Claudia stood in the door of the fridge for a long time. Although she knew its contents, she still counted them. It took only a moment, but she lingered, feeling an unwelcome remembrance coming on until Sophie snapped her out of it.
“You’re letting the cold air out,” Sophie joked from the couch.
Claudia grabbed a bottle of champagne and closed the door. Walking back to her girlfriend, she plopped down across from her and set the champagne on the coffee table between them. Sophie didn’t look up but continued scribbling away in an old magazine. Even from the barest sliver she could see, Claudia knew it was that copy of US Weekly from November 2018. Ivanka Trump simpered on the cover. Sophie had taken its central quiz “How To Tell If You’re In A Toxic Relationship” over and over again. She had run through every possible permutation of the test, but no matter what she always said the same thing. “Congratulations, we’re toxic!” Claudia watched her.
“Let me guess, we’re toxic,” she said.
“Not so fast,” Sophie chided.
Claudia sighed and leaned back, her head lolling over the back of the headrest. Closing her eyes, she imagined again the contents of the fridge.
“You have to see this,” Sophie said suddenly. Claudia sat back up. Now Sophie was staring right at her with the magazine held tight to her chest. She handed it over, but it wasn’t open to the quiz. A wrinkled photo of Meghan Markle looked back at her. The princess had seen better days. She was scribbled all over. Cartoonish mushrooms burst from every orifice on her face, and black goo seeped from her eyes and mouth. Although she was still smiling, her condition seemed, if not fatal, certainly deeply unpleasant. A halo of golden spores floated around her head, a tribute to Sophie’s love of medieval art. It was quite good, actually. Morbid, but good. Claudia often forgot how talented Sophie was. She hid it well.
“It’s good. I would tell you to post it,” Claudia trailed off.
“Pilzbedeckt,” Sophie rejoined.
“What?”
“Pilzbedeckt. It’s German. It means covered in mushrooms.”
“Oh.”
“I always assumed it would be a useful word, but it’s never come up.”
“I thought you just hated Meghan Markle.”
“That too,” she said. Claudia put the magazine down on the table and slid it back to Sophie. She picked it up and admired her work anew. She looked different now. When they had first met, Sophie’s hair was short and uneven from a homemade undercut, but it had grown fast and now hung down almost to her elbows; her long face interrupted this downward flow of dark hair. It made somewhat of an awkward middle part. Claudia’s eyes followed Sophie’s hair but soon fixated on the bottle of champagne.
She noted how large it seemed on the low coffee table. It was as tall as one of the legs. Claudia leaned forward and rolled her tongue in her mouth, tasting the crevices of her teeth. “This is the second to last bottle,” she said.
“I know.”
“Same goes for the water.”
“I know.”
“You remember what we said,” Claudia intoned parentally. Sophie only nodded this time, flipping through the magazine as if she couldn’t be bothered. She waited until Sophie sighed and tossed the old rag to the floor. Stretching out across the couch, she bent herself over the far arm. She dipped below the edge, and, when she reemerged, she held two dirty glasses in her hands. She wiped the rims on her shirt, which left a smear of dust. Then she set them down in front of her on the table and looked at Claudia, patting the spot next to her on the couch.
Claudia got to her feet and made her way over. She sat down next to Sophie with the bottle and began to untwist the wire cage that held the cork. The cheap metal had rusted a bit and resisted its own removal. After a brief struggle Claudia was able to undo the tangle of wires. With the cork exposed, she pressed her thumbs to the base. It came out with a dull plop and fell immediately to the ground. Sophie still squeaked in modest terror. Claudia couldn’t help from smiling.
She poured the champagne. It was flat. In the dirty glass, only a single bubble rose to break the surface. The second glass didn’t produce any visible carbonation. Somewhat graciously, Claudia took the second one. The two young women raised their glasses together and made a silent toast, taking a drink after looking one another in the eye.
There was a moment of hesitation before Claudia said anything, as if she was worried her partner would start first, which they both knew was never really a possibility. She began, “remember when your mom came to visit us in New York? Not the second time, but the first—before she got sick.” Sohpie nodded, looking down. “We went dress shopping for David’s wedding after getting lunch, and I wasn’t really connecting with your mom at all.”
“Uh, connecting? You were really weird around her.”
“I know, but do you remember the shopping?”
“Yeah, sure, we went to Anthropologie, I think, and—”
“And Zara,” Claudia cut her off.
