DOOMSDAY DANCING

BY: ELLA BAKER

“Did you let him fuck you?”

“Blue,” said Daisy. “Would you please shut up about it?”

Blue spread butter on a raisin bagel, forearms aching on the table. The pair worked around each other, dancing through the smell of coffee and toasted bread. “I bet you did. I bet you let him last Friday, after David’s party. You two were snoggling all night.”

“Jeremy’s not that bad.”

“He literally smells like dirty underwear,” said Blue. “On a good day.”

Daisy opened her mouth, but someone tapped the register bell before she could say a thing. There stood a tall man in a full suit, hair slicked back into thick tar strands.

“Run along, then,” said Blue, shooing Daisy off and bagging the bagel. The guy who had ordered it waited with a frown near the counter, checking his watch for the fifth time in the last minute. Blue shoved the thing at him, smiling wide, and said, “Good day.”

Something was happening at the register.

“You’re not listening,” said the tall man, to Daisy. “There’s no time, you—He’s going to wash away the wickedness of the world by, well, by wiping it all clean. We’re on the cusp of it!”

“Sir, I’m sorry. Please, just tell me what you’d like.”

The man growled and buried a hand in his hair, mussing it up. When he looked back at Daisy, he leaned far in, looming over the register like a sick night predator. He had these dangerous eyes, wide and deep green. Blue was at Daisy’s side now, holding her back with one arm out. The tall man had his hands flat on the tabletop. He spat, “The end of all flesh! The end of it! All flesh, all flesh, all flesh.”

“Leave,” said Blue. Customers were watching. A woman and her child. An old man in a pit-stained shirt.

“And we deserve it, too,” he said. “I know it now. We deserve the end of it, all of you—all flesh, all flesh.”

He backed up in a sudden way, body pulsing, fingers jumping off the tabletop like they’d started to sting. He shook his head, a couple of tears making their way down his cheek. And then he stumbled on, out the door. The air shifted as the thing shut behind him, colder in the space, as if he’d taken all the heat out with him.

After some beats of silence, Blue said, “Well, someone slept on the wrong side of the bed.”

Everyone stared at her, disturbed by the event and all too still. The woman in the corner grabbed her child and hurried out. Their departure left another wave of chill. Blue started to wipe the back back counter, humming and unbothered. The table lights twinkled on. The pit-stained man left a minute later.

“Why would he say that?” asked Daisy. She toyed with a strand of hair, anxious and pale.

“What?”

“All that flesh stuff. Why did he say it?”

“I don’t know. He’s a creep. Just like that Jeremy of yours, heh.”

“No.” Daisy’s eyes darted about. “Something’s wrong.”

“Beautiful, but stupid, you. Probably, he thought he could pick you up by convincing you the world was ending.” Blue danced a wooing twirl, acting faint, almost bumping into the counter as she impersonated the tall man, “Oh, young lady, won’t you spend this last night with me?” Blue’s uniform was colored red to match the café tables. She never buttoned it all the way up.

“You’re never going to let it go, are you?” said Daisy.

“Oh, darling,” said Blue. She stepped into Daisy’s space, diamond eyes flicking down to her lips and then back up. “I don’t give a fuck who you let in your pants.” Moments ago, it’d been clear outside. Baby blue, gray with morning. Now the clouds gleamed a pale storm orange. Daisy’s eyes turned glossy; she was tired, and like always, Blue’s words had a deep effect on her. She wiped an arm across her face and, at that, Blue’s expression faltered. “Dude,” said Blue, in a much kinder tone, “Don’t worry about that guy.”

Daisy kept her eyes hidden with her sleeve for a while, shaking. Blue checked around to make sure nobody was watching them. The dining area was still empty. She glanced at Cook through the back wall opening. He had himself turned away, hands deep in the dish sink, humming along with the music of his mind. The sky rumbled some, but it was distant, and neither of the girls reacted.

“Maybe we do deserve it,” said Daisy. She looked at her hands. “Like he said.”

“We deserve the end of all flesh?”

Daisy nodded, dark and slow.

Blue bit her lip. “You know I was only joking about the Jeremy stuff, really.”

