The song surfaced from under the din of revelers every now and then as they shouted “it’s the end of the world as we know it,” over and over again.
Tristan Silva De Cuno sighed. Eveyone had their own way to celebrate. In the skies above, they called it Poisonwood, the red, black planetoid, that hung in the sky, it was bigger every day now. For the last couple of weeks there were endless parties, they were even fornicating in the street. There was a lot of that, all under the gleam of a red black moon, that had the dogs howling, every bloody night a chorus of them went up in lupine choir of madness, of being troubled with the moon. They found entire schools of birds dead, flew themselves to death, maddened by the presence of two moons which people said messed with their navigation. Tristan wondered how that worked.
Outside, the nightclubs vomited drunk revelers out onto the street. Drugs sold well, the police did not give a single fuck anymore, strangely murders and the like declined. No one cared because of the rock in the sky making its way towards earth. Good God he thought, only six days left this morning. Yesterday they could still say the end was a week away, but now, came the inevitable counting down in days, and that was what got to people.
A sound next to him, where he stood on the roof startled him and his hand reached out to grip a metal rod. It was a woman, wearing a nurses uniform who stood there, on the staircase. She looked at him with big eyes.
The green and red neon shone on her face. The electric green and red neon sign was a snake from the club with the same name in the Saleacea Quarter below them in the streets.
There was terror in her eyes. They were beautiful, he thought, and he ran his hand over his bald head. It was like phantom limb syndrome.
For a moment they stood there and then he leaned back.
“You don’t want to jump,” she said. “The way you grabbed that rod there means that you’re not ready to go.”
“That was just instinct,” Tristan said.
“What are we without instinct,” she said. “Even the dogs are terrified, why should we not be.”
He leaned back. “You shouldn’t jump,” he said.
“I would prefer if you not look,” she said and he turned away.