Never again.

My dad traveled for work all the time. He was gone between three and five days and nights a week. That's how being a pilot is. He'd started flying fifteen years before I was born, and he flew for another seventeen afterward.

I was a boyscout when I was a kid. I thought it was pretty fun, most of the time. I could make wooden cars, tie square knots, build fires, and camp. My troop's camping trips happened once or twice a year. I liked the trips, but I felt like a passenger along for the ride. I didn't put any work into planning them or working them into my schedule. It was just "We're going camping in a few weeks, don't forget!" and I'd forget until it was the morning to leave.

My dad didn't have full control over his work schedule. He turned in paperwork expressing preferences for certain days to work and days to be at home, but he never had the final say. I don't think he missed a single campout, but how much time did he spend praying that he'd get the right days off or dreading that he'd miss one?

Is now a good time to mention that I had three brothers? They didn't come on those campouts--except once or twice. My dad set time aside for he and I to have time away from everyone else, making our own bonds in special time independent of everyone else. Those boyscout adventures were rare days of father-son time instead of family time. Three other sons and a wife, and he dedicated entire weekends to me. I remember the campfires and the marshmallows and the tent-pitching and the hikes where you carried me on your shoulders and the cobbler.

Like most people, I was a teenager for a while. It didn't matter how nice my parents were or how much time they made for me, I didn't want to be around them. They didn't understand how much work school was or how annoying it was when they interrupted my afternoons of video games--those afternoons, I should mention, blended together into an unremarkable swath of indistinct memories. I wanted Dad to leave me alone, so I insulted him for things I didn't really care about. If I hurt him, I reasoned, he'd leave me alone.

"You weren't even here for half my childhood," I reminded him a few times. You'd think, that with all the times he'd mentioned wishing he could be at home, I would've realized that he didn't need reminding.

I'm sorry, Dad. I don't know if you remember me acting like I resented you for working all those hours to make enough money to give me a good life--a great life--but I didn't mean it. I wish I'd never tried to hurt you at all, especially not for a fabricated reason. Never again will I try to hurt you by exploiting how much you care about me.

I hope we can go camping again.

First, you need a friend. New friend, old friend, whichever. Just make sure they're someone who takes a long time to respond to text messages. They need to have a reputation for not responding or ghosting people either by mistake, their deliberate nature, absent-mindedness, or some combination of those factors. This strategy is most effective if your friend cares about your plight against hiccups.

Second, turn your phone to max volume. By the way, you need a phone. That unreliable friend of yours also needs a phone.

Third (don't skip this step because it's important), text your friend and let them know that you have a terrible, dirty-rotten, life-ruining case of the hiccups.

Fourth, you need to be lucky. If you aren't lucky, this whole plan falls to pieces. If you're lucky enough to be lucky, your unreliable friend will text back immediately, shocking the world, setting off your phone at max volume before you could even put it down, and startling you enough that your hiccups jump right out of your life in surprise, leaving you in peace.

Fifth, thank your friend for replying. It doesn't even matter what they texted you--all that matters is that they defied their nature and saved you. Showing gratitude will keep the friendship alive, and you need friends. Without friends, what would you do next time you caught the hiccups?

As John checked the news on his day off—it was Memorial Day—one thought sprung to the front of mind: That doesn’t seem very fair. He’d had a hollow feeling in his gut since he’d woken up a half-hour earlier. An instinct within him was telling him that something was more wrong than anything had ever been. Since the feeling, he’d found that his internet was down, his cell phone couldn’t load any webpages or make any calls, and the television only showed one channel, which informed him that the world was ending.

“It’s called a gamma-ray burst,” explained a scientist, appearing as a talking head on the government broadcast. “A supernova from a distant solar system released incredible energy in the form of cataclysmic radiation-”

“Please refrain from using the word ‘cataclysmic,’” a moderator interrupted from offscreen.

