Dec 21st, 1997 - 11:42 PM
“You should stop smoking.”
A rusty but beloved Honda Civic remains parked in the middle of some remote road far from home. In the passenger seat beside you, Derek, with puffy red eyes, looks at you with the most unimpressed expression conceivable. He takes no initiative to extinguish the smoke of his thin, flimsy cigarette, and you make no effort to impose any action on him. You crack a smile, mentally debating whether to get under your friend’s skin (which you probably shouldn’t do, ‘cause he’d been crying for the past half hour) or hold his hand (which you probably also shouldn’t do, ‘cause you don’t know where it would lead you).
A pause. Derek lifts up the cigarette to his lips. Your eye twitches just a little at the sight.
You take a glance down at your cell phone, which had been miraculously surviving on low battery for the past five hours, and—unsurprisingly—there’s radio silence from both of your parents Another eye twitch.
“Or,” you speak up again, grumbling just loud enough for him to hear you, “You can do it outside instead of polluting my car.”
“Screw off. Your car reeks of gasoline anyways. And it’s cold out there.”
“Yet you’ve never complained about the smell of my car until today. Shoo, shoo.”
He glowers at you, but you can’t really take his contemptuous glare seriously with the way his ginormous puffer jacket engulfs his entire body, making him resemble an angry seal. You think he looks adorable, if not comical, with his red-rimmed eyes and nose protruding from his sulky, marshmallow-esque frame. After an intense staring match, Derek concedes with a weary sigh, crushing the butt of the cigarette against the dashboard and throwing it out the window.
“Hey, that’s a fire hazard now,” you quip.
“The pavement is damp; it’ll be fine.”
“Not if my ‘smelly’ car leaks gasoline. You should’ve left the butt in the car.”
“So we can start a fire in the car instead?”
“…I was going to say that we could send my car back to both our parents as a really vile Schrodinger’s box for a Christmas present, but that works too.”
“Pfft—”
Derek chokes out mortified laughter, stifling it into the sleeve of his jacket, and you lean against your steering wheel to get a better look at him. You almost regret doing so: the car sucked the warmth from your skin, and you don’t want to gamble having to use up the car’s gas if you turn on the heater. Still, you let yourself indulge in Derek’s laughter, watching his face as your heart simultaneously gnaws at and jumps in your chest. It was a grim, terrible joke, but it elicited something other than a sob from your friend, and that’s more than enough for you.
Your moment of shared silence is intruded by the radio, cutting the air with an abrupt static, followed by a chilling sound of orchestra trumpets. Your heart sinks all the way down to your stomach as the radio hums the haunting tune of “Nearer My God to Thee.”
It’s December 21st, 1997, and CNN’s “Doomsday Video,” and it’s morbid use of “Nearer My God to Thee,” or some other rendition of a “tell your family that you love them” song, is being broadcasted throughout every radio station on your planet—perhaps as an attempt to embrace the end of the world in a mutual, collective effort. As if there was no other way to assure the masses that, “It’s okay; I’m still here with you.” You think to yourself that CNN could have chosen a better anthem to mark the end of the world.
You fight the urge to lurch forward and throw up as the trumpets , and you look back at your best friend, whose face is as white as a ghost, with eyes wide and frozen. You immediately start pushing the radio buttons, trying to find one broadcast that isn’t playing a Doomsday track, and settle on the station playing one last “Happy Birthday” song for some five-year-old Debbie Nguyen from Ohio.
In an attempt to be an anchor, you tentatively reach for his hand and hold it between yours. You let the “Happy Birthday” song hum quietly as your friend squeezes his eyes shut. It’s the end of the world, and you should probably be ashamed that the only thing you’re thinking of is how beautiful he is, spiritually and physically.
“I feel like…” Derek begins. He’s squeezing your hands and your thumb is rubbing circles onto his.
“I feel like I should be making some grand confession right now. Like this is some cliche movie scene where you’re going to move to the other side of the world and it’s my last chance to tell you that I’m in love with you or something. Or admit to cheating on last week’s biochem final.”
“I too am in love with you. Please accept my feelings as I kneel to the floor, begging you to go on a date at Applebee’s next Friday.”
Derek’s fingernails dig into your knuckles, and you let out a yelp in surprise (and pain) before choking out a cackle. Your laughing seems to agitate your friend further, prompting him to smack your shoulder repeatedly in admonition. He throws out a few colorful words before chastising you.
“I hate you.”
“You can’t take it back!”
“You’re so tactless. I can’t believe I’m friends with you. Why is that your first response?”
“I’m not joking, though. I heard Applebee’s gross-as-hell chicken tenders are twenty percent off on Fridays. And I am in love with you.”
Derek sucks in his breath, whether in relief or in fear, you don’t know. His hand becomes rigid, still clasped between yours, and you don’t know how to placate your friend. You continue because there is nothing else you can do.
“We can do the ‘professing our undying love to each other’ thing later, you know. This handsome face isn’t getting any older. Oh, and I guess we’ll have to wait until you finish school and all that crap.”
Derek squeezes your hand so tightly that you feel like your circulation is cut off, but you’re okay with it as long as it’s him. You have to lean closer to him as he chokes out, “I guess you make enough from fixing dingy cars to pay off my med school debt.”
Feigning hurt, you let out a mocked, betrayed gasp. “So that’s all I am to you? Financial aid?”
Derek laughs boyishly, theatrically patting your hand in reassurance. “Yep. You’re also paying for our tickets to watch Happy Together and Titanic. I’ve wanted to watch them for a while.”
It’s December 21st, 1997. The entire globe is bracing itself for the imminent galactic collision of the Milky Way and its neighboring Andromeda galaxy.
If the world ends tonight, you’re spending your last day alive in your putrid gasoline car with your best friend in the passenger seat, laughing to a distorted “Happy Birthday” song on the radio.
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