The phrase finally came. It was, "She never knew the world would end like this."
Because she didn't.
She sat in front of the window, taking mental account of her life, maybe because it was time. Mixed in the bowl of her memory were pieces of broken friendships, snapshots of old times and places, faces of those she once loved, letters she'd rather burn.
Life was divided into two halves. The first came before this epoch, it was too long ago to even be true. Sometimes the memories of that time were like black lone rocks rounded smooth by rolling waters, spaced apart just enough to cross to the other shore; but they did not look inviting. Sometimes they were like birds that flocked, ready to burst out from behind her closed lids and disappear beyond the horizon as soon as she opened her eyes. Sometimes they were like cigarette butts, burning a hole in her skin, testing her endurance. Or they were tiny hanging lights that she could gently push with her finger to watch them sway in the air, creating a strange interplay of translucent shadows. Unless they came on suddenly, in the middle of the night like hot flashes, leaving her gasping for air.
Either way, she now lived the second half, although most of it, as she knew now, had been spent in a bubble, away from what life really was. The bubble would burst one fine day and she would see herself naked, unprepared, confused. Too much would happen at once. Everything would be tested. How long can she be all alone? How genuine is her empathy? How much courage to speak the truth is left in her?
The world would come tumbling down, pouring onto the streets from every crack. The feeling of being trapped in chaos would become the permanent reality. Her old life, a wagon with broken wheels sliding off the muddy road, would be clearing the way for the unstoppable merciless train of everything she'd name the new times, although what is ever new?
But the evening was quiet. Nothing had happened yet. She was only imagining things.
"The world would end like this." Somehow that phrase brought her comfort. She was sitting in front of the window, watching fireflies outside. There was still the routine. The everyday chore and duty. Everything that made life a must. Even her old cat was still with her. She had long decided that the world wouldn't end before the cat.
That they'd wait together.