What’s Truly in a Name: Jeffery, not Jeff

Jeff or Jeffery at the End of the World

Category: Science Fiction

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What’s Truly in a Name: Jeffery, Not Jeff

I wondered how I had gotten here, alone at the end of the world, with someone named Jeff. The first thing he said to me as the mushroom clouds in the far distance sent their towering columns upwards like pillars emerging from the deepest recesses of hellfire and their flat tops spreading like a torus of doom in the high atmosphere — he said to me with a kind of steely but innocent defiance in his small voice, as if he expected opposition, was used to it. “I want you to call me Jeffery., not Jeff.”

I tore my weeping, seared eyes away from the apocalyptic scene of humanity’s completely unnecessary, uncalled for doom, and looked at him incredulously. About to automatically react, perhaps in unthinking sarcasm, I saw the stains of salt on his smooth cheeks and held myself in check. What made this point so important to him, in this, perhaps our last minutes upon this earth gifted to us and now taken away by the fools of empire, and the follies engendered by their mad, unbalanced greed?

The horizon’s vast sweeping arc was an eye-burning vista of countless pillars, their prodigious fires reaching upward in an act of war against the very vaults of heaven. I witnessed it now with the near instant perception of vision, but it would not be long before the arrival of intensely radioactive superheated air filled with debris would tear through us, like shrapnel from a proximate grenade. And close behind, a shockwave that would shatter everything in its inextinguishable path. Then the earth would shake beneath our feet as the land buckled under the downward blast pressure that sent out a rippling wave that made solid land behave like malleable fluid. The heat would ignite and burn, melt and sear everything in the blast radius — and it appeared as if the whole earth was within that radius; the multitudinous separate pillars of the palace of doom that marked humankind’s suicidal eradication were now merging together into an incandescent wall of annihilation.

These were not the feeble nuclear armaments of the past, but unimaginably fierce nuclear incinerators, forged in the mad insanity of the stygian pitiless depths of deformed human souls.

I didn’t know if there would be any point in taking shelter but, through whatever iota of hope still glimmered within, I said softly, “Jeffery…” I hesitated, then went on, Oh Jeffery…it may be hopeless, but let’s at least attempt protection in this building.” A building lay behind us — with, I knew through previous use, multi-level basement parking. To my surprise, Jeffery nodded at my use of his requested name. The stubborn defiance had faded from his eyes, and he nodded, a look of gratitude settled upon his expression even as fresh tears dropped from his large shining eyes. We headed to the building, glancing briefly back at the mile high cloud of debris and fire racing our way, as the hellish darkness engendered by the clouds spreading across this nuclear temple of Sampson, deepened and overtook the earth.

If we survived underground, then there would be time enough to learn why Jeff insisted on being called Jeffery — or so I thought. But Jeffery took my hand in his and turned towards me. I knelt down in front of him so my eyes were level with his, even while conscious of the shockwave rushing towards my back. He unslung his school backpack and reaching inside handed me a thin book, his little hand trembling. It was a book of names — of children’s names. In it was a bookmark, just a torn tissue inserted at an earmarked page. I opened it, and the rising wind caught the tissue and carried it away. I looked at the page and saw an underlined passage. The underscored bit read, simply,

“The name Jeffery carries the meaning of ‘pledge of peace’.”

There was more but the wind was growing unbearably intense, but not in gusts. Rather, it rose in a steadily increasing cadence of severity — the displaced breath of the earth’s life giving way to the unendurable shout of perdition that would inevitably overtake it. I felt an intensifying almost blistering increase in heat, searing the air and my lungs as it flowed over us.

Holding Jeffery’s small hand, I pulled him along and ran to the building and tugged at the entrance door. It was locked. I kicked at it but it did not even quiver under the assault. I looked for a rock to break the glass but there was only pavement and grass in sight. Pulling Jeffery behind me, I ran around the outside of the building to its far side where there was some protection from the now savage wind. The back entrance was a steel door, also solidly locked. The air was scorching now, with the feel of being too near an open steel furnace. Breathing was agonizing. I squatted, leaning against the wall,, my energy spent. Jeffery looked at me, his tears were dry, his mien unexpectedly calm.

I lowered my head to my hand, then noticed the book with my finger still inserted at the folded page. I opened it and continued reading.

“Popularized between the 50’s and 70’s, an era of mushrooming nuclear proliferation, Jeffery was a name of hope for something different, for a better path.”

I pulled Jeffery down next to me and put my arm around him as he sat leaning beside me — a small measure of human comfort for him as death rolled towards us. Debris began to fill the air and it was only the protection of the building that was temporarily keeping us alive. There was now a growing vibration at our backs as the winds roared deafeningly and shook even the most solid structures, vehemently seeking their disintegration. The caustic rise in temperature had both of us gasping for breaths — likely soon to be our last. I clung fiercely to Jeffery’s slight form and as I turned my head to look down at him, my eyes scanned past the last few underlined words before the book was ripped from my grasp, carried into the ferocious turbulence of seething, boiling clouds agitating the heavens.

Debris fell from the rooftop, crashing around us. We pressed our bodies hard against the concrete bricks behind us but the wall and the ground were beginning to ripple as if composed of trampoline rubber. Heavy clouds of dust obscured our surroundings and a vast painful pressure was in my ears and lungs — the outskirts of the blast wave was upon us. My eyes were on Jeffery and marvelled at his calm while my entire being trembled under the crushing atmospheric compression — as if the once sheltering sky had become a hydraulic press with us in its grip. I slumped as the world mutated into a swirling storm and Jeffery squeezed tight against me. Any comfort to be had in this moment came from Jeffery to me, not the other way around.

One last look into his eyes and my consciousness faded, leaking slowly away into the reverberations of humanity’s final choice. My penultimate thought was the last underline from the book now buoyant and adrift on unstoppable radioactive winds.

“Also means: God’s peace.”

My ultimate thought, as I gazed upon the radiance of his burning skin and the flames that rose now from the kindling of his clothes, illuminating him like a manuscript, rich with meaning, set aflame lighting the darkness that had fallen upon the world:

“Jeffery!”

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-Irshaad

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This story was from a speed writing group session, written against a twenty minute time limit, from the seed sentence, “I wondered how I had gotten here, alone at the end of the world, with someone named Jeff. I hope you enjoyed it.”

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