“Is that why you moved out here?” Rodney asked.
“Partly,” Jerri said, still looking out at the moonlit fields. “I don’t have to answer to anyone but myself. I spent years trying to be something I’m not, and I had to make a decision: Either I got out, or I stayed and nothing changed.” She laughed to herself. “Hardly anyone out here looks like me, but fuck it. I got out of a bad situation, and I sought absolution. I don’t think I could have asked for a better place to find it.”
“Did you?” Don asked, thinking of a great many things.
“Maybe, maybe not. But it’s enough for me.” She glanced at them. “Absolution. You want to know what I learned about it?”
Rodney nodded.
“You have to want it. Above all else. Because it’sso easyto stay stuck down in the muck. Even as it tears at you, it feels safe because it’s familiar. But that safety is a lie. The muck is filled with apathy that can spread like poison.”
“It’s not that easy,” Rodney said.
“But it doesn’t have to be as hard as people make it out to be,” Jerri said. “Easier said than done, I know, but you can’t hold on to everything all the time.”
Don said, “We can try.”
She grinned at them. “Even now? Even near the end?” Glancing down at her watch, she said, “It’s almost time.”
“For what?” Rodney asked as Naks sniffed his trousers.
Jerri said, “I’m not a big people person. Never really have been. Humans made art and music and dancing and books and films.People just… continually disappoint. For all the cool things that exist, there are people trying to take it all away. It’s why I like animals. A dog doesn’t give two shits if you think you’re a failure. To them, you’re their entire world. Isn’t that crazy? To us, dogs are part of our world. They come, and if we’re lucky, stick around for a good long time. And then they leave us, bereft but so thankful we had the time we did. But to dogs, we’re theirentireworld.” She reached down and gave Naks a good scratch around her ears. “Have you thought about the animals?”
Don blinked, looking at Rodney. “The animals?”
Jerri nodded. “The whales, the giraffes. The insects and the birds who eat them. Dogs, cats. Walruses. Lions. Wolves. Muskrats. Living in ignorance about what’s coming. They’ll know, before the end, but not like we have. They haven’t spent the last year holding their breaths, wondering what news is going to be given today. They know this earth just the same as we do. Maybe even better. It’s said ignorance is bliss. We know that’s not true, even though we’re animals. It’s more of a blissful unawareness. Isn’t that a gnarly way to live? I wish I could have been an animal. I always wanted to be, ever since I could remember. They’re not so different than us. Wilder, more feral, but they have minds all the same. I respect them, on their terms. I never force myself. That’s the problem with people. We insist. We call it persistence, but it’s all so selfish. All to protect our own interests.”
“Don’t animals do the same?” Rodney asked.
“No,” Jerri said. “There’s a difference. They run on instinct, on survival. We think we’re smarter, we think we know more, that we’re better in every regard, only to show our whole asses by stealing land or taking our weapons to other countries and using American-made bombs to spread the message of freedom through exceptionalism. We’re territorial, and greedy. That land is rich, why can’t I have it? Those people have something I don’t, and Iwant it. I’ll take it from them. Look at that land, I should own it. See those mountains? Those trees? The rolling hills? It belongs to someone or something else, but why can’tItake it?”
“You sound as if you think humanity doesn’t deserve to survive,” Rodney said.
She waved him off. “That’s not for me to decide. But don’t act like there’s an abundance of evidence to the contrary. We are an angry, violent species. Of course it was going to end this way. From fire we’re made, and from fire we’ll be unmade.”
“Then what’s the point of doing anything?” Don asked helplessly.
“Good question,” Jerri said. “And one I don’t know that I’ll ever have an answer to. Do you know?”
Don shook his head, dumbfounded.
Jerri sighed. “I’m not trying to—” Then, “It’s starting. Like clockwork.” She turned back toward the fields.
Don and Rodney did too. Beyond them, open land. Mountains in the distance. Trees reaching toward the heavens. Flashes of light: ball lightning floating above the ground, though too far away to be dangerous. But all that fell away when he saw what Jerri was trying to show them.
At first, his mind couldn’t compute what he was seeing coming from the trees. It felt like a fever dream.
Animals. Dozens and dozens of animals. Deer, both does and bucks. Elk, their hair thick around their necks and chests. At least ten mountain goats, their bodies white and muscular, black horns protruding from their heads. Squirrels. Chipmunks. Coyotes. Cougars. A trio of black bears, one larger than the other two. Cattle. Horses. Lizards. Snakes. Voles. Varieties of birds flying above them, some tiny, some with wingspans of at least ten feet, all flying awkwardly, almost floating, as if they too felt the change in gravity. As the people watched, the animals began to walk in a widecircle. It was only then Don saw similar circles in the fields around the house.
“It started a week ago,” Jerri said as the animals moved slowly. “First, it was just deer. Same time every night. They’d appear, walk in a circle for a while, and then disappear. Three days ago, the birds came with them. Two days ago, the elk, the goats, the wild horses. The bears are new. Haven’t seen them before. I wondered if the predators would only see prey, but so far, that hasn’t been the case.”
“What are they doing?” Rodney whispered.
“They know,” Jerri said. “They might not knowwhatthey know, but they know something.” She sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “What do you think humanity’s legacy will be?”
“Why does it matter?” Rodney asked. “There won’t be anyone left to remember it.”
“Rodney,” Don said, mortified. “You can’t just—”