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When the end of the world came it was beautiful.
Martin has watched enough TV that he assumed he would need to be prepared for zombies. For lakes drying up, for glaciers to melt, for birds falling out of the sky.
When the end of the world started it was pretty. It smelled nice. The soundtrack for the end of the world was more insects, more birds, the almost audible stretch of the plants growing around you.
It started small. Summer didn’t end, and it was also always spring. Plants producing flowers, over and over again. Each bloom is bigger, and smells sweeter, and attracts more bees. After the third bloom the stems were wheezing, bent over with the weight of the pollen and petals.
People planted little bushes around them though to prop them up. Stuck in spare stakes and sticks. Since there were stakes in the ground, and the sun was shining, they also planted tomatoes. That first not winter everyone talked about the tomatoes.
The honey was amazing. Queens swarming and claiming new boxes and holes in trees. It was uncomfortable playing football, and the games were moved to a later start time. The days felt longer. Some of the flowers started to smell different. Like Jaffa cakes or popcorn. Raspberry canes prickled into fruit that was darker and richer, and exploded into fizz in your mouth.
Things moved. In November the Elgin Marbles were found at the base of the Parthenon. Three factories in China turned into piles of sand. Attendance at church crept up. Attendance at church slid down.
Animals adapted quickly, first insects got bigger. David Attenborough died of natural causes, and the last pictures of him in his bed were smiling at lady bugs as big as his finger nail. Some of them were reversed. Orange spots on black wings on one side, black spots with orange wings on the other.
At the end of the first year people started to vanish. Martin woke up the first year, after beating Luton three nil, and Putin was gone. There was no body, no trail, no evidence. An empty bed and the first notable vanishing.
Many suspects. No one took credit. One by one his generals followed. All of the house of Saud vanished in twos.
Helene had another clothing line, in colours other than black this time. Martin liked her in everything. He loved the silver.
He preferred to get the clothes off her though. Hoping the door was locked when he knelt in front of the chair she was taking her shoes off on, pulling her legs over his shoulders to go down on her. The silver tassels tangled around his hands when he grabbed her hips. Sliding his tongue against her clit while she grabbed his hair and bit the side of her hand to not make too much noise.
Then Trump vanished. So did Lauren Boebert. Martin woke up and the FA had deducted five points from Everton and fifteen from Man City for financial fair play. In the fallout no one talked for a few days about Mason Greenwood being gone.
Not erased, not dropped from the squad. Gone. His picture was still on the Man U website. Harriet said he had taken to sleeping at friend's places because the baby kept him up.
He was supposed to take them to a doctor's appointment. But he didn’t show up. He never showed up. She had an alibi, was on Instagram live and then a phone call with an agent in Australia. Some people blamed her, plenty of people blamed her. Flocking to TikTok when Twitter stopped working. Elon Musk gave increasingly unhinged reasons why until he went silent. But it just wouldn’t work.
Mason’s phone, his training bag, the last Instagram post he liked, were poured over. He wasn’t the last football player. He wasn't even the last Manchester player. The vanishings came faster. Neighbours. TV stars. Politician after politician. People took to mentioning the cause of death in obituaries. There were rumours of coffins buried empty. Funerals for show.
Barrio-18, and the Mongrel Mob, and MS-13 vanish. Harriet goes on TV and says quite plantitively; “I miss Mason, does that make me a bad person?” The Comanchero’s all vanish on the same day. Motorcycles still running, meth half measured on scales in warehouses.
In year two people take to having a siesta. It’s not just that it feels hotter in the middle of the day, but the days are so long now. The samey blue sky with its infrequent clouds. Wildfires burn, but then appear to naturally stop. Large dusty ashy areas remain behind. They don’t seem right. The trees aren’t black from being burned. The birds fly around them. They don’t exactly have a daytime in them, but it never gets dark. Green seedlings don’t emerge from the ash.
Driving home from the airport past one with Helene, Martin feels them along the side of his car, bracketing the highway. A pale pearly grey glow. He tells her they worry him but that makes Helene furious. They pick fights all the way from the airport home. The route he’s taking, the speed he’s going at, other people’s driving.
Helene apologises when they get home in a flood of tears, unsure if it’s the flight, or coming second place this season, or the rumours sliding around. Martin pulls her into his arms. He doesn’t tell her yet about the generator he brought, or the solar panels. He doesn’t tell her there are books about preserving food and sewing clothes. Knitting needles and wool. He holds his tongue for now about butchers knives and gardening tools and all the empty bottles and jars.
Jeff Bezos vanishes the first day of the season. The deal for Newcastle goes ahead. Blueberries run through hedgerows. The dormouse numbers increase. Hedgehogs turn roly-poly from all the eggs.
Milly gets a contract with an organic make up range, Ben is her patient photographer. There is a make-up palate called “bedroom eyes”.
“Do I need sex hair for this?” Milly asks.
“What’s sex hair?” Ben replies, distracted, picking through the moisturiser.
“The hair you have after you have sex.” Milly says. There is a tone.
Ben holds in a laugh when his brain catches up. He grins at how put out she looks. “I did say I’d give you any help you needed.” They make it to the bed, not always a guarantee. Ben grabs the condoms, but pauses for a moment, not the time to mention, but soon.
After the first round of the FA Cup the glaciers start to melt. The land isn’t flooded. The oceans expand vertically. There is a freshwater ocean floating on top of the ocean. Ben misses the beach. Walking up to the shimmery tower of water, ancient plankton suspended and swirling. The sea underneath with its summery promise to cool down.
You can’t properly swim in it. Maybe paddle in the shallows that have doubled in height. No waves to surf on even as the swells gather and crest under the freshwater sea on top of the ocean.
The temperatures are different. The freshwater doesn’t have a tide or a current. Like being caught between two directions. Two elemental tugs. Some of the birds adapt to freshwater fish, the albatross numbers drop and drop. The gannets are fine but the ospreys keep getting caught between the oceans, diving too deep, unable to surface.
The fish stocks recover slowly. Lobsters clacking their claws in triumph. Portuguese man- of war drift across the surface of the old ocean, trailing acres long clouds of tentacles.
Is it a loss, people can’t decide. You can get freshwater fish, there are cockles in the Thames. Sometimes whales beach themselves, finally forcing themselves through the ocean on top of the ocean. The moon seems to have stopped moving as much, always resting, half waxing, in the sky.
People visiting their former holiday haunts, just to get their feet in the sand, and grey mounds laying in the sun, pecked by birds. By little creatures that skitter across the sand. A giant squid washes up off the coast of Sydney.