“It’s a gigantic beam of radiation travelling directly toward Earth at the speed of light, and it’s going to fry everything alive or dead to a crisp. ‘Cataclysmic’ seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”

“Please refrain from using the words ‘fry’ or-”

The talking head cleared his throat. “Several of the probes we sent beyond the solar system detected and confirmed the magnitude and direction of the burst. It will arrive in seven days, pass through the Earth over the course of two seconds, and that’ll be the end of human history. The probability of a gamma ray burst hitting the Earth should be less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a percent, but here we are with seven days until the end of humanity,” the scientist shrugged.

John switched off the TV. He heard a light popping sound coming from outside his apartment. He made his way out the empty hallway and downstairs to the front of the complex. Opening the door, he expected to see the city on fire. Instead, it was a sunny day. In the windows of other apartments, he could see families watching televisions, as he had been doing. If people were going to panic, it hadn’t started yet. The parking lot was full and there were no cars on the street. Odder, however, was the source of the popping: John’s downstairs neighbor, a young woman in her twenties named Anita, was laying on the grass and firing a cap gun into the sky. Every time she squeezed the trigger of the toy revolver, sparks flashed and smoke curled into the air. Every twelve shots, she reached into a big box of extra ammunition, reloaded, and went back to shooting.

“What are you doing?” John asked. He’d talked with Anita a few times. She was into performance art, but she’d never practiced it on the lawn of the apartment complex.

She paused and craned her neck back to look at him. From his perspective, her face was upside down. “I’m saving the world.” She chose another arbitrary point in the sky and fired a few more times. John noticed a plastic cup and a cardboard container of box wine on the other side of the cap gun ammunition.

“How?”

“According to quantum mechanics, everything is just probability. That means there’s an infinitesimal chance that shooting my cap gun will stop the apocalypse. Every time I shoot is a dice roll that might save us all.” She loosed another three shots in quick succession.

“I don’t think that’s how quantum mechanics works.”

“Didn’t you drop out of college?”

“Did you even go?”

“Wow, just because the world is ending doesn’t mean you have the right to be rude.” She sighed and started to reload again. At this rate, she’d be out of ammo by noon. “What are you going to do?”

“I think I’m going to go to work.”

All the roads in the business district of town were almost empty—he might’ve been the only person in the world going to work. The post office was closed, so John let himself in with his key. He went behind the counter into the sorting room, where all the bags and packages for his daily route were waiting. He picked them up but looked down at himself and sighed. What was he doing? Who was going to care if they got their cellphone bill or fast food coupons? The phones still weren’t working—maybe the government had disabled the towers and lines for some esoteric reason—and there were no workers to make one-dollar hamburgers. He sat down on top of one of the bags and wondered why he hadn’t gone back home to eat an oven-baked pizza for breakfast in his underwear. As he sat, he noticed one of the packages he was scheduled to deliver. It was a palm-sized black box with silver lines crisscrossing the front, emulating ribbons. Examining it in his hand, he found silver Nordic letters etched into the bottom. He held it up to his ear and shook it but heard nothing. He checked the address, finding that it wasn’t too far away.

Taking the box, he went out, climbed in his mail truck, and drove.

The address belonged to a home in a small, affordable suburb. John walked up a short cobblestone driveway that was barely large enough to fit the single car under its carport. There was a small garden of almost-grown flowers that looked like they’d missed a day or two of watering. John raised his hand to knock but stopped before his knuckles touched the wooden door. Was it creepy for him to only deliver mail to one house on the block? What if the inhabitants asked him for the rest of their mail? Then he’d have to tell them that he’d left all the letters at the post office and only taken their package because it looked nice. He began to turn away but halted again. What did it matter what anyone thought of him if any embarrassment would only last for a week at most?

He knocked. And waited. Nothing. He set the box on the welcome mat and set off down the driveway, but the door opened behind him, prompting him to turn back.

“What are you doing?” a woman asked through the cracked door.

“Just delivering a package. I’m your mailman.”

