Mama tells me I’m part of the last people they’re ever gonna make.
She says I’m special, says I’m sweet an’ kind, and I wanna prove her right. I wanna be warm enough for the both of us.
Mama doesn’t let me watch the TV anymore. I asked her if I was grounded and she said no. Sometimes when she thinks I’m out playing she turns it on and cries and cries. I dunno what they talk about on there, but I cry too, just to be safe.
Mama told me last summer that I didn’t hafta go to school anymore. I asked her why and she said they stopped making schools. I asked her what about the one we already got and she told me that that one got washed away in a flood. Nobody was inside, but they stopped making that kinda building, so I got to stay home and play video games instead.
I don’t remember it flooding.
Last week they stopped making power plants, too, so I couldn’t play video games anymore either.
Today Mama took me out to the park. She pushed me on the swingset some and then sat me down on a hill and pointed at somethin’ in the sky. She asked me if I knew what it was and then told me it’s a meteor. I said it looked like a little baby moon and she held me real tight an’ nodded. She said it’s even bigger than the moon, but it’s smaller ’cause it’s far away. I told her I thought it was getting bigger and she told me it was.
When we left it was bigger than the moon.
When we got home she made my favorite dinner and told me I could have as much ice cream as I wanted. I asked her why she wasn’t eating nothing and she told me she wasn’t hungry and I could eat enough for both of us.
After dinner Mama took out her old photo albums and we looked at all the pictures. Of Mama when she was young, of Papa before they stopped making him, of me when I was a baby. She did some crying and held me close. She told me I was an angel, that I made her so happy she could cry. She said thank you for being my perfect little boy. I said I didn’t understand and she told me that that was okay.
Then it was bedtime. I asked Mama if I could sleep next to her tonight and she said of course. She cuddled me real tight and told me that everything was gonna be okay. I asked her why and she just kept repeating herself.
Everything’s gonna be okay.
Everything’s gonna be okay.
Everything’s gonna be—