Fishing boats floating high above the docks, falling into rust. Dolphins break through both, but stay closer to shore where it’s thinner. There are less shells, less sea glass, less seaweed. Starfish bask in the rock pools, the seagulls having an extra barrier getting through with the freshwater ocean resting glassily on top.
Every away game Martin and Ben sleep together. There is no pretence anymore. Martin tells the back room staff not to bother booking another room.
Often they just sleep. Some nights, in the faded dark denim that passes for evening, they’ll lay on the bed, just kissing for hours. Ben rolling Martin under him, his hands holding him in place. Moving against each other so gently that the orgasam is a surprise. A gift.
Other times it’s like they can’t get deep enough into each others skin. Martin clawing at Ben’s shoulders, Ben fucking Martin until they are both seeing the stars that are staring to wink out of the sky.
Three of Indonesia's islands are grey. There is no fire. They just grey out.
There were whispers. Organ harvesting? But who would want Trump’s liver? Aliens. The elite have fled. Except the not-elite have vanished as well. To be slaves? To be meals? The covid vaccine. Nuclear power stations stop working and turn grey. Other stations still work, but no one can mine coal and they have no way of getting it around the world now.
Prince Andrew went horse riding and only the horse came back. Prisons didn’t empty, but they began to thin out.
Thomas Partey doesn’t turn up to training on Wednesday. His car was pulled over on the side of the road, the indicator on. That’s what the teens who took it for a joy ride and crashed it into a ditch say anyway. The police force don’t really have time to investigate. Their ranks are down fifteen percent.
Some people are just waiting around, marking time until the world finally ends. Following the rhythms of before turning up to work, making coffee, teaching kids, solving crime.
There are still gatherings of people determined to meet the end of the world fighting. Raving at the sky, at the enduring light, the Houses of Parliament. Shouting how they always knew, kneeling, waiting. They keep waiting. The end of the world unfurling at its own pace.
Some people vanish and their families insist they don’t know why. They have memorials and they are asked what happened? What did they do to deserve it? Families take to more open casket funerals to prove they have nothing to hide. The cemeteries are filled with climbing vines. But the crabapples are too watery and the pumpkins underdeveloped.
Horse races are banned when the horses won’t stop running, flying around the tracks until their hearts give out. Greyhounds leaping over the fences and ripping their muzzles off. Grooves along their faces, spotty trails of blood marking their run. Straight ahead into the imagined sunsets, never turning into a curve. No circuits home.
Ben’s dad wonders about making a reverse greenhouse, something to slow the ripening down, to mimic frost. His hands are gentle, tending the wildly expanding plants. Like an ice house, a cool store.
A constant soft layer of sweat melting off her make up and moisturiser whenever Milly goes out.
He tries to explain the order of growing things to Martin but gets him to organise the compost instead. He can best be trusted to get the layers right. Milly keeps getting told off for putting dairy in.
Ben’s father will look and almost ask. Martin placid with Milly resting her head on his shoulder, planning a party or scrolling through the news. Reporting the missing in a soft, sometimes disinterested sometimes gleeful, voice. Sometimes lost. Saying flatly that a show is cancelled. A trip postponed. Ben’s father will catch Ben’s eye, Ben shakes his head.
Helene, a willing accomplice, rolling her eyes at Martin’s worry. Sure the news is exaggerating, playing it up for views with its ever changing cast of news readers.
There is nightly smell of grilling and barbecue along the street. There are plenty of trees but you have to forage for the older wood, everything exploding in new growth and buds.
Martin works out the basics of fermenting, no one sees the point of jam when the trees won’t stop fruiting. Certain kinds of cheese are harder to get, the dryer air not right. The humidity uncertain.
Plastic starts to fail and melt and no one can seem to make it anymore. Some places have oily greasy flowers that spring up. People take to planting sunflowers and peas around them hoping eventually they will break down. Some do.
But more areas go grey. Most people move out because it doesn’t seem a good idea to linger. There are other houses and places to move into now. The government organises house swaps. Those who are displaced from the grey areas into homes no longer needed by the vanished. You may get like for like as far as bedrooms. But you can also find yourself the owner of a cat or two.
A kid or two. Some of the houses seem haunted. No one complains if you move next door instead and they are carefully emptied, kept for parts. There is no reason not to live there. Except the unease. Ghosts maybe. The feeling someone is around the corner. Some are burned.
There is a tiny grey area that develops next to the park at the end of the road by Martin’s house. Helene won’t even look at it on the way past. Travel is more uncertain. There is less tv.
Politics has plenty of the vanished, entertainment even more. Milly keeps a record. Continues checking the reports with who hasn’t been seen for a while, who doesn’t respond to messages. She shares stories back and forth about what might have happened, what people suspect.
Natural boundaries develop around the grey. You can still walk though many of them in the second year, if you don’t mind feeling sad or unsettled. The plants there are stunted, failing if not already grey. Lots of snakes and things that scramble away. Eventually the nosies fade. The animals vanish. The houses begin to crumble, flaky dust that only falls down, the gentle breezes of the end of the world swoop around, but not through them.
Eventually don’t get bigger, but they don’t go away either. Some people try to continue planting in them. Try to reclaim. Eventually the people turn grey as well. Eventually they vanish.
Quietly Martin looks into wind turbines. He learns how to fish and how to work a gun. Bears are seen in Poland. And Wolves in Spain. The prey animals have plenty to eat. It’s been an amazing time for rabbits and salmon. Forest fires still erupt but less frequently, houses aren’t rebuilt.
People still walk the walking trails. You can get lost there, not vanished, just misplaced, from falls, taking a wrong turn. There are still car accidents even with less travel, drownings. The beginning of the end of the world doesn’t solve cancer.
Football continues. The price of tickets goes down, it’s harder to commute, so locals fill the stands. Boris Johnson and Carrie vanish on a Monday. Piers Morgan posts a daily Instagram brag about his continuing existence until he does not.
The oil dries up. People take more electric buses. They walk more. Things have to be made closer to home with infrequent cargo ships. Nothing is wrong with buildings, but everyone is now sure the world is ending, and people are nervous about being indoors. What if the earth starts to crack apart? No one wants to be stuck in a rickety building when the lava bubbles up and consumes them all.
Milly goes out a lot. Weekends with Helene or Ben. Week nights with other friends. Some friends vanish. Her lips squeeze tight. Sometimes you know exactly why. Sometimes you have been expecting people to vanish all along. She collects the stories about the end of the world and how it will properly start.
She lists them off at dinner sometimes, Ben sitting next to her running his thumb over the heart of her thumb. If the moon will crash into the earth. If the volcanoes will erupt. If an earthquake will rip the land apart. If the ocean over the ocean will spill onto the land and sweep everything, even the grey areas, away.
