I was looking for you in the garden.

The shadows of trees perforated bright skies. I found it hard to see in the glare.

The only response to a call was the rustle of leaves and birdsong. Your name diffusing through the undulations in the air.

The back door was open. I re-checked the fridge before continuing. Skipping stairs was a stretch but already a habit.

Years later, a couple of blocks from where we lived, I watched an asteroid break up on entry. Bright limbs streaking across a black sky, what were the chances? Miracles unfolding overhead. drinking in the park.

I could never explain the pit in my stomach; frantic, nervous pacing through the house.

If we act like things are not spiraling out of hand, does that make them so?

If a thought goes unspoken does that erase it?

The unbroached belief when my father died, that decades later subconscious echoes carried him through me. Though it never rears its head when it can be reasoned with.

The world ends on a quiet weekend. Not through diagnosis, collapses, emergencies.

Although I hate thinking that memories bend, cars are still parked outside. If the rapture happened, why was it unrecognizable? Why is the sky blue? Why did no one tell me? Did these things not announce themselves?

And when you found me, you told me to wash my hands. I had been playing outside.

And spoke nothing of the end of the world.

Does that mean it never happened?