The world is going to end in a few hours. Imagine if I were the only one who knew. I might go into a frenzy trying to convince everyone else, or I might just quietly call all my folks and say all my goodbyes, and they would wonder why I was acting so weird. (Fortunately, however, I am not the only one who knows. I think most people know. Perhaps everyone. If anyone still doesn’t know, at least they’re starting to suspect, or else they’re totally not paying attention.) There was no point in trying to call anyone; the lines were dead. My family were all miles away. My girlfriend was in Alaska. I would have been a damned fool to try to get somewhere that far off, and die, clenching the wheel, amidst the traffic of some useless jam of terror. So I did what came naturally: I pulled a dress on over my head. My skin felt cool and creamy against the fabric as I walked out on the porch. I went over to my best friend’s house. She was pawing through a boot-sized shoe box, crying over everything that she had lost or mist. I said look here, girl! There’s no time for that! She came over to me, all plumpness and black gauze, with auburn hair, and we coalesced into each other. I kissed her. She tasted fat and sweet. Her tears gave way to other tears. After a while, we went inside and sat down on the couch. Outside, streamers were flailing, a band was walloping a Sousa tune, and kids were screaming. Some dogs were running around, scrappy and free. But the air smelt fresh coming in her three front windows, and that was what we wanted. We sat curled together like a double jumbo pretzel. I kissed her soft wide face from time to time. My hand was nestled in her warm pussy, and she lightly kneaded my penis with one hand through the sensuous fabric of the dress. Then sitting like this together, thrumming in each other’s heat, we talked. As we sat, our words came slower with bigger spaces around them, our breathing slowed, our neck muscles unknotted, our hands became the grace of modern improv ballerinas. We were breathing each other’s air, kissing each other’s sentences away. It was the slowest, plumpest build toward an indefinable climax I have ever experienced. We became one liquid/solid organism of pleasure. Softly, rhythmically, with urgency and unabashed smiling, we squeezed each other here and there. We were laughing our end of the couch away! Just then her little brother came in, and plopped himself down in front of the TV. He turned it on, and started listening to the news of the end of the world. By then we were so viscous with pleasure, we just laughed. I kissed her neck. It seemed especially bronze and fine today. I kissed her eyes. They seemed especially warm and full of recognition. For the first time in my life What the hell, I thought, my girlfriend is in Alaska. “Are you ready for the end of the world?” the anchorman inquired. Cut to a handy chart of tips on what to do and what not to do about the coming of the end of the world. But me and her, we squeezed together, loosened apart, squeezed together, loosened apart, squeezed together, loosened apart, squeezed together, loosened apart, squeezed together, loosened apart, squeezed together, loosened apart, squeezed together, loosened apart, melted together, swirled and swam into each other’s features, skin, bone and blood and even love. For an instant I thought, There is no white-out! Our mistakes just sit there on the page! And then, laughing and in harmony, we came. Later, warm and buxom in the shower, we talked about our plans for dinner. She shaved my neck. I scrubbed her back. Her toes. What would you do for dinner on the last day of the world? We went for pizza and a pitcher of red beer, in a place with oaken tables, cool dark booths, stained glass windows, and a jukebox thumping happily in the corner. You know, she said to me, stretching the cheese into a fibre-optic line between the world of pizza and her teeth, there’s a flat rock on top of Mount Saint Elmo. I’d like to sit there one more time again. And, as always, it started to rain. I’m going to leave us there, poised in a pizza joint beside the street, mid-pizza, mid-confab, mid-love-affair, encloaked within the gathering darkness of the last night of the last day of the world. Don’t be sad; I love you.