How long it will take, the last bodies that will be consumed. If it will hurt.
Clubs move outdoors. Under black shade sails. They have live bands in case the dj’s turntables fail. Every night you can dance like you won’t be able to tomorrow. The lights usually work. Cafe’s have more patio seating.
Milly and Ben are both criticised for shopping, wearing makeup, going on vacation. Helene competes on Dancing With The Stars and they perform in an open atrium. There are live orchestras for the final rounds. She doesn’t win. The judging panel is changed, the disappeared thinning their ranks.
Much of Florida turns grey. There is a trail out. Panthers, boa constrictors, people, turkeys. The birds still try to migrate but eventually that slows as well. Flocks nest year round. Many Floridians insist they won’t move out, won’t leave their homes. Eventually they probably turn grey as well. No one can report if it's like the houses, if they start to crumble, if they don’t realise until it’s too late, and they can’t escape.
People miss Disney. Youtubers try to visit, buts it’s too far into the interior and they can’t stay long before the greying starts. Their grey can be warmed away from people, there is chance. But there are a few cases of recovering. With very good planning, maybe. Why risk for clicks, for clout, for views. There is less competition at the end of the world.
Martin begs Ben not to leave, he keeps waking up in the middle of the night grasping him. The second a game finishes he grabs Ben, kissing him over and over.
Ben finally asks, “What have I done that makes you think I will vanish?” Martin doesn’t know how to tell him that he thinks HE will vanish, for wanting too much, for not taking care of enough people, for not being ready.
He thinks of his mother on the phone, her incredulous voice and her incredible hurt. “You’re picking football over us? Your family? Your home?” Martin not tagging along with the steady trail of Europeans going home.
He can’t tell her yet, that he is picking his family. He’s picking Ben. And he hopes that doesn’t make him a monster. He hopes it means he won’t be left alone with his books and fishing rods and gun. Even from a distance he wants to know that Ben is okay. That Milly is with him.
People insist on moving back into their old houses, into their old streets, even as they could sit in a garden exploding with strawberries. They explain, with increasing passion and volume, that there is a principle to the thing. Why should they accept some things will be grey does it mean other things are bright? There’s no proof. And they paid for that land. They own it.
Martin came over the night there was a going home dinner for Ben and Milly’s neighbour. They’ve always had an awkward relationship. Martin there to make conversation if things turn frosty.
They didn’t like the press that followed Ben and Milly, but they did like that Milly and Ben didn’t care about their weekend parties, the cars parked over the street and music that played into the garden.
Martin eats crackers so he doesn’t say anything as the wife, Eleanor, explains they need to ensure the country house is okay. “You hear stories.” She says, nodding quickly. “People picking through your things.”
“Looters!” Richard interjects. Their sons shyly ask Martin and Ben to play football. Milly waves off Ben checking if she minds and motions Richard to go on. He’s pleased to. Milly eats the giant strawberries that Eleanor has dipped in sugar.
They have a little fountain with a cherub pouring water over its hip. The water is sparking in the sunshine. It's creating a misty rainbow that has eleven colours. A pond where the goldfish got so big they were banging into each other.
“Priceless my dear. Family heirlooms.” Richard leers at Milly while Elenor drinks wine and arranges her bracelets. Milly leans forward focused on Richard. He preens. “Have you spoken with anyone in the area?”
“Well the phone lines are poor.” Elenor sounds briefly uncertain. “The twins will stay with my sister until we’ve opened the house up.”
Milly nods again and drops strawberries in her wine. Elenor twitches and Martin sigh, looking at the little boys trying to get the ball off Ben.
The dark headed little boy says that the fountain never gets filled anymore, and that he saw a wildcat eating the goldfish. He thought it was a puma that escaped from the zoo.
“Bloody ridiculous,” Richard has moved to whiskey and Martin takes the twin boys to Ben’s for sandwiches. Richard’s voice trailing behind them. “Bloody government thinking they can keep people from their ancestral homes!” Their oldest son nods importantly, sitting next to his dad.
He peeks down Milly’s shirt when she leans over for more strawberries.
The internet works, wind turbines turn even in the softest of breezes. Culverts start to overflow. New York doesn’t turn grey, but the subways all flood. Biden dies of natural causes.
Ben’s mother says she misses parsnips and turnips. Ben and his dad talk quietly about the frost house, dancing bears break free. Milly tells them not to get ahead of themselves.
The elevator shafts in gold mines break. Several species of frog still go extinct, the heat doesn’t help. The Yangtze River dolphin doesn’t come back.
“Should we stop seeing each other?” Ben asks Martin one night. It didn’t take long to realise who was disappearing. There is an expectant hush when another person vanishes. Pouring over past deeds, known traits tamping down the glee of what-they-knew. Because it might make you bad. Might make you vanish. “We aren’t hurting anyone.” Martin replies. Doesn’t pulls away instead curls up into Ben’s body heat, his steady breathing.
In the third year mummies start to leave museums and return to their tombs. Some do not. In England families start to come to away games. The South American teams began it, and it’s quickly adopted everywhere. Milly wasn’t supposed to be there that day after drawing in Manchester, but she shrugs her shoulders at Ben’s questions and climbs into bed with Martin.
“I’ve had two shots and a glass of wine.” She announces, “and I ate.”
She sits up and wriggles the top of her dress down and throws her bra off the bed. Ben picks it up and folds it, putting it in his suitcase.
She sits in the bed and looks at Martin lying back on his pillow. The sheets pushed down to his waist.
Ben climbs on the bed, shifts her hair to the side and kisses down her neck, his hand sliding down under the sheet over her stomach. She runs her fingers across the curve of Martin’s cheek bone. “If the world is ending I want this.” She tells him. Smooths the deepening groove between his eyebrows.
He doesn’t turn her down. Folds her into a kiss and mentally begs Helene to forgive him. In the morning they are still in bed together. Milly is soft - already with a sheen of sweat on her forehead- between them. Ben’s hand is cupped under her breast. Her fingers rest on Martin’s forearm and they slide around to his wrist when he tucks the hair off her face behind her ear. Milly pulls his hand down and whispers “go back to sleep it’s early.” The sun is already overhead.
Everyone is terribly terribly polite. No one wants to take the last seat, no one wants to jostle anyone. The birth rate drops again. The stars are harder to see. But there are less meteors. There are no meteors. Rockets won’t lift off, but satellites continue to circle the earth. Neil Degrease Tyson wonders is everything avoiding earth? Is there nothing left out there? Has the universe already ended, and earth was the last place to notice. The last light finally arriving from the last remaking stars.