“Oh?” She looked down in confusion and saw the box. “Honey, what’s this?” she asked someone John couldn’t see as she picked up the black package.

“Oh! It’s here!” A new voice gasped. The door swung open wide as a man appeared and took the box, smiling wide. In the man’s other hand, John realized that he was holding a baseball bat. John also noticed that both of them were still in their pajamas.

“What’s that for?” John gestured to the bat, hairs pricking up.

“Sorry, sorry!” the man said, tossing the bat aside. “It’s just…well, you see…”

“It’s been a strange morning, with the apocalypse and the stranger knocking on our door,” the woman continued for him. We were afraid you might be a looter, so we grabbed the bat. If you’d tried anything, he would’ve taking a swing at you.”

“I see,” John mumbled, even more unsure of coming into work than he’d been before. He’d never been assaulted before, and he wasn’t inclined to start now.

“Now, honey, what’s the package?” the woman asked.

The man had opened the box but had closed it was turning it over in his hands. His expression became uneasy, as if caught in a trap. “Well, it seems weird to bring up now, because, well, I meant to ask in a few weeks, and, well…” He swallowed hard and mustered courage. “Aw, screw it.” He popped open the lid on the box retrieved an even smaller box from inside, this one black and velvet. He dropped to one knee and opened it, revealing a silver diamond ring. “Will you marry me?”

“What?” the woman exclaimed. “Now?”

“What?” John agreed, startled. He covered his mouth so as not to interrupt anymore.

“I’d wanted to ask, and I love you, and, well, what have we got to lose?” the man, still waiting for an answer, continued.

“I can’t believe you!” the woman cried.

“Please say yes?”

“Yes! Of course! Yes, yes, yes!”

John, now over his shock and fading back into awkwardness, walked back to his truck as they couple embraced. He started the engine, only for them to call out.

“Wait!” one said.

“Thank you!” said the other.

“You’re welcome,” John replied, smiling and waving. “Congratulations!”

“One question before you go: do you know where we could find an officiant in the next few days?” asked the man. “We don’t have much time to plan the wedding!”

“Sorry, no.”

“That’s alright, I was just wondering if you had any other surprises up your sleeves.”

“You’re the one who proposed on your welcome mat while wearing pajamas. If you’re looking for more surprises, maybe start with yourself,” John replied.

“Where are you off to next?” asked the woman.

John thought for a moment. It wouldn’t be fair to deliver just one couple’s package if they all might be so important. “I think I should finish my deliveries.”

John drove the mail truck home that night. He’d delivered all the mail on his usual route, but he hadn’t spoken with anyone since the pajama proposal. Traffic had been bad later in the day, especially around grocery stores and highways. Some stores were getting broken into, but a startling amount of people seemed content to stay home. John had always figured that the human race would go out fighting or rioting, so the peace was unexpected and a blessing. Maybe his generation was more willing to accept the end than the people in the apocalypse movies he’d seen.

Pulling into a parking space, John saw flashing police lights outside the main door to his complex. Walking closer, he saw that Anita was handcuffed in the backseat. The cops were examining her booze and boxes of cap gun ammunition—Anita must have fished out two more boxes from her apartment—on the lawn.

“Hey! John!” Anita called from the car. The front windows of the police car were rolled down, but there was a grate that kept her constrained to the back. “Come over here!”

John waved to one of the cops. “Excuse me, officer, would you mind if I spoke to her for a minute? She’s my neighbor.”

The cops looked at each other and shared a shrug. “Just don’t try anything. We’ll be listening and watching.”

“Thanks.” John made his way over to the cruiser.

“You really went to work?”

“I did.”

“The worst news I’ve gotten all day is that not even a gamma ray burst can stop the rat race. What a dystopia we live in.”

“How about you? Did you save the world?”

“Maybe! But probably not,” she admitted.

“What landed you back there?”

