The morning Sun blasts through the windows in the great room hitting me square in the face. It's unwelcome luminance adding to the litany of scourges I currently endure; I'm uncomfortably hot, sweaty and nauseous. I roll off the couch in an avalanche of swearing, the pistol clatters across the hardwood floor. I'm hung-over as hell and still in the same bloody, stinking clothes I've had on for days. My skull threatens to split wide-open at any moment. This is the downside of persistence.

I kick-start the coffee maker, pop a couple Tylenol and trudge to the shower. Swaying unsteadily, I stay under the relaxing spray until every last ounce of hot water is spent. I shave and try not to make eye contact with the man in the mirror. I try to force myself to return to a routine, normal life, a life where I am a husband and father, but it feels artificial. I have become the square peg in the round hole, maybe I have always been, and I am just becoming acutely aware of that fact.

I have coffee and toast, alone in the silence of the empty house. I move stiffly about the kitchen, wash my dishes and stare out the window at the frost covered rooftops across the yard. I'm not sure what to do next. I'm not sure what to do from this point forward in my life.

I consider walking over to visit Hartt. Feeling chilled, I decide to grab a sweater. As I walk down the hall toward the bedroom the door bell rings. It rings four more times before I can get to the door, I can see the outline of a small body through the frosted sidelight. My heart jumps.

I swing the door wide open and fall to my knees on the doormat. Heath leaps into my arms yelling, "Daddy, you're home!" He wraps his skinny arms around my neck and squeezes with all his might. 

"I am now," I say returning the hug as a nearly unbearable sense of happiness floods over me.

Ari stands, smiling at the bottom of the stairs, Merida and Diesel sit at his feet.

I mouth the word "Thank-you." Ari nods.

"I found this stuck to the door Daddy." Heath breaks away from the hug and waves a small envelope at me.

I open it and find a note from the hospital. I read the first paragraph twice, just to make sure I understand what it says.

"They have Kate! She's okay... Mommy's okay Heath!" There is a great, ponderous weight suddenly lifted from me.

"Can we go see Mommy?" Heath asks.

"Not right away," I explain, still reading through the note. "It says still no visits, but she is in stable condition and resting comfortably in the ICU."

"What's ICU, Daddy?"

"It's a room where they take special care of you when you have a bad owie buddy."

"When can Mommy come home?"

"I don't know, it might take a while for her to get better."

Ari takes this moment to slip away, but he has to stop when Merida tries to follow Diesel back to his house. I collect my dog and thank Ari a couple more times. I have trouble letting go of his hand once I shake it.

"It is nothing." He says humbly. Although I hope he realizes it is the polar opposite of nothing - it is everything. "I see you in few days, when things better, yes?"

"Yes, maybe sooner." I answer.

After ushering my charges back into the house we go about having as normal a day as possible. We play board games, I make Heath his favourite dishes, we watch a couple movies. I do everything I can to keep my mind off the dark places it struggles to go to.

By mid-afternoon I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, Heath and I run and dog, visit the chickens, curse Dan and do a quick search of the yard for the cat. My hand often wanders, searching for the butt of the pistol, I need constant assurance that it is there. I tell myself to remember to dig the holsters out of storage. We walk to the breakwall and sit on a large limestone boulder and watch the gray-green water, whipped into a fury by the steady west wind.

"Is mommy gonna die?" Heath blurts out between crashing waves.

"No Heath, mommy is not going to die. The doctors will make her better, it's just going to take some time. She'll be pretty tired when she gets home, you're going to have to help out around the house even more. Can you do that?"

"Yes daddy." He replies. At this point Heath gets distracted by a fishing lure that has washed up on the rocks and sets off to retrieve it. It's a welcome break in the current line of questioning.

After a few more minutes I convince Heath we both need a nap. We return to the house and lay down, but he's still flipping through a colourful book about a seriously paranoid squirrel when I drift off. I fall asleep, my last thought is how alike that squirrel and I are.

* * * * *

Hartt sits at our kitchen table, still in uniform, I put a cold beer in his hand. I noticed my supply was nearly exhausted, I doubt I can afford to re-stock, even if I do find someone selling. Balls.