There is still wine and Helene counts the bottles that she takes to the recycling centre. Ants are slightly bigger, diligently cleaning the crumbs around the bins.
She bites her lip bloody, not telling people what she really thinks. She takes every opportunity to dance and knows that plenty think she is a stuck up bitch for not giving her all-in on the gossip about the missing.
She thinks most of them are smug cunts who didn’t worry about their ballet masters behaviour before the end of the world started. Didn’t call them out, the casting directors and the talent agents. Didn’t risk anything, just take glee now they are gone.
Being gone didn’t change what they did. Barging into dressing rooms, demanding they be allowed to stay around after rehearsals. Didn’t stop the eyes that trawled over their bodies. The hands that lingered as long as they looked.
She stops commuting from Norway to England to stay in London full time. Packing up her flat and leaving her dog with her parents.
“In the future there will be more flights.” She and her parents lie to each other. Martin confesses the night he spent with Ben and Milly. Everything with Ben. He curses himself for not telling her first before she arrives. He doesn’t want to trap her, but there are so few flights now, he wanted to make sure she got on the plane.
Justifies it in his head over and over, so nervous driving home that Helene keeps asking what is wrong. If he was injured, if someone from the team was vanished, if the grey area at the end of the road got bigger.
“I’m sorry.” He says. He and Ben have been together so long it almost feels like it isn’t a secret. Except it still is.
“You fucking asshole.” Helene shoves past Martin, snacking his hand away when he tries to hold her, closing the front door in his face when he tries to go after her. Running down the street she can hear him call her name.
She ducks into the neighbours garden. Doesn’t know if Martin realises how close she is. Holds her breath and hopes her shadow can’t be seen. Hears him calling her name and flips her phone to silent. The vibration in her hand can’t be heard over the insects buzzing and the breeze rippling through the trees.
She waits a week, checks flights every day and ignores all his messages. Tells her mother she doesn’t want to talk about it and ignores her messages as well. Finds the darkest pubs still left and drinks. Posts a moody image on Instagram about cheating. Takes it down. Posts too many times in her stories until Martin or Granit work out where her new favourite bar is.
He slides in front of her with “I want to say sorry. “ when she says “I’m not interested in company.” Helene looks up, slightly bleary eyed and frowns.
She’d borrowed some clothes from a dancer friend but they feel wrinkled and Ill-fitting even though they are the same size. Martin stacks the empty glasses up. It’s warm enough inside that the condensation dries up. Water rings evaporated.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” Helene says. “I’m waiting for a plane home.” She hasn’t booked it yet. “You can pay for it.”
Martin nods. “At least come and get your things? Let me pay for the hotel as well.”
“You can pay the tab.” Helene says and walks with him, stumbling in the sunlight taking Martin’s sunglasses out of his pocket, and refusing to respond to him, or let him hold her arm.
She wakes up with a hangover and glass sitting on a coaster in the spare room. The room is hot, the curtains pulled closed but there is light coming in from the hallway. A fan turning lazily. The book shelves are neatly and heavily stacked.
Her bags are under the window, zipped closed. She’s wearing one of Martin’s t-shirts that she vaguely remembers being in the bathroom when she stumbled out of the shower. Hoping the water would run cold, hoping the lights would turn off, hoping the ground would crack apart under them. Hoping she would want to go home.
The house is quiet with a note propped against the glass, listing Arsenal’s games the hotels they are staying in, that her phone is charging and asking her to stay until they talk - but he understands if she doesn’t. “If you want me to come back to yell at me in person before I take you to the airport I will. Otherwise I thought I would give you space.”
“I love you.” It says at the bottom. “I know I’m a selfish bastard but I do.” He signs it ‘love Martin.’
Helene sits in front of the bookshelves. Curing meat. Making clothes. Simple treatments for cuts or injuries. A guide for expectant mothers. She opens it up at the receipt a couple of pages in.
“You might not even know you are pregnant yet!” The book says in a happy font. There is a description of fertilisation, what a zygote is, cells dividing. “You might feel different, especially if this is something you have planned.” It talks about fractions of inches. Compares the development stages: full stops, peppercorns.
“At six weeks” the book tells her breathlessly “your baby is the size of a pomegranate seed!” Smaller than the size of the tear drops Helene leaves on the page.
Martin walks in three days later and calls out her name. Helene is standing in the living room, watering the plants.
“Can we talk?” Martin says leaving his bags in the hallway the way he never does.
“I forgive you because I love you and I want to forgive you. Not because the world is ending. I can hold a grudge past the end of time.” Helene says.
She folds her arms and watches Martin gasp out a breath, rubbing his eyes.
“I know I have to stop seeing Ben, like that,” Martin stumbles over the words. “I’m sorry I took advantage of you and Milly and I can move clubs. We can go home to Norway. Anything. I promise. Anything you want.”
“I want you.” Helene says. “We are home. The earth is dying anyway. You might as well play football here.”
Martin stumbles forward holding his arms out.
Helene looks at him and holds her hand up. She turns to the bay window, framing the bright sky with the foamy cloud that is shaped a bit like Italy that never seems to move. She runs her fingers over the houseplants on the windowsill.
She remembers Milly bringing them around the first year. They are pretty and serve no useful purpose. Ben potted them, Helene guesses that is why they were kept.
She shreds some of the leaves in her fingers.
“Can I come to the next away game?” She finally says. “We will ask Ben and Milly first.”
Martin steps behind her and holds her a little too tightly. She lets him. Can feel the tremble in his arms and how wet his voice sounds. “Anything I can give you. But only if you want it.”
“I’m not sure what I want. But the world is ending I guess. And I don’t want to be mad or alone.” She pats his arm. Thinking about Ben’s long legs. Milly’s soft eyes.
Helene makes some more connections in the local dance scene. There are fewer dancers, but fewer productions overall. Martin’s more than happy for her to use his name if it gets her roles. Milly promotes all her shows.
Milly comes over and they carefully work out what makeup works best for the outdoor productions. They joke about the lack of tanning salons and waxing places. “I’m not ready to go full hippy.” Milly smiles, “Ben says he doesn’t care, but he still shaves every day.”
“I wonder if Martin has a straight razor?” Helene says. “That would look sexy.” They giggle under the sun umbrella that is half swallowed by an elm.
Milly carefully applies a second layer of mascara. She licks the tip of her finger to remove a tiny smudge. “Sorry.” She says. “Force of habit.”
“All good.” Helene says. “Martin has every shade of cotton if you want me to sew that up?” Milly is picking at the hem of her shirt that is falling down. “Take it off I’ll fix it.”
