I sing along, mashing up the lyrics. We get the giggles, at ourselves and for each other. The first sparks of Asteroid arc over.
Told you, she says. The sky becomes a chrysanthemum. It’s the million-to-one air burst. No impact, blasts nor cataclysm. It’s her shower of sparkly blessings. It is astronomically magical, and vice versa. I have been afraid when I might have believed, given up before I began. I should make a wish that I will keep, make one shooting star my own.
A scatter of space rocks hits the sea hissing. Cass laughs, they’re so tiny! What they are is hot metal at high velocity. I doubt we’re safe here at the edge, on the overhang, high up on The Head, under this impossible sky. There’s nothing to be afraid of, she says, there never was. She is brilliant with wonder, and again I’m unconvinced. The World’s End too has started its engines, both heard and felt. I’m gonna stay a moment, she says, until the show’s over, but I’m already stumbling backwards, as one less tiny space rock screams above, and another sets long grasses alight. The bus is reversing, and fellow cowards stampede from The Head.
If I were everything Cass believes me to be, I would save her. Instead, I’m croaking her name, crow-like. She turns, raising her bottle to fiery skies, whooping joy. For a moment, she’s miraculous, she’s the wish I must make with eyes squeezed tight. The earth itself trembles, the sound of thunderous applause.
Cass and her cliff edge are gone. Where she and hope ought to be, there is a terrifying nothing.
Jenny Gaitskell lives in Sussex, UK. She loves foxed mirrors, shingle beaches, and writing speculative fiction. Her work can be found in Beyond Words Literary Magazine, NonBinary Review, Every Day Fiction and several anthologies. Jenny posts tiny stories on Bluesky and blogs at jennygaitskell.com.
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