"Where you been all day? Heath and I walked over to Jake's to say hi and you were gone."

"I walked back to the hospital to see if I could lend a hand. Met a pretty nurse," he says, rolling up his sleeve to rip off a bandage. "She started chatting me up, found out I was a universal donor, next thing I know, they are draining me. I didn't even get her name. Damn."

"How was it? Other than that?"

"Not good, so many wounded, they have no room, the injured line the hallways. I could only find a handful of troops who weren't injured, they're camping out on the lawn, helping out where they can. All told, I could only account for nineteen. I did find Jake, he's doing okay and he said that Heather is going to pull through. I tried to find out about your wife, but..."

"She's there, she's doing as good as can be expected. They sent word this morning, by courier."

"That's good news." He says. "Phones are down?"

"Yeah. Lots of brown-outs too today."

"How are things here?"

"Things are okay, I mean, I'm still processing everything that has happened."

"Me too."

"Really? That makes me feel better, because half the time I feel like I'm on the verge of freaking out, my hands start shaking... I try not to let Heath see it. I had a dream, I was back on that roof, my gun wouldn't fire and they kept coming over that hill, they just kept coming..."

"It's going to take some time."

"Yeah. I just hope this jumpiness goes away... every little sound. I feel like I'm permanently on high alert. It's exhausting." I drain my beer.

Heath comes in and plops down at the table with his radio. I mess his hair and push the plate of cheese and crackers toward him. He jams a wedge of cheese in his mouth, twirls the dial and stops on a squelchy voice on a static-filled channel. I can tell immediately from the man's voice that he's crying:

...is fully engulfed, so is the Library of Congress. They are burning it all. I can see them, thousands of them, my God! ...

The broadcast cuts in and out, at times inaudible and full of static.

...forces of the Sovereign Citizens of America... dead Marines litter the... executed on the Whitehouse lawn...

I reach over and turn the radio off.

"Who was executed?" Hartt starts, but I cut him off.

"Bed time, little man. Go brush your teeth and pick out a book, I will be there in a few minutes."

Heath slides off the seat and exits, blissfully unaware of what we just heard. Hartt's expression is different, his face is ashen and mouth agape. I can see in his eyes what he is thinking, the same as me.

"Are they talking about the President? They killed the President on the White House lawn?"

"I don't know, I couldn't hear everything, kind of sounded like that though."

"What the hell is happening?"

"World's going to shit, that's my assessment." I reply. "I'm at the point where I don't even want to try to understand it. I just need to take care of what's important here at home, there is nothing I can do about a bunch of crazy anarchists a thousand miles away."

"How long before that spreads here though?"

"I think it already has Hartt. I think the New World Order, is disorder. I don't like it, but I am going to make peace with it. I'm just going to work on doing what I can to keep my family safe, I will just concentrate on the basics; food, water, security. One of these days, Hartt, these lights are going to go out and they won't be coming back on. All this stuff everyone takes for granted will be gone, instantly. Communication, refrigeration, heat, lights, infrastructure - it is  just a matter of when. I've been telling myself it can't happen, not to us, not now, but I can no longer deny where we are heading. The world is on fire Hartt, and sooner or later, we are all gonna burn."

"Jesus Christ." Hartt says as he takes a few moments to process what I have said. The look on his face tells me he knows it's true, it's just a tough pill to swallow.

"You can crash here tonight Hartt, there are plenty of couches. I gotta go put Heath to bed." I leave Hartt in the kitchen with his thoughts.

Heath has already crashed, a small book still clutched in his hand. I plop myself on the bed next to him. I'll sleep here tonight, maybe again tomorrow. Either I'm protecting him, or consoling myself, a good chance it's a little of both. I draw circles on his back and listen to him breathe. This is my new reality and the uncertainness of tomorrow no longer frightens me. Yes the world is ablaze, but it's not my world and it never was. I can survive this upheaval and I will - I understand this now. This is not an apocalypse, this is no one's Armageddon, it is simply nature's reset button and a new beginning.

Tomorrow is just another day.

THE END...

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