Happily Ever After At the End of Days
Karen L. Abrahamson
Smashwords Edition. Electronic edition published by Twisted Root Publishing January 2012 Happy Ever After at The End of Days Copyright © 2012 by Karen L. Abrahamson.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Happily Ever After At The End of Days
“Oh my god, no!” Agatha Cluney’s vision faded to black as she eyed the tabloid magazine rack at the Value Food Mart checkout stand. She staggered against the counter, and clutched her heart, her pounding blood sure to give her a hemorrhage.
Her cry reverberated down the long lines of empty shelves in the empty aisles of the last supermarket in the neighborhood. How could it be? How could it be? She pressed her vinyl purse to her chest. Her ragged breath sounded loud in her ears.
Because she was a failure.
Diminutive Dottie Murphy caught her arm. “What? What is it?”
Agatha tried to catch her breath around the pain in her chest. But what did it matter if she died right here? She motioned her best friend to the row of tabloid headlines – the newspapers were only thing that seemed to get replenished regularly in the depleted grocery deep in the heart of a depleted city.
The cashier stopped ringing in the two cans of beans of the customer in front of Agatha and craned her neck to see what the fuss was about.
“What am I going to do?” Agatha said. “I can’t compete with kids and old men. What are we going to do?”
The headline leapt across the first tatty grey paper: ‘SEVEN DISASTER PREDICTIONS COME TRUE: World Braces for End’. The other papers carried various permutations of the same. “BOY SAVES FAMILY BY PREDICTING MOUNT RAINIER EXPLOSION”. “GRANDFATHER DOWSES RIVER THAT SAVES LOS ANGELES.”
Not that Agatha could actually read the headlines. Her eyes were too filled with tears. She’d convinced herself long ago that it was okay to pretend to have psychic powers to separate people from their money, but since the world went to hell and the signs of the End began, she’d begun to have doubts. And as her doubts had increased, her income had decreased. She turned to Dottie and wrung her hands.
“I’m just an old carnival fortuneteller. We both know what that’s worth these days. No one’s going to want my services, what with real visions coming to everyone else.”
Dottie gripped her arm, the perfect friend with her pale pink skin, white helmet of hair, and her loyal gaze.
“Don’t you worry, Aggie. You’re… we’re… going to do just fine. You’re a good, honest woman and you’ve got lots of real talent.” Dottie patted Agatha’s hand. “Remember when you made that prediction that Charles and Camilla would get married. It came true, didn’t it? You try hard and that’s what counts.” She picked up one of the papers and began flipping through the pages.
“But I get it wrong, Dottie. They got a divorce didn’t they? I get it wrong a lot….” Her voice faded and she shook her head. Her layers of fake gold and jewel necklaces rattled over her matronly chest. She just couldn’t tell Dottie the truth – that she was just as psychic as Dottie was – or – or the girl at the checkout counter. Or anyone! God had made her that way and one day soon he’d punish her for it. “I just want people to be happy and these days that’s hard, I guess.”
Dottie patted Agatha’s hand again.
Dottie was so faithful; the dog-faced girl grown into a truly dog-faced woman. The little woman’s eyes scanned the paper and she chuckled. She poked her finger at the story.
“That 30 year old female graduate student that prophesied the explosion of Mt. Rainier last week – well seems the Tabloid got suspicious given the Bible doesn’t talk about young women having visions – only young and old men. They did some checking and found out the supposed ‘she’ was a cross-dressing ‘he’.” She looked back at Agatha. “Now why aren’t you smiling at that? These young bucks and old men and children think they’ve got all the business sowed up, but you’ve got years of experience, Aggie. Cheer up. As your manager I’ll think of something.”