“I was going to go shopping.” Milly says. “Take it off anyway.” Helene’s voice has a slight wobble. Milly just grins, teeth bright and sharp in her smile. “You first” she purrs, dropping the mascara in the grass, and will take five minutes to find it afterwards, messing up the makeup she just applied.
Granit returned to London at the start of the third year. “My family is mostly gone.” He said. His father and brother had disappeared at the very start. Much later his wife and his oldest daughter. His mother is staying with her sister. “She kept asking what Leonita did.” Granit’s voice is distant.
His daughter sits in between Mikel’s two eldest. Keeping one within arms reach at all times.
“Children haven’t done anything.” He says sadly. “They should have a chance.”
“Maybe she was holding onto her mother?” Mikel suggests gently. Granit leaps on that idea. They moved in with Lorena and Mikel. In the end she calls them both papa. Lorena always wanted a daughter. Maria deserves a mum.
They get a sister for Win as well.
Granit and Ben and Martin and Mikel sit in the garden. “I miss getting high.” Mikel says randomly when they are all exhausted from trying to make things normal for the kids.
Martin tries not to look surprised, from Granit’s laugh he fails. “I miss x.” Ben says. “In the off season”.
Mikel rolls his eyes. Clubs don’t trade much anymore. But they bring through their juniors. It’s not like he’s going to pick up another defender.
“Surely marijurana is growing.” Martin says. It feels like the shrub behind him has crept closer just since they came out. The mosquitoes are bigger but less interested in people. They keep the midges at bay with plantings.
“I miss cocaine.” Mikel twisting his mouth up and shrugging a bit. “Lorena grows weed next to the basil.” He looks tired. Granit nods in agreement.
It feels like it is never quite night anymore. Reminds Martin of the summer of the midnight sun. It’s never night in the rest of the world either.
Sometimes they find flocks of birds that have just died, dropped out of the sky exhausted. Sometimes they have gorged themselves on the insects first, chasing the swarms endlessly.
Bats don’t do well. Needing the night. They retreated to darker forests. They retreat into caves. Naturalists wonder if their sonar doesn’t work as well for some reason.
“Because the world is ending. Duh.” Milly doesn’t look up from where she is squeezed between Ben and Martin, painting her nails. Ben pulls her closer to kiss on the side of her head. She tilts her cheek up for another kiss and Ben obliges.
Milly blows on her nails and either ignores or doesn’t notice the looks that Martin, Helene and Ben share between them.
Many more children vanish. It's a theological discussion, a government concern. Something that makes Martin look away, makes Milly wander off. But were they going to grow up to become…. No one discusses it around Granit. The schools shrink. Children are folded into extended families. Food is fine. People can forage for raspberries, and the salmon practically leap into nets.
The crown, the last few and they have always looked grey anyway, advise that the swans can be eaten because there are so many. Balmoral is grey.
Martin is the best at making bread. He’s the only one with the patience to knead it. Everyone tries to use as little power as possible, just in case. They continue cooking outside.
Helene sashays in behind him in the kitchen. Bites him gently on the ear and slides her hand into his pants. “Pay attention to dinner.” She teases, “I’ll pay attention to you.”
There are even fewer flights. Fewer boats. Cruises have stopped. Luxury super yachts towed into harbour to be new homes for people who always wanted houseboats, their owners long gone. At first it doesn’t rain enough for all the flowers and tomatoes. But they engineer paths to get the ocean on top of the ocean onto the land. Gentle creeks that flow backwards.
The breeze is never more than caressing now. The birds get bigger, and the chickens are more aggressive.
People start meeting for dinner to stay in touch - and to check if someone is now missing. So if someone has vanished it’s noticed, recorded in some way. Sometimes even mourned. There are meals and birthday parties and christmas, even presents for the kids. Declan and Lauren come around with Jude who is spoiled with attention, banned only from Martin’s study with it’s tempting, toppleable pile of books,
The birth rate drops again. The Taliban have a press conference to explain how this is Western Imperialism and by the time international journalists arrive there are only guns and microphones left.
Helene gives free dance classes. Whenever Ben and Martin are on the road she stays with Milly or vice versa. She’s there when Milly’s uncle visits.
Milly is in the kitchen making tea, and when Helene returns from the bathroom there is an empty place on the couch and all the doors are closed. She doesn’t say he gave her a bad feeling, as Milly cries and says that he was her favourite fun uncle. She dropped the cups walking into the room. They pick up the pieces carefully together.
After that they stay together but they always sleep in the same room now, the same bed. Drop the nights one would sleep on the couch, the spare room. They run through their histories. School, first kiss, first date. No one knows how long the cloud will last and they curate their photos and memories onto a desktop computer.
“Is it vain to keep Instagram posts?” Milly asks one night, lying behind Helene, her arm over her waist. “I kept my dance costumes.” Helene replies. “At my parents.” She doesn’t know who she’s keeping them for. Who they are saving photos to show.
She half tells a story about trying to teach Martin to thread a needle but Milly shrugs off most attempts to learn anything new. “I can sew on a button.”
She says softly. “I hated the family studies teacher.” She rolls her over and kisses Helene on the nose laughing when Helene goes slightly cross eyed. “I was so sure I wasn’t going to live that life. I guess we don’t have to worry about that now.”
Helene doesn’t want to lie to her, or herself. What comfort can she offer anyway that doesn’t sound hollow. Leans down to kiss Milly instead. Milly lets Helene move her around, murmurs out to go faster when Helene licks into her cunt. “This life is better than plenty anyway.” Milly says. “Better than budgets and stupid shit, oh god put your fingers in me?” Helene does.
Helene begs her to learn how to dance though. Ben gets too distracted and handsy. Martin takes it too seriously like it’s a game to win. Helene teaches Milly how to foxtrot.
One evening, in the pretty blue gloom that counts as evening, a family of foxes stop and watch. Their pointed faces tilted to the side. There are eight kits tumbling around.
“I always liked the name Kit for a boy.” Milly says and starts crying. She turns away and hunches her shoulders inward, waving off even Ben’s attempts to comfort her. “Just give me a sec,” she says. “I just need a moment.”
She returns to the dance and asks to be shown the salsa. Martin watches them, it’s less salsa and more grinding. He thinks the judges on the dance competitions Helene used to compete on would probably score it low. He thinks they would be idiots, watching their hair swish, Helene’s hand on the small of Milly’s back, the quick roll of their hips.
In the morning the foxes have left a pile of dead voles in the garden and tiny early cheer have started to grow where Milly was crying. They smell like powder and soap.
By the fourth year the disappearances have mostly stopped. “It’s like I’m letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.” Helene tells Martin.