“Right.”
Claudia took a drink. “We found this dark blue dress there, or your mother did. It had these little sleeves, and it looked too short. Your mom picked it out and showed it to you. I remember you shook your head, but the way she looked at you you knew you had to try it on.”
“I was mostly a doll to her.”
“But you put it on anyway. Your mom and I were waiting for you just outside the dressing room. I didn’t know what to say to her. We just kind of awkwardly smiled at each other and waited. It felt like forever. But then you came out. We were both staring at you. You looked so beautiful in that blue dress, and I think I said as much, and you just kind of squirmed there in front of us.” Sophie finished her drink and then grabbed the bottle of champagne. She took a swig. Claudia waited for her to finish and continued, “I don’t know. I just—I looked at you, and then I looked at your mom, and the way she was staring at you. I could just see how much she loved you. And then she looked at me, and I had this feeling like she saw how I was looking at you the same way. I mean really saw it.” There was a moment of silence, and Sophie looked down into her drink. “Anyway, I know how much you hated that dress.”
Sophie laughed. “I never wore it again after the wedding.” Claudia finished her drink and set the glass on the table. She gestured to Sophie to handover the bottle, which she did after another swig. Tipping the bottle back, Claudia now took a long pull.
“That’s sweet,” Sophie said. “I don’t know what to say.” Claudia shook her head, indicating that she didn’t expect anything, that the story was more for her than for Sophie.
Sighing, Sophie brought her legs up onto the cough and turned toward her girlfriend. With her hands, she asked for the champagne back. “I um—my secret is much shittier than yours.” Claudia only smiled at her. Sophie took a drink, then let out a deep breath. She began to work her lip with her teeth.
“Remember when you went out of town to that conference in New Orleans?”
“Yeah.”
“When you came back, you asked what I did when you were gone, and I told you about a party I went to. You asked if I got drunk, and of course I did. But I told you that.” She stopped as if to remember. “And then you asked if that waitress was there, and she was. You asked if anything happened, and I said no—” Sophie looked at Claudia. She seemed unphased. Sophie was used to her bare manner, but it hurt her to see Claudia so stoic now.
“I’m sorry. I knew you probably guessed as much, and you were right that I should have been more careful around her. She—she kept feeding me drinks, and I kept taking them. And then it was late, and we were alone on the couch, and she crawled into my lap, and I—I’m sorry.” Sophie could see the sangfroid leaving Claudia’s face. “I don’t want to just make a selfish confession, though. That’s not the point. I don’t need to clear my conscience.”
“It’s okay,” Claudia said.
“It’s not,” she shook her head. “But the morning after I looked at her, and nothing made any sense. She was lying there, and I felt sick, and all I could think about was you.” In shame, Sophie’s gaze had naturally turned downward. She caught herself picking at the pilling on the couch. She had worn the waitress just like the old dress, and she hated how she had looked.
Claudia watched her. Painful questions queued in her mind, and tears welled up in her eyes. Yet, somewhere between the self-hatred flickering across her partner’s face and her own sense of betrayal, she found an impossible softness. It upset her to realize there was nothing to be done about it. Powerless, she took Sophie’s face in her hands and leaned in slowly, planting a kiss on her forehead.
“I love you,” Claudia said. At this Sophie broke down. She hid her face in Claudia's chest and cried. Tied up in this mostly one-way embrace, Claudia polished off the last of the champagne. It was hard to lift to her lips with someone wrapped so tight around her. The warm, flat spirit coated her throat. She set the bottle down on the table and sat there holding Sophie for a long time, whose sobbing slowly began to fade. Silence overtook them, and Claudia naturally shifted behind Sophie, always the little spoon. The language of their old habits stepped in and expressed everything between them.
Claudia brushed Sophie’s hair and drew it back from her shoulders. She started to kiss the thin skin around her neck, nipping softly between every third or fourth kiss. At the same time, her other hand worked its way up Sophie’s body and found her throat. Claudia’s care-worn hand tightened there, which drew heavy breath from Sophie. She felt her softening in her hands, giving in to it all, but then she felt Sophie’s hand on hers. That meek and timorous touch said enough. Claudia relaxed and let Sophie’s fingers find their way between her own. The weight of this motion seemed to carry them downwards until they both rested horizontally on the couch. They slept.
