In the End

By Donna L. Greenwood

“When they drop the bomb, there’ll be nothing left worth surviving for,” he said.

And then they dropped the bomb.

I couldn’t bring myself to gobble up the pills or drink the vodka he had provided. He had no such trouble. Halfway through the vodka, he told me a joke about a cross-eyed teacher who couldn’t control her pupils. I didn’t laugh; I just watched him die. I breathed and drank water. His flesh began to turn to moisture.

I climbed out of the hole he had dug, surveyed the scorched earth and went in search of other betrayed women