Milly still reports the missing and the presumed vanished. Offices are shuttered, and malls die faster than anything else. People have to remember their reusable bags. They are nicer to supermarket staff. Things have to be put into paper bags or glass bottles.
The last war starts. It ends. The armies vanished. Necular bombs are shoved into the grey areas. They just sit there. They don’t flake, they don’t fade. ‘We hoped to make the areas useful’, the government says. Scientists test the soft heavy dust and it’s dust. Grey flecks of paint and wood and bone.
The malls decay as people shop outside. Sit in the sun and read books. It’s slower. Helene feels like she is drifting through the days. “I’m never wanted to be a fucking WAG Martin.”’she spits out one evening. “It’s fucking boring! I wish it was just over.” She shoves off his attempts to touch and walks into the bright sunlit night.
It’s not as satisfying to be angry in the sun. There is no one to be worried about left, a quiet drift of neighbours checking in and calling out ‘alright love?’ And ‘we all need a minute sometimes’ trail behind her, past the grey park at the end of their street and into the smudgy purpleblue of 2am.
Helene wipes off the tears she didn’t realise had fallen. All the anger evaporated like water.
“I know I should say sorry and I am sorry.” Helene tells Martin walking behind him in the kitchen as he cleans the bench wiping so many times it’s like he’s sanding it “But I’m not sure how I feel, so I’m not sure what to be sorry for.”
“I wish I could be a dancer’s husband.” Martin says and kisses her palm. Salty from her tears. “I wanted you to get the whole world, not give everything up.”
Martin tries to teach Ben Spanish. He’s slow at it but perseveres. Mikel teaches him to swear. Granit tries to teach him threats. It sounds ridiculous, them all giggling, play fighting in the arbour in the garden. It feels almost naughty, like they will be caught swearing at school.
Milly and Helene cook dinner together, Milly runs over the high school French she remembers. “I hated that bitch, she smelled like eggs and expired mascara.”
She cracks up “and the maths teacher and the douche who did science. I actually just hated school.”
Helene grins back. “My parents bribed me to stay by paying for dance shoes and classes.”
“I bet Martin loved tests.” Milly says. Her eyes are bright and they giggle in the kitchen, and start snogging, Milly backing Helene against the sink. When Ben clears his throat in the doorway Helene looks up with bright eyes, Milly nibbling her neck “did you hate school?”
Ben pushes off the doorframe walking over to them sliding his hand into his pants, stroking his cock. “Fuck did I. Couldn’t wait to leave.” He squeezes Milly on the bum before moving in to kiss the other side of Helene’s neck.
Other nights Helene takes long walks alone. Until her mind is empty. Until her calves ache and her feet feel like they are going to blister. Passing parks and schools and gardens, all extravagant and green and glorious.
Ben and his father move around each other. His dad stretches and sits watching Ben lop the vines. A wasted habit, they will creep back by tomorrow probably, swallowing the fence into a wall of green and blackberries.
“Do you think we could get ligonberries or cloudberries for Helene?” Ben asks. The soft mumble he often uses around his parents.
His dad starts. Has a drink, wipes his mouth to get his thoughts. “Just Helene?”
Ben cuts more branches. A steady rhythm. “Milly likes sweet fruit.” He says. Doesn’t pause in his words or his work.
“They prefer the cold,” his dad says finally. “Like the ground wet.”
“Too bad.” Ben says getting closer to the fence under the growth. His father picks up the cut back vines. “We can pick these blackberries though.”
“Swan and blackberries.” Ben sort of laughs. “What would the nutritionists say?” He cuts all the way back to the wood of the fence almost bowing under the weight of the leaves. The vines a twisted green arch over his head, sweat streaking his face.
Milly flickers her nails if anyone mentions gardening or anything that isn’t getting eggs. She picks the flowers sometimes. Pulls the odd weed. Will always do the dishes. Pretending to be careless with the scrubbing. Although sometimes when a lot is seemingly sloppily washed and inexpertly stacked in a teetering pile she’ll wink at Helene or Ben, and nod to Martin.
There is an art to getting the tower this high while making it look unplanned. Watching Martin’s fingers twitch. He’ll skulk into the kitchen trying not to be obvious as Milly will look at him sweetly, trying to open her eyes huge, “come to give me a kiss?” She’ll ask. Grabbing Martin, who’ll always kiss back. Her back to the kitchen sink, making sure the dishes are in view.
“I’ll do the dishes every day to get a reward like that.” Milly purrs. “They can air dry. Just put them away in the morning.” She drags Martin out of the room, him going willingly, but still looking over his shoulder at the pile while Ben and Helene hide their snickers.
“Yeah I cooked.” Helene tells Ben. “Martin can deal in the morning.”
They get chickens but mostly because you can’t help but have chickens now. Wandering in chaotic flocks through the gardens and traffic islands. They are still better than the ducks.
Win and her sister Willow -named in a whisper by Maria - become experts at running the ducks off. With their constant obnoxious quacking and aggressive shitting. The chickens never last because they produce egg after egg, burning out within months. There are always more chicks, always more eggs. Spring onions but no mushrooms, in omelette after omelette.
They could have pasta every day. Have meringue over everything. The geese are mad. There are too many swans no matter how many people cook them in Dutch ovens on a grill, or stuffed into embers. It feels like all the potatoes are new potatoes.
Ben’s mum laughs over Sunday dinner. “I just want to roast something to warm the kitchen up. Make some damn soup.”
Ben had told his parents, he asked Martin not to come with them, that it was better from him and Milly.
“Is this because of..” Ben’s father points outside.
Ben shakes his head. “I’ve always been in love with Martin. I’ve always been in love with Milly.”
“Milly love,” Ben’s mum holds her hand, “are you okay,” she pauses, “with this?”
Milly laughs. She seems to almost surprise herself. “We’re okay. I promise. No one is sleeping on the couch.” Her eyes twinkle as Ben’s parents look anywhere but at them holding hands in the living room.
“If it was truly bad,” Milly’s voice dips, “some of us wouldn’t be here.”
“Right.” Ben’s mum says. “Well it’s your life.” Later on she asks Ben if that’s the reason they never had...
Ben shakes his head, as he rubs some sunblock into his arms. The enduring summer as a free tanning bed. “It’s the end of the world mum. Guess we ran out of time.”
The breeze makes the curtains flutter. The chickens peck at the spiders. Their intricate webs between the chairs and the trees and the ground. Ben’s dad tells Milly how he misses dew, misses how spiderwebs looked when they were frozen. She agrees, looking into the sky away from the sun.