“Well, I ran out of ammo for my cap gun, and according to quantum mechanics, bigger things are more likely to work than smaller things-”

“Still not how quantum mechanics works.”

“So I got my actual pistol and started shooting that. Someone must’ve called the police.”

“You have a gun? I thought our apartment complex didn’t allow them.”

“They aren’t allowed.”

“You know, Anita, I’m beginning to see how much trouble you’re in. What made you think this was a good idea?”

“I was saving the world and didn’t think I’d get arrested.”

John glanced at the cops. “It looks like they’re finishing up with your evidence. I’ll have to be saying goodbye.”

“Dang. Maybe they’ll only hold me overnight to teach me a lesson and release me tomorrow. Oh, also, could you watch my dog? She’s a sweetheart, and her food is on the bottom shelf of the pantry. My door’s unlocked.”

The next day around noon, John pulled up to a church. Bernice, Anita’s German Shepherd-rottweiler mix, had her tongue lolling out the passenger side window. The forty-pound bag of dog food from Anita’s pantry was sitting in the legroom beneath her seat, and she’d been snacking out of it every few minutes. John had filled all the cupholders and extra pockets in the van with bottles of water for them to drink. Bernice started barking as she saw the pastor of the church come outside.

“Easy, girl,” John said, scratching her head as she wagged her tail in a flurry.

“Good day!” the gray-haired pastor waved as John pulled to a stop beside him. He took John’s hand in a firm handshake. “You’re not the usual mailman.”

“No, I’m afraid everyone else has used all their vacation days for this week. Are you Pastor McClean?”

“Why, yes I am.”

John pulled a thin security envelope from the back. “An elderly gentleman waved me down this morning and asked me to deliver this to you. He said its delivery was the only thing that could save his conscience and eternal soul.”

“Ah, yes,” McClean considered, opening the envelope and peering inside. “The wealthy gent, Mister Gregor Jenkins, is thirty-five years behind on his tithe payments. Now that the banks are closed until the end of time, he’s at last followed through and paid,” McClean pulled out the contents of the envelope, a single slip of paper. “By check.”

McClean gave a deep belly laugh, and John joined him.

“I appreciate the delivery, my friend. I’m sure you have more deliveries, so I’ll not hold you up.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, would you officiate a wedding? Soon?”

“What fortuitous timing! You couldn’t have chosen a better week!” he joked. “My schedule is clear until the rapture.”

“Great. I have some friends who might want to speak with you.”

“I look forward to it.”

“One more thing. How do you feel about the world ending, Pastor?”

“Each day has enough worries for itself, so they say. I’ll worry about it no sooner than the day it comes, if at all, and I’ll stick to business as usual until then. Routine is reassuring, in a way, isn’t it? Though I can’t help but wonder if the antichrist came and went without any of us noticing. He’d be a sneaky and shrewd devil, so I don’t doubt that it could’ve happened. I suppose I’ll find out when I meet God next week.” He parted with another deep laugh.

“Fine dog you’ve got they-ah,” someone said in a thick accent as John stuffed a mailbox with what seemed to be get-well-soon cards.

John looked next door to the speaker, finding a stern watching him from a balcony. She was nearing the end of middle age. He nodded. “I’m watching her for a friend. I don’t usually bring pets in my car, but it didn’t seem fair to leave this mutt cooped up in a house all day. She likes the wind in her face, too.” He dug a dog treat out of the container he’d crammed in the glove box and fed it to Bernice, who munched happily. He might as well let her have all the treats she wanted, considering long-term health defects had no more power over the inhabitants of Earth.

“Woul’ja come back he-ah tomorr-ah? Same time?” the woman continued, face unchanging.

“I can do that.”

“Good. I’ll have a package for yah,” she drawled.

Anita wasn’t back that night or the next morning, so he took Bernice with him again. He stopped at the post office to pick up the rest of the mail—there was two days’ worth left, but he could fit it all in his truck. However, he was almost out of fuel. The gas stations were closed, broken, or had run dry, so he siphoned what he could from the other two mail trucks. Unfortunately, his luck had about run out. The other trucks had been low, adding up to half a tank. He’d be running on empty by the time he finished his deliveries. Still, he went.

