Dialogue Concerning the Imminent Apocalypse

first apogee: transmission

Bearing nothing but his leather jacket and an affinity for the Kissing Lot, Lawrence had been the one to open the door for Connie Anne that night. The quantum mechanics extraordinaire had been hurling pebbles at the side of Louise's house for several minutes on end, and the biting cold was beginning to seep into her jacket. Had she traveled all the way across the bridge to Near Southeast to tell the Ring bearer about anything other than the contents of the plain box sitting on the pile of grey snow beside her, she would've left for Dolores's house to work on the Project already. But there in the knee-high garden weeds she remained simply because what else is there to do when you find proof of an imminent doom that isn't brought on by the Reds than tell your oldest friend?

Connie'd noticed Kate sitting in the Chevrolet in the driveway as she hesitantly crept around the front of Louise's house. She knocked on the main door once, twice, three times and waited for someone to stumble upon her. Assuming Kate and Lawrence were off to another one of their biweekly dates, Connie Anne's windswept hair, askew glasses, and rumpled button-up were probably the last thing Lawrence expected to find shivering behind the screen door. Similarly, contempt was one of the few expressions the young writer anticipated from him. She blinked.

"What in God's good name are you doing here?" he nearly spat the second he lay eyes on her. "You'd better run before my mama realizes you're here, or she'll call your parents and ask for permission to beat you herself."

Connie Anne was hardly fazed by his words as she peered over his broad shoulders into the house. Absentmindedly, she hiked the cardboard box in her hands higher on her torso. "Is Louise here? I need to speak with her."

Lawrence glanced up at Kate and the Chevrolet before glancing down at his broken Watch. "'Bout what?" he demanded.

"The contents of this box. It's a science experiment we've been working on. We coulda used you as our calculator if you hadn't—" Then, as abrupt as ever, Connie straightened and said, "Wait a second. Are you parents inside the house right now? What'd you say about your mama?"

Lawrence impatiently watched as Kate leaned over and began to honk the Chevrolet's horn loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Bedroom windows of houses around the block brightened as nosy neighbors peered out at the spectacle, and a dog on the porch a few houses over howled in irritation. It wasn't until Louise hollered something from upstairs that he finally let out a resigned sigh, decidedly brushing past Connie Anne. "Nevermind it. I gotta go. But if you tell Mama I let you in the house, it's a whippin' for the both of us."

As soon as Lawrence took off towards Kate, a Louise-shaped figure appeared at the head of the stairs and beckoned Connie up without delay. "Good grief! You've got a death wish coming here in the middle of the night!"

"It's hardly nine in the evening, Louise. And I'm not the only one with a death wish here what with this box!" Straightening her father's spectacles so that they sat firmly on the bridge of her nose, Connie Anne took the stairs three at a time to the second level of Louise's house. She was immediately ushered into Louise's room in which she sat on Louise's bed and watched as Louise's door shut carefully behind the two. Louise's eyes fell upon Connie as she stationed Louise's box on Louise's covers in Louise's room in Louise's unfamiliar house.

Connie Anne cleared her throat, wiping her hands on her pants. She'd traveled here to chat and chatter alongside Louise many times before, but to be on the opposite side of the window was a different concept entirely. Her posters in the far corner of the room made her feel less anxious, less like everything here was Louise's and more like she belonged, but the thought of either of her friend's parents coming into the room to find her with two black straps running along her shoulders underneath her sweater were enough to make her chest constrict with nerves. Had Louise just stuck her head outside to gaze up at the stars as she always did, she wouldn't be anywhere near her mama or papa and could wear whatever she liked.