Kat Fink

Mary

Mary let the steaming water run over her fingers as she filled the sink. A couple of pink plastic cups wedged their way free and floated to the top of the soapy pile. She savored the heat on her fingers and sighed, torn between the pleasant feel of the rushing water and the nagging voice that pestered her about water waste. The voice eventually won, and she flicked off the facet, immediately plunging her hands into the suds. As she scrubbed, she started to hum a familiar melody to a song she was sure she knew but could not recall its name or lyrics. Nevertheless, the rhythm guided the pace of the dishwashing, and she mindlessly swirled a sponge around a simple white plate. Lost in her own thoughts, it took her a moment to realize that her husband was calling her name. 

“Mary? Mary, you need to come look at this,” he called from the living room. 

She pulled her hands out of the sink and wiped them on the linen cloth hanging from the bar on the oven, making sure to replace it neatly before walking into the room where her husband stood in front of the television. 

“Why are you standing so close?” she asked with a note of teasing, and she was surprised when he didn’t respond in kind. “Art?”

Arthur turned the volume up with the remote and reached his other hand to pull her close beside him. “I need you to hear what I just heard and tell me…,” he paused.

“Tell you what?” Mary asked, she felt a creeping fear crawling up the back of her neck. 

He looked at her, his green eyes piercing her stormy grey. Those eyes were pleading, and his face was pale. Whatever he’d heard, he was hoping she wouldn’t hear the same. Mary reached up to press her hand against his cheek, and he swiftly covered it with his own. She’d do what she could to ease his mind about whatever he’d seen.

“Mary. Please. I need you to listen to this carefully. I’ve rewinded it to the start.”

Dropping their hands, they turned to face the screen. A young woman sat at the newsdesk. Mary was surprised to see that the news anchor was uncharacteristically disheveled, her face was missing the usual caking of makeup and her hair was flat and hung around her face in thick curtains. Mary thought she looked startlingly young, so much younger than she had yesterday. Looking closer, Mary could see the girl’s eyes were rimmed with red and she was wiping away tears and snot with a tissue. In her hands was a set of papers that she was holding in a white knuckle grip. When she spoke her voice was one of manufactured calm, too high and too strained. 

“It has made its way into the water.” The anchor squinted at the notes, double-checking the report. “And has evaporated into the air. Scientists believe…” She paused, her voice hitching on a sob she was trying to keep down. “They believe that the population. The entire human population has been infected. There seem to be no symptoms from the pathogen, but it is highly transmittable, and the CDC has yet to find anyone immune to its effects. All tests for the pathogen have been positive across a test pool of several thousand individuals.” At this, the news anchor turned to someone beyond the camera. “Several thousand? All infected?” she asked. There was a murmur of confirmation off-screen and something that sounded like encouragement to continue. The girl started speaking the news through panicked breaths.

“The CDC reports that they have not found a treatment for the pathogen which has shown to have a…” she paused again, her complexion turning sickly green as an expression of deep pain contorted her face. “So far, one hundred percent fatality rate.” She looked up, her eyes wide, and started reading through the report faster as though she was sure that sprinting through the text was the only way she would finish the report. “Projections indicate that, from the moment of infection, individuals may have anywhere before four to six weeks before the pathogen destroys the tissues in the heart. Several individuals have already succumbed to the illness, in areas closest to the glacier where it is assumed the pathogen originated. These individuals appeared completely healthy before their hearts gave out. It is assumed that most will be affected in the same way.” The news anchor began shaking her head in an alarming rhythm and turned again to the person off-screen. The shape of a tall, balding man appeared out of the corner of the camera’s view. He took the report from the anchor’s hands, and she bowed her head in between her hands as sobs started to rack her body. The man cleared his gruff voice. 

“This is an official report.” He turned the document over and showed it to the camera which zoomed in on the serious-looking letterhead. “I know this is hard to believe. If what the CDC is telling us is true, we all have, at most, six weeks to live. All of us. Six weeks.” 

He covered his chest with his free hand as though he was making a pledge. “We received this report this morning, and we have decided this will be our last news broadcast, and we will continue to play this message until… well, until the end. We all will be taking time to be with our families, we suggest you do the same.” 

The screen turned blue, and a low beeping tone rang three times before the young news anchor reappeared, the message repeating itself.

“Is this real?” Art asked, and he gripped the remote tightly with his two hands. He peered into Mary’s face, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking around the room. Her eyes flitted to the pink unicorn lovey sitting on the fireplace hearth. The wedding and family pictures, images of Arthur and Mary wrapping their arms protectively, lovingly around their three young girls. The vase of flowers Julie, their youngest, picked before leaving for school that morning. 

“Mary?” Arthur placed his hands on her shoulders, and she snapped out of her stupefaction.

“I don’t know,” she answered. She wanted to pull him into a hug. She wanted him to kiss her and tell her it would all be alright. She wanted to go back to five minutes ago when the world wasn’t ending. Was it ending? Was this real? “I don’t know,” she echoed, taking a step back from his reach. 

Art stood with his hands outstretched, looking at her for confirmation. Looking at her like she knew the answers. Begging her to tell him it was fake. But how could she say that? They would never alarm the public like that on a national news station. They would never release that report unless they were absolutely sure. 

“Oh, God,” Arthur whispered. He could see it on her face, the slow sinking in of reality, of surety, that crossed her features. He finally let his hands fall to his side. “What do we do?”

Mary wanted to scream. How should she know? How could she possibly think when the entire world had amplified all the noise around her, pounding against her ears in a deafening roar? She felt with the fingers of her mind through her bones and sinews, trying to detect this unseen enemy working its way through her, mentally searching for this thing that would kill her. And him. And her children. 

Art was waiting for her to respond, but she kept backing away from him. She was afraid to touch him, afraid she would break like waves against the rocks if she went into his arms. She wanted to hold him close and listen to his heartbeat, but how could she do that knowing that very heart would stop so soon? The backs of her legs hit the rim of a laundry basket. Stooping quickly, Mary snatched the basket from the floor and perched it on her hip. 

“I have to do the laundry,” she heard herself say with determination. 

“You…you what?” Arthur stammered. 

“It’s piling up. I have to get this load in.” 

“Didn’t you hear what they just said?” Arthur asked.

“Yes, but the laundry still needs doing.”

Art gawked at her in utter disbelief. She didn’t blame him; she thought she was going crazy, too. Without waiting for his response, Mary turned on her heel and treaded purposefully across the room, through the hall, and down the basement steps. She carefully loaded the tub with her daughters’ school uniforms. She held her breath, knowing that if she smelled their scent on the clothes, she would unravel what little composure she was managing to maintain. She waited until the lid locked and the accompanying sound of water pouring into the machine filled the basement before she sank into a heap on the concrete floor.