“Yah late,” the aging woman said as he arrived. She was off the balcony and down by the street today.

“Bit of a fuel issue this morning, but I took care of it.”

Without responding to his words, she handed him a resealable bag of homemade cookies with an address inked across it.

“Yah be careful with them, now.”

“I will, ma’am.” John stashed them in the glove compartment, away from Bernice’s sniffing nose and bottomless stomach. The dog moaned in protest. John reached into his back seat, returning with a flyer to give the woman. “By the way, two of my friends are getting married tomorrow. A lot of their out of town friends and family can’t make it, but they want to have a big wedding. They asked me to invite everyone I saw.”

The woman took the invitation, studying the address and time. “We’ll see,” she drawled, going back inside.

Just before John pulled away, he heard a thumping on the metal of his van. Bernice’s ears perked up. Peering out his window, he saw a young boy—no more than seven or eight, probably—looking back and biting his lip.

“Hi,” the boy said.

“Hey there,” John tried to be warm. “What’s up?”

“Can you take me home?” Now that he’d spoken more, John could tell that the child was scared.

“Yeah, of course,” he said automatically. “Do you like dogs?”

“Yes, please.”

“Good.” John opened his door and helped the boy in. “This is Bernice. Just let her sniff you before you try to pet her, alright?”

“Okay.”

John looked around, realizing that an onlooker might think he had just abducted a kid. He winced at himself. “What’s your address?”

The boy had been petting Bernice, who loved her new acquaintance, but he stopped. “I don’t know.” The fear crept back.

“That’s okay. But you know what your home looks like, right? You’d know it if you saw it?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know if it’s close?”

“I think so. I ran away last night because Mom has been weird, but…” he was tearing up. “Something’s really bad, isn’t it?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you home.”

They were in a dense residential area of apartments and townhouses full of crisscrossing streets. John drove down every road, asking if the boy recognized anything to no avail. Every once in a while, John let the boy give Bernice a treat.

“Can I have a cookie?”

“Hm?” John glanced over. The boy had found the bag from the stern woman next to the treats. “Oh, those. Sorry, no.”

“Why not?”

“That’s someone else’s mail. Opening them would be a felony.”

“What’s a felony?”

“It’s…okay, you can’t have a cookie because they belong to someone else. How would you feel if someone cookies that someone had made special for you?”

“It would only be one.”

“No.” John put the cookies back in the glove compartment. As the sun was going down and the moon was rising, the boy perked up.

“That’s it!” he pointed to a brick townhouse. The one behind the fire hydrant!”

“Oh thank goodness,” John exclaimed. He retrieved one of the wedding invitations and flipped it over to its blank side. He found a pen and wrote on the back of the invitation, circled what he’d written, and gave it to the boy. “This is your address. Don’t forget it! We wouldn’t want this to happen again.”

“Okay!”

Before letting the boy go, John checked the glove box and found the cookies, checking the address. “Really?” he muttered. The address on the cookies matched the one he’d just given to the boy. “You know what, I think these are your cookies after all. They might be your mom’s though, so be sure to ask her before eating any. Oh, look! There she is.”

A woman rushed out of the townhouse as John opened the door. The boy scrambled out of the seat and his mother lifted him into her arms and hugged him before his feet could touch the sidewalk.

“Hi, Mom!” the boy laughed.

“Don’t you ‘hi, mom!’ me! You never ever leave like that again! Do you hear me?” She hugged him even tighter before he could respond. She let him go after a thorough squeeze and bout of sobbing. “I love you so much, and don’t you forget it! Okay?”

“Okay, Mommy,” the boy said, laughing.

