Back to Front

“I remembered Atlanta last night,” Josie exclaimed. Her revelation pleased her almost as much as having done it did. “So that’s back now. I’ll have to look at that map, in the kitchen drawer — which one was it? To remember the main roads, there and back. We’ve got to get everything back. We can bring everyone back, after.”

“Big deal,” sniped her sister, Delph. “I want to remember the places we’ve never been. If we can recall a lot about ’em… Daddy said we could ‘goose the process’ — is that correct, goose? — and set the ball rolling, by itself. It’s not enough to recall their names or see them when we close our eyes, you know. We have to get as much of the details right as we can. You think this is so easy because, for you, it’s not important to get the details right. Well, the world ain’t going to come back right, if we don’t do the assignment the proper way.” She moved her bishop. Finally. Josie winced at the loss of her remaining knight.

It was the end of Empire; a voyage to the dead end of the rabbit-hole, to an age wherein these sisters had become each other’s entire world, yet Delph was so concerned with the rules. Where had this adherence to procedure gotten them, or the world, since It Happened? Not even an alien invasion would be unwelcome, when there was no one else left on Earth to find it to be a bother. Maybe the aliens were behind It Happening. Could these girls prove otherwise? It would take more love than they could feel to reverse a global apocalypse. Only: it wasn’t an apocalypse; it was more like a skip in the record. Things hadn’t ended —…