I Know Where the End of the World is

Taylor liked Bethany, a small town just an hour south of Pittsburgh. Might as well be ten, twenty, fifty, Taylor often thought.

And that was the point. Here, Taylor was alone.

In most places, Taylor imagined, people would have a lot to say about a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white guy from next-to-nowhere, Pennsylvania. But not in West Virginia. Everyone here was from next-to-nowhere. Maybe even nowhere itself.

And they were quiet. If they did open their mouths, it was probably to complain. This was West Virginia after all.

“I hate how mountainous it is here.”

“I hate the food here.”

“I hate you.”

That last one was uttered by Taylor’s ex-girlfriend Martha just after he broke up with her. Taylor felt his heartbeat in his skull, in his stomach, and in his jeans. He liked Martha, but she had an overwhelming positivity about her that Taylor knew to be genuine and yet resented nonetheless. He probably could have left that last part out when he severed their connection, but Taylor had long felt that honesty was the best policy, even when it wasn’t.

Martha felt Taylor’s explanation was horseshit, a costumed attempt to free himself of any commitment and sleep with the other women at Bethany College as freely as he’d like, which was neither completely true nor completely false. Still, Taylor didn’t deny the accusation; he would likely download a dating app and use Bethany’s limited reception to peruse Bethany’s even more limited pool of single females. Besides, there was something about being hated that felt even better than being loved.

Taylor hated things too, like running. Of course, he was good at it, but that made him hate it even more.

He hated breathing, especially in Bethany. The town’s dry air always made him feel just a little out of breath, as if he had run here all the way from his childhood home in northeastern Pennsylvania. Such a run wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibilities for Taylor. He was even more out of breath back home. No one else in Sugarloaf was short of breath, whether Taylor liked it or not.

But today, Taylor runs and he breathes and he isn’t alone. He finds himself at Castleman Run, just a few miles away from campus. The cold air bites his skin and he slaps at the wind like that will do anything at all. On campus, he was never scared, especially of the cold. Nobody was. Students were always outside yelling things like how much they hate big corporations and how the planet was slowly— no, rapidly— dying. Taylor mostly watched these demonstrations, but he appreciated their presence. Made him feel like he was part of something.

Such is life, Taylor thinks as he runs. You’re part of something and then you’re not. And then eventually, you are again.

His movement is surprisingly awkward today, his legs kicking out to his sides, speeding up and slowing down, slowing down and speeding up. Taylor looks at the ground gliding beneath him and admires the way his fluctuating speed offers a multitude of perspectives. Throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Taylor’s eyes begin to tear up, so he blinks and looks back up.

Smoke rises behind the trees, and it occurs to Taylor that the air is warming up.

He regains control of his body and sprints towards the crackling of a fire. He wonders if the world is really going to end as his nostrils are filled with ash and alcohol.

The trees begin to shrink as Taylor approaches them, and the sullen grey of the smoke is joined by the vibrant oranges, yellows, and reds of a burning cross. Men surround it, drinking moonshine and beers and grilling hot dogs on sticks in the hot flames of hatred. They’re dressed in the way Taylor imagined most West Virginians would dress. Trucker hats, flannels, ill-fitting jeans.

Of course, they’re not dressed in the way Taylor imagined most neo-Nazis would dress. That’s what they were, right? Racists, antisemites, far removed from the comforting complaints fighting to be heard everyday back in Bethany.

Taylor considers turning around, but he’s already been spotted. One man, the tallest and the fattest in the group, offers him a dog.

“Bun?” he asks.

Taylor wants to explain that he doesn’t eat red meat, that he’s going to be late for class, that his non-existent asthma is acting up, that he best be going, but another man has already poured a shot of moonshine down his throat and it warms Taylor up so good that he can’t help but wonder what another might feel like.

When Taylor first received his athletic scholarship for Bethany College, he told his parents he didn’t want to go. “I’m tired of running,” he said. “You’re always moving. Never still.”

A few more shots of moonshine, a few more drops of sweat under the attacking heat of a large fire in the dead of winter, and it occurs to Taylor what he really hated about running.

Point A. Point B. Point A again. That was the cycle. Wherever you start is where you end.

As the flames lick up the cross in front of him and he starts to confuse tears from the cold with tears from the smoke, real tears join the mixture in Taylor’s bloodshot eyes. He begins to worry that this Point B is actually his Point A, and he realizes that these terrible men are not unlike the Bethany students panicking about Earth’s demise. He abandons that thought pretty quickly as he notes the difference, of course, is that these men did not know where they were, what was wrong.

Taylor thinks about tomorrow, and the next day. Perhaps he’ll join those students, and let them in on a little secret.

“I know where the end of the world is,” he’ll say.