Daisy said, “Were you?”

Something crashed in the back.

Blue and Daisy eyes whipped in the direction of the sound—at Cook, or at where he’d been a few seconds ago. After three, four, five shocked seconds, theystumbled their way to the back.

A white plate lay splintered on the floor, shards swimming with a couple of forks. The faucet ran on full pressure. The back door swung with recent use and when Daisy opened it, a deep gust of wind poured into the space. No Cook in sight. Blue turned off the sink and stared at the mess.

“His car’s still here,” said Daisy. Tears still clung to her cheeks, her chin.

The sky’s orange unsettled the air, left it lukewarm and stale. A storm was on its way, really now. Blue crept over the splinters and met Daisy at the doorway. “I saw him, like, ten seconds ago,” she said. “He can’t have gone far.”

“We should call Mr. Steve.”

“Uh,” said Blue. A beat of thunder. No rain. “Sure. This came on pretty fast, don’t you think?”

Daisy grabbed her phone from her back pocket, swallowed hard, and dialed for Mr. Steve. Blue watched over her shoulder. Immediately, the line disconnected. She pressed it again, again and again.

“Shit,” said Blue. She was shaking. “The storm’s probably messing with signals.”

The outside color deepened with every second. Thunder came hard and often, now accompanied by faraway lightning. The orange flickered with every strike, more fire than storm.

Daisy stared at her phone. She went into other apps. Nothing loaded. She tried to call her mother and text her sister. Neither went through.

“What is this?” said Daisy, stepping so that she was all the way outside. The clouds twirled in unnatural spirals and blinked like alarms.

“A nasty storm.”

“Where’s Cook?”

“Probably in one of his moods again.”

“But he didn’t take his car.”

“He lives close by, right? Maybe he walked.”

“I’m not ready to die.”

“Jesus,” Blue shook her head, “You’re not going to die.”

Daisy started crying again—a quiet, gentle act. Blue moved to comfort her with a touch to the shoulder, but changed her mind. She stopped herself before Daisy noticed the motion. Wind zipped by and it started to rain.

“Let’s go back.” Blue nudged them both inside, and Daisy dragged along, faraway.

They made their way to the kitchen and stood there, sporting morbid moods. Police sirens rang in the distance, and they didn’t stop for many minutes. The fresh morning bread bag sat on the countertop beside one of the many kettles. After a particularly heavy stroke of thunder, the lights hanging over the café tables flickered. The microwave clock blinked 12:00 in its electric green.

Eventually, Daisy started to dig through the drawer under the register. She pulled out a pen and the pad of yellow-lined paper that they used to note void transactions. She wiped her tears on her sleeve and sank to the floor. She wrote, — HAIL MARY, FULL OF GRACE, THE LORD IS WITH THEE—

Blue sank down with her. She pressed the back of her head against the side of the counter, shut her eyes, and said, “You’re still into that stuff?”

“A little. You’re not?”

“No,” said Blue, “Haven’t been since middle school, probably.”

Daisy looked up for a while, breathing low. And then she started writing again, —BLESSED ART THOU AMONG WOMEN—

“Stop it.” Blue still had her eyes closed.

“No.”

“Praying won’t help you. You’ve sinned too much already.”

“That’s not how it works.”

Blue laughed. The rain pattered on, getting harder. Somehow, it didn’t gray the sky. The clouds just kept getting more orange. “I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.”

“God is forgiving.”

Blue said, “Not after one prayer, he isn’t.”

Daisy gave her a horrible look, and when Blue finally opened her eyes, she was smiling. They stared at each other for a long while. Eventually, when the eye contact got to be too much, Daisy went right back to writing, —AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF THY WOMB, JESUS. HOLY MARY—

“Did you actually like me last summer?” asked Blue. Her voice was higher than usual. Daisy’s pen stopped.

“This isn’t really the time.”

“I mean, if we’re truly doomed to die, I don’t see why we shouldn’t talk about it before.”

Daisy took a shattered breath. She wrote as she spoke, or tried to, huffing through her teeth, praying with her pen, —MOTHER OF GOD— “You think it’s simple.”