“And what are those?” she asked, noticing the cookies as she wiped her eyes. She read what the stern woman had written on the bag. “To my grandbaby,” she recited. She looked to John for the first time. “Where did these come from? There’s no return address.”

John related the story of the aging woman to her.

“Who are they from?” the boy asked.

“Well, darling, they’re from your grandma.”

“I thought you said she was a witch who lives in the forest.”

She laughed. “Don’t tell her that. I didn’t think she’d ever want to meet you or do anything nice to me ever again.” She looked back to John. “Sorry, it’s complicated. You could say that running away from home runs in the family. But thank you. Thank you more than I know how to say. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, no, don’t trouble yourself,” John assured. “It’s a little late to tally up debts, and it’s my pleasure, really. Have a good night.”

“What do we say?” the young mother prompted her son.

“Thank you!”

The next morning, at nine thirty, John joined in thunderous applause as a crowd of strangers cheered for the marriage of the pajama couple, who had somehow managed to find a three-piece suit and a fitting wedding dress for their wedding four days before the end of the world. John had put invitations in all the mailboxes he could manage before, and they’d gotten a decent turnout. The bride and groom were laughing and crying as they walked together back down the aisle after McClean’s ceremony, which had thrived on the tasteful insertion of gallows humor.

Anita slid up next to John as he applauded. John hadn’t seen her last night, but he’d taped a wedding invitation to her door. “You made it!”

“Yeah! There are some actual arsonists out in the streets having the time of their lives, so the police decided to make room in the jail by cutting me loose. More importantly, you took care of dog!” Bernice, meanwhile, was leashed to the pew, where John had kept an eye on her during the ceremony. She was wagging her tail with great vigor upon seeing Anita again.

“According to quantum mechanics, it wouldn’t be fair to leave the poor girl alone in your apartment,” John smiled.

“Fair?” she ribbed. “There’s a gamma ray burst coming to end all our lives and ultimately prove that life isn’t fair, and you’re out there delivering mail because you think the world should be fair?”

“It’s all I can do, right? At least, I don’t see the harm in trying.”

Pastor McClean came up from behind and clapped John on the back. “That’s the spirit! Chin up, John!”

“So,” Anita continued, “Do you still have more mail to deliver, or have you finished it up?”

“I do have more, now that you mention it, and it’s all in my truck. Unfortunately, I ran out of gas as I pulled into the parking lot this morning. I don’t think I can deliver the rest without it.”

“Well, Bernice and I were just thinking it’s time for a walk. How about we come with you and cover more ground?”

“A splendid idea!” McClean chimed in. “Surely you wouldn’t say no if I also offered to come along?”

“I believe my grandson would love to spend more time with your dog,” a stern voice added as the aging woman found him.

“And a walk sounds like an excellent time for my son, his grandma, and I to have a bonding experience. We’d quite like to help,” the young mother said, pulling her cookie-eating son with her. John doubted she’d let his hand go since he’d seen them last. She raised the invitation that John had written their address on the night before. “We thought we might find you here and thank you properly.”

“I’d enjoy the company,” John admitted, smiling wider all the time. “Wait, one moment, the happy couple is coming back around.”

“John!” The bride and groom greeted him. “We wanted to make time to speak with you.”

“Oh, I’m flattered. Do you have plans for a honeymoon?”

“We were thinking of joining you on your walk,” the groom said. “You have a habit of being where you need to be.”

“As a honeymoon? Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

“It’s our wedding and we’ll celebrate as we please, thank you very much,” the bride insisted.

“Fine, fine. With all of us, we might even finish all the deliveries. We still have three and a half days, after all.”

“We’ll have more if I have anything to say about it,” Anita proclaimed, brandishing her cap gun. “Also, the TV says that the world governments are uniting to try to build some kind of radiation shield that might-but-probably-won’t-work, so I’m not the only one trying to save us.”

“I think our three and a half days are enough for me right now. We can worry about the rest when it comes,” John said, opening the church’s doors to the sunny day awaiting them.