Milly’s parents pull back. Recoil like they don’t want to touch the furniture wondering what has been done in the living room at Ben and Milly’s. Like Helene and Martin will leap out and start aggressively screwing on the rug. “Let’s not fight.” Milly says. It becomes ‘let’s not talk’. Milly and Ben trek up to see them once a month or so. It becomes every six weeks, every eight.
Football continues but there are less journalists and less bloggers. They go on circuits. Travelling through the north and Scotland for a few weeks. Their families, kids or wives or siblings, with them, a rotating travelling circus, before returning home.
The games keep track of the weeks. The months are hard to hold on to. New years is a shock every time.
Martin feels like the team is all kids. Kai gone, Leandro taking his family home, the academy sort of still running. The transfer window still exists but it’s more players still drifting home.
People pop back at odd times, there are planes that still circle, slowly repatriating. Old friends and teammates make meandering trips back to London to stay and wait for the final end to come. Even the homecomings in China and India slowed finally to a trickle.
The middle of Africa is only passable in the brightest hours, you have to start at four am and be done by six on one of the few times clocks matter, the grey is deep there, in the cradle of life. It still doesn’t get bigger. It still isn’t really night. But between six pm and 4 am it is different. People hug the perimeter. Go in small groups so they can slip out to the light patches on the sides.
In England you travel some highways with your car door locked even though it’s light enough that it feels like the sun has just come up, or is just about to go down
It’s a dread that’s hard to describe. A grey globe surrounded by oceans of blue just out of reach. Missing motion, missing sound. But with its own insistent plaintive pull, its own cocooning embrace.
People take to sitting outside the grey areas. They talk to the people that may still be there. Sometimes people insist they get a reply. Milly and Helene take some of the powder-smelling early cheer and plant it around the closest grey area to them.
Milly lets Helene dig the hole. Runs her finger with its painted orange nails against the little yellow innermost petals of the flowers.
The bombs in the grey areas still didn’t break down. Maybe the whispers people heard were the whispers other people sent in. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you come back? What did you do?
I miss you. I want you. I love you.
I’m sorry.
By the fifth year the FA has compressed to five divisions, including Scotland and Wales. The women’s teams travel with the men’s.
Players have shuffled home, have dropped out for family, they have disappeared. The World Cup is delayed. The Olympics are only Europe one year, only Asia the next. The plans for other continents don’t go ahead. The champions league is on hiatus.
There are more suicides. Some people can’t adapt to the new world, with its very blue sky and enormous daffodils that won’t stop sprouting no matter how many rabbits nibble the bulbs. They can’t accept the giant wrens and the bumblebees the size of sparrows, humming birds that break tress apart under their mass of numbers. Martin’s aunt leaves a message “I miss snow.”
Martin talks to his mother later, stumbling over apologies and that he can’t be there. She cries, sniffing down the line, her voice thick. “Norway is more than snow.” Martin agrees. He knows how to make snow shoes, knows how to ski. The Government which is more a co-op now plants cotton finally.
They are at pains to point out that no one is forced to work in it. No one is forced to work at all, but for the hum of normal it gives. Milly likes going to stand up shows. Not everyone can laugh at the jokes. “Too soon?” Frankie Boyle asks. “If my jokes were that bad, mate, I wouldn’t be here.”
“It’s this or Michael Macintyre folks. The end of the world isn’t supposed to be funny. Shame Michael thinks he is.”
Helene and Martin argue and she throws a cup at the wall in frustration. She misses having a career. That people think careers are a waste now. But the end of the world has been going on for five years. “Engineers still get careers!” She yells.
Martin holds her face in his hands and asks her to marry him. “There is no one else I want to spend the end of the world with.”
“Yes.” Helene says. “But you're lying.” They go to Ben and Milly’s and in the morning Helene is still there. She sends a letter to her parents telling them to recycle or throw away her costumes and Martin burns it that night when he’s cooking dinner.
Ben and Helene lead the discussion about moving in together. It’s mostly with Martin. Milly shrugs and looks away but holds Helene’s hand. Pulls her legs up on the sofa curled in a ball and presses into Martin’s side. Nods at Ben. Squeezes Helene’s hand harder until they finally all agree.
Their palms sweaty and hot, pulling apart with a soft slick sound when they all hug.
They end up at Milly’s and Ben’s. Taking weeks to clean out the spare room, making space for each other.
They move all of Martin’s supplies. Then they take down the fence between them and next door.
The fountain still tumbles water in pretty rainbows and bubbles. The pond has three giant fish left that loop in lazy quiet circles. Milly sunbathes topless. Eats strawberries until her mouth and fingertips are stained. Helene and Ben raid the wine cellar and the liquor cabinet.
Ben and Martin are playing a friendly against Rangers. The internet is more spotty but still works, Martin sends a picture of the street at midnight still full of people. Scotland is full of rumours that unicorns have been seen. Polar bears have almost all died. They miss the snow as well. And the seals.
“Do you think we will get dinosaurs back or something?” Helene asks one night, trying a new method of getting Milly’s hair to curl that lasts more than a day.
“Dragons.” Milly giggles. “No one will stop me calling them dragons. I’ll get Ben to give me one for my birthday.”
“I wonder if baby dragons would be warm? Like you could keep them in your pocket when you go out in winter instead of gloves.” She snaps her mouth shut. It’s January, the doors wide open at one am and the larks - Martin has a chart with the common birds - are in chorus.
“You could hold a dragon fly.” Helene just says. She pulls the curlers out of Milly’s hair and runs her fingers through it. From her scalp to the tips in calming even strokes. “They are huge. I wonder if the fireflies are huge now?”
Ben gets in an argument about lamb of all things. He shoves the guy away who he insists started it and calls him a cunt. The shop freezes in a shocked silence. He is there in the morning making a joke about how he is glad the papers don’t employ paparazzi anymore. Milly says ‘I never thought I would be happy to hear my dad bitch about visiting my aunties’.
In year six some babies are born, but less than year five and less than year four.
“I wouldn’t mind being a grandmother one day.” Ben’s mum says at the wedding. “If that flower is a hint.” She points at the wedding bouquet with the mouth of one of Eleanor and Richard’s champagne glasses.
Martin and Helene whisper together, the only Norwegians there. Her bouquet is mixed peony and baby’s breath.
Maria runs around in a cut down dance costume throwing petals. “That lawn will be all flowers soon, then.” Ben’s dad says. Jude splashes around in the water in the pond, laughing at the fish nudging his legs
“Good.” Milly says. “I’ll pick them.” No one believes her.
“Mum, it’s the end of the world.” Ben tells her gently. The sky hasn’t gotten darker for two weeks, the cloud shaped like Italy hasn’t moved in two days and no one much feels like eating, picking at the wedding cake and strawberries.