The next morning, Claudia woke up before Sophie as usual. Without thinking, she crawled out from behind her and rolled off the couch. Immediately, she found her bag and began to pack. The hangover was still ringing in her ears as she filled the backpack with supplies: blankets, water, food, champagne, glasses, canned meat, and everything they would need for where they were going. When she finished, she sat the bag down and set about making coffee. The rationing mindset that had overdetermined everything she did for so long intervened again. It was only with some difficulty that she put the measuring cup aside. The stale coffee grounds went straight into the french press. It was too much, but it didn’t matter. With the coffee made, she sat down across from her sleeping partner and set out a cup for her.
She watched Sophie sleep as she drank her coffee. Two cups in and she finally stirred. Not saying anything, she got up and filled her empty cup with the thick, now-lukewarm coffee. Claudia then got to their breakfast. Spam and refried beans sizzled over a sputtering butane flame. They ate what they could. With Sophie still picking at her food, Claudia got up and pulled down their coats from the tiny rack that made for a closet. She set them on the chair across from Sophie and smoothed out a few wrinkles.
Sophie watched as Claudia put on her own coat. Afterward, she held up the other coat and helped Sophie in, zipping it up like her mother used to. It was an overly puffy thing and a bit big for her, which only made her seem more child-like. There was nothing left to prepare, so they took up position on either side of the vault door. The heavy wheel handle resisted at first. Its metallic spokes turned slowly. Each revolution reflected the undoing of some arcane locking mechanism, but after a series of disconcerting clunks the door opened. Cold air rushed in, and Sophie and Claudia stepped out of the bunker.
The world before them was a ruin made primarily of two elements: undifferentiated rubble and gray ash. Nothing remained of Claudia’s uncle’s house where they had been staying. The doomsday prepper had been on a fishing trip in Mexico, thousands of miles from his immaculate bunker when the world ended. His entire subdivision was gone; the entire suburb was gone. They had been so near a blast site that the world left to them looked completely alien. It did not give off the impression of death or life. It looked like an eternal desert, like it had always been this way. The incinerated frames of cars were geological formations that had been forged over eons.
And yet there was a lambency to it all. This singed and flattened landscape held the cold and the light with judicial dispassion. It was a world without shadow except for their own. Ash mixed with snow and swirled around everything, and the thick, rumbling clouds above permitted more light than one might have guessed. Though it was weak, they squinted through the soft radiance. Like they had planned, the two young women turned away from the remains of the town and toward the country. The cracked asphalt beneath them seemed to be pointing in this direction anyway.
As they walked, they talked about the past and the trivial complications that had punctuated their lives, the cyclical staccato of drama that was once their prime entertainment. Old relationships, overbearing parents, and neighborhood creeps were all remembered with more fondness than they deserved. It was a cascade of memories, and Sophie began to recount many of her most legendary exploits. Of course, Claudia had heard them all before, but she smiled thinking how these tales used to draw the attention of hapless strangers at bars. The stiffness in their legs receded as they talked, and their pace quickened.
When they had made expeditions before to search for supplies or signs of life, they never went far or turned up anything. From such forays they returned hopeless and tired, giving themselves immediately to drinking and often to tears. Yet there was more cheer about them now despite the growing cold. They were not disheartened by turning over rubble to find only more rubble, and the bunker felt like a distant memory.
Not having exercised much in the bunker, they grew tired fairly quickly. Sore feet became a more pressing concern than lively conversation, so they fell into silence. The lull gave Claudia the space to think about the past year and how this world was in many ways a childhood dream fulfilled. As a kid, she had imagined waking up one morning to a depopulated world, one that she could have alone to herself. Those daydreams played out as great peripatetic sagas where she traveled endlessly, slept in strangers’ houses, befriended animals, and picked through the remains of supermarkets.
But Sophie’s presence here was the realization of another fantasy. Claudia’s more adult dreams swirled with the privacy of love, that together she and a beautiful woman might share a world unto themselves. Without responsibility or judgment, they could take drugs and dance and grow old while doing it. Nuclear winter had given her something like that. They drank and danced every night like there was no tomorrow because there was none. Their circumstances were not their jailer, rather this long Carnival had been their prisoner.
