In the End Was the Word
Didn’t expect to be writing my diary on the margins of this here Bible, next to Judas hanging in the olive trees. I envy his courage though. He’s man enough to know when to quit living. Unlike most of us in Bubba and Thelma’s trailer park. We’re clinging to hope like leftover bones, boiled too often and the marrow sucked dry. It keeps us here. Keeps me writing when I know nobody’s going to read my thoughts. That might be a good thing. I have a tendency of writing the truth. Most folks around here simply shove mud in their ears and choose to forget. Their nooses pile up in the trash while mine coils at my feet. I can’t forget. Neither could Judas.
See, there’s something about those ruby silk skirts my mama would always wear that brings back the screams, the collapsing cellar walls, and the smell of burnt flesh. Don’t have those skirts with me, but the color still flashes in my head—like wet ketchup. Or red cotton candy, the color of the sky once the nuke settled and the end of the world started. Only I’m still here. And mama and her ruby silk skirts are under rubble.
The sad truth is the next generation knows nothing about the lightbulb, Goldfish crackers, or mint toothpaste. They just get black cavities and usually die before the age of two. But boy, do we procreate. With no birth control, you got a handful of babies per season whether you want to or not. Half of those women die from bleeding out or the baby stuck at the wrong end for far too long. End of the world hasn’t been kind to us women folk. Or the next generation. Not even the men have been spared—most of them got no hair left.
And still, I thought Billy Jones was the hottest and kindest man in Bubba and Thelma’s trailer park. He gave me onion flowers and a pen he snagged from the post office. Whispered naughty things into my ear. Told me I was like a warm shower and smelt like fresh rain, the kind before the end of the world. He spoke truth, except I knew I smelt like B.O.. He was full of crap sometimes. Somehow, he got me to marry him. We had no priest, just a rusty coil round my finger, a flea infested trailer, and a promise. Only it didn’t last long. I got pregnant. He got sick, the kind that seeps from the city and the ground. Nothing much you can do except pray he’d see the kid I’d give birth to. Only, the baby bled out of me hours after he passed. It left me wishing I’d die in the rubble with him. Like Judas, after knowing Christ was going to die from rusty nails and a cross.
Only, I find myself writing instead, using up the ink of this post office pen. Like that will help me. Maybe I need to drape myself in ruby silk and count the canned corn in the cellar. Or adopt one of them neighbor kids and teach them how to read the Bible and ignore my sloppy handwriting. Or maybe I should just forget the blood that drips from my underwear, my husband dead on the mattress, and speak the truth—I need to find myself an olive tree.
When Mckenzie Bliss was eight years old, she typed an 86-page book with only two fingers. Since this feat, it has been her goal to become a renowned writer. All of her pursuits have been aimed at achieving this goal. For example, she’s currently a senior at Brigham Young University-Idaho, where she is majoring in English with 4.0 GPA. In 2024, she plans on receiving a MFA at Oxford University to hone her writing skills. Her varied work experiences involve ghost writing for the Daily Herald and other companies, copyediting, and teaching English. Writing is her passion, and the publication of her short story “In the End Was the Word” gets her one step closer to achieving her dream.