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June 19 - October 26, 2025
a woman in the hall across sang opera this morning.” “Was it any good?” I asked. “Awful,” Vera said. “Just awful.” I smiled. “Why the smile? Less competition?” “It’s … just nice to picture.” “Maybe we inspired her.” Vera beamed. “See. Helping.” “You just want applause.” Ginta sounded quietly annoyed. “If I do,” Vera said, “it’s ‘cause applause is a good indication that people are happy.” “It’s fine if you just like applause, too,” I said. “Any reason is fine.” “I don’t even know mine.” Ginta played with her empty sleeve. “I didn’t have anything else to do. Is that awful? I enjoyed it, really,
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No response, of course. They automatically screened out any Mum-pings from their connectors. And pings from their friends were, I assumed, non-existent. The apocalypse itself could not raise teenagers out of bed at this hour.
It didn’t take us long to realise we shared the same disdain for bad coffee and self-entitlement, and although our politics were eons apart we mostly agreed to disagree.
Micha and I still argue about politics sometimes, but not often. It’s a hollow game when your worst fears have been realised. But when we do, I never point out that we’re all living together on Keelan’s dad’s farm like hippy socialists. And she never mentions how I guard our precious stores with the puritanic zeal of a heartless economic rationalist.
“You know what I like about the apocalypse?” Sam says as he drives us up the mountain. “Everyone is basically trying to preserve something. It’s not like in the movies where there are always roving bands of armed bandits.”
