A View of the End

Daniel stood at the 360-degree window and sighed. Below him the blue globe of the earth continued its endless spinning in the void. The continents and the oceans, even the clouds, looked like they always had. During the six months he had been up there he had looked out at the planet that had been his home thousands of times. Today, however, things had never looked the same and, yet, so different.

It had happened so fast. That was the thing that just kept circling and circling in his head. How had things happened so fast? One minute he and Katherine were just two scientists conducting experiments in orbit around the earth, entirely forgotten by the general public, and the next they were the last living human beings in the universe.

"Anything different?" Asked the soft voice from below.

He looked down and saw Katherine floating up towards the glass-domed room where he sat. The space station hummed around them both and everything seemed so normal. Nothing had been normal for the last three months. Not since that first transmission.

"It's the end!" The voice had screamed. Neither Daniel or Katherine could even tell who was on the microphone. It wasn't their mission commander, Neil. The voice was screaming, hysterical. "All dead! It's spreading! It's all over!"

Next there had just been this hysterical laughter. The laughter had caused Katherine to burst into tears. Then there has been strange, wet, gurgling sounds. Then there was silence. There had been nothing but silence since.

"Nothing new," Daniel sighed.

He scooted over a bit to let her sit beside him. She put her hand in his. They had grown close over the last few months. Both of them had been married when they first came up here. However, as they had picked up the radio and television transmissions from below they soon realized they were no longer married. The comfort of their bodies had been about the only comfort they had had for weeks now.

"What's next?" She asked.

Daniel sighed again. He turned to look up at the moon which was just now catching the rays of the sun. He wished he could get there. It would be better to die there.

"I think you know," he said softly.

She cried then. He held here. It seemed like there should be more to say, but there wasn't. They still didn't know exactly what had happened down there but they had put some of it together.

Something or someone had made a mistake. Something had been let loose and it spread in the atmosphere, like spores in the wind. It made people sick and then it made them crazy. Then, well, then, it seemed to make their bodies dissolve. No one knew for sure where it had come from, but it spread across the globe within weeks. The last of the television transmissions had not been pleasant. Daniel had cried along with Katherine as they watched the announcer, babbling, hysterical, start bleeding from his eyes and mouth.

They had been very quiet for days afterward. They ate their food. They worked up a way to preserve the food and water they had. However, they had both known this day was inevitable. There was just the question of how they would die. They could starve or die of thirst or they could try and take things into their own hands.

"The airlock?" Katherine asked.

Daniel nodded. He felt he should look at her. Maybe he should kiss her. Instead, he kept staring into the darkness. "We can get into it together," he said, "and it should be quick."

"I'm frightened," she said through tears.

He put his arm around her and held her. He wanted to take her back to their sleeping quarters and make love to her. At the same time, that was just delaying. They had delayed enough.

"Me too," he admitted in a whisper.

They floated slowly through the space station. They paused to shed more tears. He did kiss her at least once more and they let it linger for a long time. As they passed the rooms they shut down the electronics and lights and whatever they could shut down and still operate the airlock.

"Will it hurt?" She asked as they opened the door to the airlock.

Daniel shook his head even though he really had no idea. "I doubt it."

They climbed inside. There was a small window that looked out and both of them stood and looked for a moment. They held hands and they both put their hands on the button that would open the airlock. The endless cold and absolute airlessness of space waited for them. The earth, a giant, blue dead rock beneath them, kept spinning.

"I love you," she said.

"No," Daniel said, "but it's close enough."

They pushed the button together.