The Smile on the Silver Spoon

Thick, dark clouds passed eternally over the sky above, powerful winds blowing trees at unnaturally sharp angles. A glowing, violet pall of fog rumbled over the Earth as though a violent thunderstorm would soon strike. Although, this cloud obstructed the actual danger, covering what had been multiplying and fusing on the Earth’s surface while the world attempted to survive; it had been eight days since the holes began.

They were a phenomenon of geology that not a single person had ever predicted, nor could ever explain. They were cavernous, carnivorous, and unforgiving, swallowing any being that stepped near. With each passing day, the holes became deeper, wider, hungrier, mutating and sliding like disks over the ground as if hunting for flesh.

Mei sat stoic. It was extremely cold inside the house. She twirled her silver spoon around a bowl of stale doughnut hole oats. The powerful winds whirled and whistled outside. She noticed the three empty chairs that sat around the table. Her mother had always asked her to push them in, yet she would only comply after an unnecessary fuss. Mei dropped the spoon into her cereal bowl with a milky splash, forced herself up, and slowly pushed the empty chairs away under the table until she could only see slivers of their wooden rails. She had become indifferent to the telephone lines failing and the power lines cutting. She was unconcerned about the milk carton she had used for her cereal becoming emptier and emptier and emptier. Drip, drop, drip.

Mei noticed a tiny smiley face form out of the oats in her breakfast bowl. She brushed her delicate fingers over the rim, smiling back at the happy cereal face. A piece of white paint on her fingernail chipped away.

Suddenly, a gust of wind ripped through the living room window as though a furious cyclone had come to take her away. Eventually, the holes would claim her, and if they didn’t, the storms wouldn’t hesitate.

Mei whipped her neck back, jarred by the noise as it resonated down the hall and swallowed the dry kitchen air. The window frame shook and shattered, bashing a dent into the wall that ripped away more of the flowery wallpaper than the storms already had. Millions of glass shards flew about the living room, heavy and piercing in a wild, wicked tornado. When the gust finally subsided, the shards settled cosily over the carpet, seemingly satisfied by their destruction.

Mei glared back into the bowl. The little doughnut oats trembled as they floated among the displaced milk. She carefully lowered her silver spoon to take a bite, but the oats stuck closely together, forming two round eyes and a sullen arch.

A surge of madness burst through her veins as she hurled the spoon across the floor. It clanked down the hall and slid across the shard-covered carpet, finally coming to a stop beneath the broken living room window. Forcefully pushing her chair from beneath her, the floorboards screeched, leaving permanent white marks over the wood. Mei lifted the ceramic bowl, its hypnotic white contents mocking her as the cereal continued to quiver on its surface.

She lobbed the bowl at the floor with more force than she had ever mustered out of her frail figure. Her skin punctured against the ceramic shards as she fell heavy onto the floor. Although, she felt no pain as she let free a distressing shriek that burned at her vocal cords.

“Mei? Are you alright?”

The almost inaudible call entered from outside the broken window, merging with the sounds of the rumbling fog and the crackling Earth from below. She followed the familiar voice and immediately collected herself, embarrassed that her scream had been heard. She jolted off of the floor, stepping clear of the glass shards as she rapidly approached the window. High on her tip-toes, she stood with her feet on either side of the silver spoon.

The cloud of violet fog had become thicker, obstructing Mei’s view as she searched for the person who owned the familiar voice. She had been desperately waiting to hear him. His was the only voice she had left.

Mei’s eyes glimmered. Through a flurry of thinner clouds, she was able to catch a glimpse of San, pressed against his bedroom window with furrowed brows, making sure that she was alright as the world came to an end.

Mei stood on the very very tips of her big toes. “I- I need you here with me, San! I can't take it any longer!”

Her tone was hopeful, desperate. She couldn’t bear to think that one day, he wouldn’t call back, so she never called out to him first. In fact, she never went near the window until she knew that he was still there.

“I know, Mei! I need you, too!” He strained his voice, making sure that she could hear him over the rumbling catastrophe that had become of the streets below. Mei wished that at least, their windows weren’t so far apart. “You need to go to your front door!”

Mei complied, asking not a single question, although she was unsure of what this could mean. She bolted down the stairs, almost unable to catch herself as she tumbled into the large, wooden door. Recovering quickly, she glanced through the peephole, and as another thin flurry of clouds passed, she could make out San’s figure as he stepped out of his home and onto the rickety porch where they had used to spend their warm summer days together.

Mei’s stomach churned, burning with nausea as her vision became replaced with a monochrome gradient of fuzzy stars. San was all that she had left, and he was going to let the holes take him away.

“San! You can’t do this! I can’t do this!” Mei wrenched the door open without second thought, encapsulated in a burst of thundering, powerful air. The carnivorous holes below them crackled and multiplied, still hidden by the violet fog.

“You need to meet me halfway!” San stepped onto the first stair of the porch, wind whipping through him as he desperately attempted to keep his feet planted against the immense forces of nature.

Mei could see San clearer now. His black hair was raging against the current of the wind, his once bright eyes now tired and dull, deeply longing to hold her once more.

The disturbing, dark disks slid across the ground, the crackling growing deafening and starved.

San stepped onto the Earth.

Mei stepped onto the Earth.

And they met each other halfway.

Holding each other in an embrace, they could see, hear, or feel nothing except for the warmth of each other's arms and the beat of each other's hearts. Mei's small body fit perfectly against San’s, and as he rested his cheek on Mei’s warm head, he could feel that her caramel hair was silky, silky soft.

“I love you, Mei.”

“I love you, too, San.”

The oats that were on the silver spoon formed a smile as they were all swept away by the sweet, lavender clouds.