At length the two came to a small frozen lake that was once part of a farmstead. A collapsed silo lay to their right along with some other inscrutable ruins. Sophie stopped along the shore. The ice that coated the water was gray and dull. Claudia stood by her side, and they watched the weak reflections of clouds drift across the ice. After a while, Claudia murmured something about how they should keep going, but Sophie shook her head. She had decided on this place. With that, Claudia set down her bag and pulled out most of its contents. She laid a blanket out and tossed a few hand warmers underneath. They sat together on the blanket as Claudia produced the alcohol, and Sophie squeaked when the champagne uncorked with a less-than-festive pop. Claudia held back her laughter as she poured the first glass. They made a toast, and Sophie sprang up immediately after a drink. She went to the water's edge and tested the ice with her foot. It did not crack, so she stepped firmly out onto the frozen surface. Claudia almost jumped up in fright at Sophie’s abandon.
“Be careful,” barely escaped her lips before Sophie had rushed deeper out onto the ice.
Her shoes slid forward, carrying her out on the lake. She stood for a moment at the very center and drank deeply from her glass.
“Bring the champagne,” she yelled, turning to the shore.
Claudia got to her feet and walked out toward her. Holding the champagne, she met Sophie in the middle of the lake. They embraced, and Sophie drew her into a wild spinning. Despite her resistance, Claudia was sucked into this awkward choreography that saw them turning faster and faster. They danced and laughed until they were breathless and dizzy, which was not long. Exhaustion brought Claudia down onto the ice with only the sky and Sophie above her. She looked up and passed Sophie the bottle, and they celebrated the fact that for the first time in a long time the champagne was properly chilled.
But the drink went quickly, and when Sophie had taken the last sip, she got down into a crouching position. With the bottle held by the neck, she jumped up and threw it into the air at the apex of her leap. It spun and spun, hanging above the lake. Claudia and Sophie scrambled away on the ice before it crashed down. It shattered on impact into thousands of tiny shards of green glass, which were sent dancing across the frozen water in all directions. They both cheered in excitement at the spectacle.
It was mid-afternoon when they returned to their small camp on the shore. Sitting down on the blanket, they held each other. They were buzzed but shivering. Then Sophie turned to Claudia. Her face was full of light, but she sucked her lips in and looked with quivering eyes. She needn’t explain. Claudia reached out and grabbed her bag. She peered inside and eyed the black handgun. It sat at the bottom, nestled between some hand warmers and Spam.
The gun fit neatly to her palm as she pulled it out and set it beside herself. Turning back to Sophie, she touched her face with her hand, but she recoiled. “Your hands are cold,” she said plaintively. Claudia withdrew her hands and instead leaned in. She kissed Sophie. They kissed for a long time. This touch was un-evolving and perfectly still. It held to its soft moment, staking itself to the ground beneath them. When they finally pulled away, their dry lips peeled apart, taking with them skin from the other.
Sophie then turned to the horizon, looking out across the lake. She lay her hand in Claudia’s lap, who took it before taking up the gun. She gripped her lover’s hand tightly, fingers interlaced, and held the gun up to the side of Sophie’s head. The barrel was flush with her temple, which was hidden just behind her rich dark hair. As if to calm her, Claudia relaxed her grip when she pulled the trigger. The bang and the muzzle flash were blinding. By the time she had returned to her senses, Sophie was already lying still on the ground. Claudia pried her hand from Sophie’s and checked her pulse. It was already gone, but she held her fingers to Sophie’s wrist for a minute more. Then Claudia let the arm fall limp in her own lap before turning the gun on herself. The barrel was hot in her mouth. It felt good in the cold and made it easier. She stared off across the lake to the point where Sophie must have been looking and pulled the trigger.
Claudia felt little as her eyes flickered shut and her body crumpled forward, but in that moment of dissociative clarity her thoughts were made manifest. From above she saw herself and Sophie lying there on their little blanket. There was no blood, but from their bodies a small, saintly kingdom of mushrooms grew. They covered their skin. The morning sun caught the yellow-gold caps of the fungi, which seemed to be breathing. They contracted and expanded in the light, producing a circular cloud of spores which hung in the air around them. This shining crown floated upwards and followed the breeze as it moved across the now-unfrozen lake. Fanning outwards from the point where the bodies touched, the colony continued to grow. These strange new beings made no differentiation between Claudia and Sophie. Both were host; both were home. There was no telling that any separation existed between them, no sense that their bodies had ever been apart.
-- Chris Blexrud is a librarian and writer living in Albuquerque. He likes writing about things that upset him.