A dark beat of thunder—this sick, bone-deep sound. Blue’s expression changed. “It’s got me mad, you know? Can’t tell if any of it was real. Can’t get a read on you. Can’t figure it out.”

Daisy wrote so hard that her letters left little rips in the paper, —PRAY FOR US SINNERS— “It doesn’t matter if I like you.”

—NOW—

“Because the world is going to end?”

—AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH—

“No,” said Daisy. She squeezed her prayer into her palm, shrinking it to a little ball, and chucked it and the pen across the way. Daisy was beautiful and vicious. “Because I can’t seem to love anything right.”

More thunder, crashing and crashing. Far too loud. The wind blew so fast that they could hear it through the glass. In a slow movement, Blue ran two fingers down the side of Daisy’s face. And against the odds, Daisy leaned into it, limbs melting like they always did when Blue touched her in this soft way. Daisy breathed and breathed, and then she said, “I wish you didn’t like me. It would be easier to kiss you that way.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“God,” said Daisy. “Tell me about it.”

Sirens rang outside again, louder than before and lasting a long while. It was a sobering sound. The lights flickered once again, rattling just as much as the lightning. Almost in sync with it. And then, they flicked off for good. All warm colors, but so dark. The wind picked up, vexed with them and unforgiving; it had a nasty temper, screaming like this instead of singing. It’d become so orange outside, the clouds gave some effect of flames. They’d lost their chance at penance. It was time to start again.

Things moved fast from there. The front door blew open and this got Blue and Daisy standing. The bells that jingle at the entrance rang wildly before flying right off.

“Fuck,” said Blue, backing up. Wind from the door knocked down one stool, and then another, and then another, and then the napkins, tables, all of it fallen and knocked around. Blue pulled Daisy’s arm, but Daisy’s eyes were glued to the mess, brilliant and wide. Blue said, “Daisy, c’mon, please.”

“It’s really happening.”

“Holy shit, Daisy, get out of the—”

A row of mugs fell to the floor a few feet away from them, shattering white. The coffee machine leaked, its ichor spilling over the edge of the counter in thick swells. There came this incredible sense of weightlessness, napkins and splinters held up by the wind. It was not better in the back. The draft, like a flood, unnatural, chased them into the space.

Blue yelled, “Fuck, fuck! What the fuck do we do?” Daisy held her hand on the back door handle. The top button of her uniform had come loose. Her hair swept all around her face. “We go out there.”

“What?”

“Outside.”

“Daisy.”

Daisy smiled her classic, heartbreaking smile. Her tears flowed free. “Come with me.”

Blue kept shaking her head. “Please, we can—” “

You know what this is,” said Daisy. “There’s nowhere to go but out.”

The dishes ached together in the sink. The ground actually shook, and the back door rattled hard with it. Blue started to cry, face twisting before it crumbled. Daisy used the moment to grab her hand and pull them to the back door and outside. Blue did not cry gently. She roared and wailed along with the world.

Somehow, they kept on their feet as they passed into the back lot. Water pounded down, drenching them both instantly.

“Look at this,” said Daisy. It was too loud for Blue to hear her, though. The wind screamed at them from every direction, and Daisy had gotten to be steps ahead of Blue. Daisy’d started spinning, soul-swaying, laughing herself silly. The sky might have been lifting her off the ground.

Blue stared down. She and the clouds cried together.

“Blue!” screamed Daisy, when she did look back at her. She lumbered over to Blue, and when she got close enough, she grabbed the girl’s face with both hands. “Please, dance with me.”

A tree fell close by, but it made no sound. Blue shook very hard. She looked up at the sky—red now, like a bloody dream—and then back at Daisy. “It’s over,” said Daisy, smiling on. “Let it be.”

“I love you,” said Blue. She pressed her lips to the side of Daisy’s mouth and heaven lifted them off the concrete, for certain now. Daisy laughed and kissed Blue again harder, very hard.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, but Blue did not hear her over the sky. Daisy pulled Blue’s head into her shoulder and spun them both in circles.

—AMEN—