The Trouble with Going Crazy

“They figure out what’s doing this yet?”

Tracy had joined Paul on the fire escape with a flute of cheap champagne and a look of rumpled exhaustion. A man’s shirt draped over her body. Paul watched the swirling sky. The new colors were mesmerizing.

“The news just keeps saying the same thing,” Tracy replied. “It’s atmospheric.”

“I could tell you it’s atmospheric, and I failed almost all of my science classes.”

The sky was now starting to change from pea soup green to a vomit yellow. There were no clouds to block the madness. Clumps of people on the street — they looked like ants feeding on the remains of a picnic — watched the metamorphosis.

“Well, they’re apparently still trying to figure out if whatever’s in the air is just messing with the sky, or if it’s altering our perception of it.”

“Which station did you hear it on?”

“I wasn’t paying attention. Daryl had it on.”

“Then it was probably CNN.”

Tracy drank the last of the champagne and set the glass down.

“Pretty early for drinking, isn’t it?” asked Paul.

“Who can tell anymore?”

Paul flicked the scratched face of his watch. Tracy shrugged as she folded her arms.

“It’s not like its tequila.”

“Still, drinking before work might look bad.”

“My boss called last night. He’s closing the office indefinitely. Until we get told what’s going on.”

“That’s nice of him.” A streak of orange that looked like spilled juice shot up from the horizon. It joined the clouds of smoke rising in the distance where the looting continued.

“I heard from Ash last night,” Tracy continued.

“How’s she holding up?”

“She’s out in the suburbs now, so she’s not worried too much. She’s actually throwing a party tonight.”

“An end of the world party?”

“What other kind are there now?”

Paul looked down at the street again. The crowds had begun to dissipate. Several police officers on horseback had appeared and were shouting words that were drowned out into a dull roar by the megaphones clutched in their hands.

“You want to go?”

“Down there?”

“No. To Ash’s party.”

Paul shrugged. “Think I’ll just hang here. Maybe read a little.”

Tracy shook her head and headed back in.

“What?”

Tracy stopped midway through crossing the window’s threshold. “No one knows what’s going on. The entire sky could catch on fire tomorrow and we’d all be dead. The air could turn into poison at any moment and we’d all be dead. The fucking president could finally launch the nuclear missiles and we’d all be dead.”

“Your point?”

“My point is we should be living like we have no time left and you’re just going about your regular weekend routine as if nothing’s happening. Read, play video games, occasionally go for a walk. Why?”

Paul leaned against the rusty balcony and slid his hands into his pockets. He didn’t see the yellow begin to explode into stars of red.

“Everyone thinks that when the end comes, they need to drop all the rules we follow. They either go join some weirdo cult or they start murdering people left and right. Or they go off on a binge of sex and drugs.” Tracy studied her bare feet. “I just don’t see the point in it. I’ve had a good life. We’re relatively safe up here. Why go through the trouble of going crazy when being sane is so much more rewarding?”

Paul went back to looking at the new colors in the sky. Tracy returned inside to continue her dark night of debauchery. The colors continued to transmogrify.