“I still want them. Oh Milly.. I didn’t mean..” Ben’s mum looks stricken. But Ben pulls her over to the cake telling her it’s okay.
Milly walks into the part of the garden that used to be next door. She’s partially shaded, her makeup lightly applied, a decal of a cake on her ring finger nail polish. There’s no grey area nearby.
They don’t visit them very often anymore. For a while they would go every week. Milly sitting so close it was almost like twilight. There are numbers posted on trees nearby that say “if you want to talk I can help.” There are directions, “before you made a decision, come see me at the blue house, 547 Hoyt lane. Anytime.”
If you walk into the grey areas you might still walk back out. But the grey lingers. Few truly return.
Helene walks up behind Milly in the garden. “I miss stars.” Milly says. “Will you marry me?” Helene says in a rush. Milly turns around as Helene gets down on one knee and holds out a ring that used to be her mother’s.
“Yes.” Milly says. “This is your day!” She tries to push Helene back. “This is our day.” Helene tells her fiercely, pulling her close. Holding a handful of Milly’s perfect curls in her hand tight enough it might hurt but Milly doesn’t pull away. “All of us. Until everything ends.”
Ben and Martin stop playing football in year seven. Erling visits them. He sends a letter first. The internet is working, better than the last few years, but he said in it to Martin he missed writing things down in Norwegian. His father vanished in the second year. Martin thinks he remembers hearing about it.
He writes back that it’s the brick house at the end of the road with the pink bushes that smell like pepperkaker.
Erling broke the records that Harry Kane didn’t when he came back. At the end of the world people had to decide to stay or go. Erling decided to stay as well. ‘“Manchester without the rain.” He sits next to the pond trailing his fingers in the water with the fish that Milly insists are pets now and need names. “Sven,” he suggests. “Magnus?”
“Are you sure you want to retire?”
“I’m played out.” Martin says. “Do you want to play here?” Erling barks out a laugh. “If I can’t go to Real, I’m going to stay at City.”
Martin ends up teaching in the mornings. He doesn’t need to. The banks still sort of operate, and you can still buy things, but at a certain point what do you need. Milly visits the retirement home, since they are now two retired football players, a retired dancer and a retired influencer and does manicures for people there.
Carefully applied make up and helps brush the hair of people with infrequent visitors. Sometimes boats still arrive, high in the sky on the ocean on top of the ocean. The goods in them are taken out by crane.
Ben and Helene walk into town together. She likes holding his hand. Likes how his arm swings loose and easy. How he bends down to whisper in her ear, like pointing out the banana tree is a secret. How he just laughs when she teases about the clothes people wear, they’ll watch tv critiquing the fashion while Martin scolds them.
How he’ll yank her hair back and fuck her from behind when she wants to get out of her head and doesn’t want to walk. How he’ll hold her around the waist and fuck her through coming twice. Hold his hand over her mouth to keep the words in. Helene and Martin get little hearts on their thumbs to match Ben and Milly’s.
Ben's tattoos fade. He finds a place to redo them. It takes a little longer, with an odd solar powered gun. Milly holds his hand even though he’s never minded the feeling. The burn deep in his skin.
“Finish this hand, then back next month?” The tattooist asks.
“We got time.” Ben runs his thumb over the heart on Milly’s hand, the wedding rings on her finger.
At the end of year seven there is a murder. In Liverpool, there was an accusation of theft, an argument that got out of hand. The courts are creaky and dusty. Everyone waits. Like a death row watch, waiting for the moment he blinks out of existence. Vanishes.
He pleads guilty and the evidence is unquestionable, but he doesn’t disappear. He apologises. He tries to repent.
In Norway, on Svalbard, it snows. The end of the world has ended. Ben wakes up when Milly kicks in her sleep and the room is dark blue. He bangs his ankle trying to walk in the dark and sits on the floor crying, making sure not to wake Milly up. He pulls the curtain back and the moon is nearly full.
The ocean on top of the ocean retreats. The glaciers reform, peeking up over the water. Forming from underneath.
The grey areas start to crawl inward, getting smaller, less obtrusive. Some of them disappear altogether. The bombs remain. Rusted but bluntly visible. The conservative party doesn’t return. They never find the bodies. In the garden snails are nibbling the lettuce and Martin tries to talk Ben out going to the beach for the third day in a row.
They have desert listening to the nightclub down the lane that Martin grumbles about, and a shooting star dances across the sky.
“Make a wish.” Martin says. “I want a baby.” Helene blurts out. They are very drunk on raspberry wine and Leonora’s weed and so they all very seriously say yes and go upstairs.
All the baby sizing books are out of date. By week seven Milly’s baby will be the size of a blueberry Martin reads out. But the blueberries are gooseberry sized, figs the size of lemons.
Milly is propped up in bed, happy to have Helene and Ben run around after her as Martin tries to think of new sizes.
Milly tells Ben he can tell his mum. Martin wants to teach them both Norwegian. They are terrible at it and Martin doesn’t care.
“Thank god we called the fish Magnus and Ben can’t use it for the baby.” Martin writes in a letter to Erling.
He tries to sleep one afternoon with Milly lying on his shoulder, but Ben and Helene argue about the size of her baby. “Our baby.” Milly says sleepily.
”The baby is a big as a speck of glitter”. Ben says. “Half an MDNA table, a heart on Instagram.”
“A nail polish brush.” Milly says around a yawn. “A piece of sushi”. Martin interjects.
“I want some sushi.” Milly says.
Ben kisses her stomach. “Only if Martin has a book about making sushi.” And in the ringing silence, “I guess you can since Martin has a book about sushi.”
“We have a book about sushi.” Martin says primly. Shoving Ben away with his foot when he tries to claim Milly back.
Helene rolls over in bed three months later and is nearly sick when Martin jolts her too much pulling her back into his arms. He mumbles something into her hair, grumpy about moving, complaining about the cold air, while she tries to count on her fingers without being obvious.
The baby is the size of a grain of rice. Martin says softly rubbing her back. Ben brings her a drink and Miley smiles, holding her hand and ignoring Martin talking about knitting.
But she looks up at Ben saying they have to get a dog now. If only to get rid of the fucking ducks.
Helene and Milly sit near the fire, Helene brushing Milly’s hair until it’s staticky. Milly leans back on Helen, “our baby is the size of a ladybird, a bumblebee.” She says softly. “A lightning bug, a dragonfly.”
“A hummingbird, a wren.” Helene says back, as Ben shouts “not Nora! Jesus, Martin, might as well call her Doreen.”
The beginning of the world spins lazily on.