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off others.” He struggled to keep the words simple enough for the public to understand. Speech faded to mumbles when time came for the media to ask their questions. Enlightenment sans illumination.
    I could lie and tell her no, or I could lie and tell her yes. So I take the chickenshit truth route.
    “I don’t know.”
    She speaks through the bile foam. “I don’t want to die.”
    I pull a tissue from my pocket so she can wipe her lips.
    “We all die sooner or later.”
    “Later sounds better.”
    “We should make a bucket list,” I say.
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s a list of everything we want to do before we die at the ripe old age of three digits. Like skydiving. Or swimming in a waterfall.”
    “What’s the point?”
    The absurdity of our situation fills my eyes with hot tears. Two women standing alone at the end of the world, talking about things we want to do before we die. We’ll be lucky to get one last hot meal.
    “Fun,” I tell her. “There’s a village up ahead. I thought maybe we’d check it out. What do you think?”
    “What would you do if I wasn’t here?”
    “Probably go around.”
    “So, why aren’t we?”
    “Because they might have medicine.”
    “Do you think I’m going to die soon?”
    I shake my head, let the rain take my tears where it will.
    “I want to get married and have a family,” she says. “I’m going to put that on my list.”
DATE: THEN
    “Forget it,” I tell Jenny .
    My sister’s voice is Minnie Mouse with a dash of fingernails down a chalkboard, but only when she wants to bend me to her will.
    “But he’s really nice. You’ll love him. Or maybe you’ll just love him a time or two.” I picture her waggling her eyebrows as she encourages me to have casual sex. Our mother would love that.
    “Nice,” I say.
    “And dreamy gorgeous.”
    “I have to wash my hair that night.”
    “I already told him about you. You have to come.”
    “Then untell him.”
    There’s a gap in her chatter. “You almost had me for a second. I can’t. That would be rude. You have to come.”
    “I won’t,” I say, and hang up.
    My mother rolls out the guilt parade and slaps my buttons like my psyche is a game of Whac-A-Mole.
    “… two years,” she drones on. “That’s how long it felt. You were the stubbornest baby ever. Not like your sister. At least she had the courtesy to come two weeks early. Three hours. She wanted to come out. Not like you. That was the longest thirty-six hours of my life. …”
    I have two choices: attend my sister’s dinner party or tie a plastic sack around my mother’s head until she runs out of nagging. I choose the evil that doesn’t come with a felony conviction.

THREE
DATE: NOW
    T he village appears over the road’s hump: Aphrodite rising from the water. She steps through the never-ending drizzle to greet us. There’s no knowing whether she’s friend or foe, but I guess she could say the same about us. In this world everything is a fat question mark. Taxes are no longer certain—only death.
    We pass under a stone arch, the reddish brown of clay earth. The whole village is garbed in this same shade: clusters of earthen cottages with shallow porches and roughly shingled roofs; a handful of shops with wares gathering dust behind grimy windows; a church with its windows shuttered and high wooden doors bolted.
    There is a calm that feels anything but peaceful.
    We stop. Turn. Inspect the deserted street. Nothing moves. Not even a twitch of lace in a window.
    “There isn’t anybody here.” Lisa cups her hands, yells through them. “Hello?” Her words ricochet off the deserted buildings.
    “Don’t.”
    Her hands fall away. “I didn’t think.”
    “It’s okay. It’s just best to be quiet, that’s all.”
    “Why? What do you think is out there?”
    “Desperate people.” And monsters.
    “My dad said that’s why we had to stay at the farm. Because at least there we had food and no one was trying to fight us for