What Comes After | ✔️

Chapter 7

July 4

We're one day into the volcanic eruptions and everything feels so suffocating. Grandma and Grandpa moved into my bedroom, so I had to move into Mira and May's bedroom. I haven't shared bedrooms in a while, and it feels awful. No more privacy or time for myself.

Today was our first day of reduced meals. Mom and Mira tried to make it better by making pho. They took three packages of noodles (so that each person gets half a package) and mixed in some green onions from the pots in our house along with some canned chicken. It tasted pretty good, and I guess it made my day slightly better.

I've been thinking about the bucket list thing a lot today. I wanted to put something that would be impossible to achieve, like going skydiving or sailing across the ocean, but I think Charles is taking this seriously, so I will too.

I can't think of anything though. The only thing I've got is the "Make Charles do something embarrassing" one and that doesn't even count because it's not specific. I don't know how to explain this, but it feels like having five choices (well four now) is just not enough to capture everything I want to do for this summer, but at the same time, it feels like too much.

I don't think I'll ever be able to see Charles again. The ash is still snowing down onto our town. We've got about two inches over the roads. It must be worse farther up north. Some of the towns would be covered in many feet of that suffocating ash.

I wonder when it'll rain. At least then the ash won't billow around every time a gust of wind passes through.

July 5

More ash today.

Mom and Dad went out to try to clear up the ash from the rooftops. Dad is worried that if too much ash piles up onto the roof, it might collapse. Every time that they scrape off another layer of ash, the grayish dust blossoms and enshrouds our house before settling down.

It's been getting colder too. With little sunlight reaching the ground, the temperature only seems to get cooler and cooler. In the middle of the afternoon, the temperature was in the low seventies, but that's only because we have an ocean next to us to stabilize the temperature. I would imagine that the temperatures in the Central Valley would be much colder, maybe low sixties or high fifties.

"I told you everything was going to get bad," I said to May.

"What's your point?" May said.

"Just saying," I said.

"It's not like we could do anything about it," she said. "It happened, so yeah."

"Aren't you worried?" I asked.

"It's not like that would help anything," she said. "Just wait and everything will go back to normal. We'll probably have to go back to school and be stuck in boring classes by the time August hits."

"Plus," she added. "Didn't you always want an apocalypse to happen?"

"When did I say that?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "You were pretty obsessed with apocalyptic stuff."

I guess she's right. Everything about an apocalypse seems almost appealing. When everyone dies, it gives you a chance to start over, a fresh beginning and almost a new chance of life. The life and death stakes make life seem like it actually matters in a strange, twisted way. Like your actions have really real consequences.

But here, there's no chance at a fresh start. Mom, Dad, Mira, May, Grandpa, Grandma, and I are all stuck in the same home, trapped by the snowfall of dust. Our worlds seem to get smaller and smaller— not bigger like all apocalypses. And the worst part of all that is the life and death stakes can't be changed. It's not like a zombie apocalypse where you can just kill the zombies and win. No one can stop the volcanoes, not me, not May, not any of the scientists or governments.