Atomic Habits by Kelly Pedro

Sam and I are watching a documentary about the future, and he tells me that he’s not worried about it.

“How can you not worry about the future?” The TV flashes images of tropical storms battering the Solomon Islands as Sam rises from the couch where he’s sat so long there’s a divot in the cushion.

He cracks open a beer without offering me one because I’m trying not to drink during the week. “Serenity, Clara,” he says.

Sam thinks the earth will exist long after we’re gone. I don’t disagree but wonder what kind of earth it’ll be.

I once read about a thing called atomic habits, where little changes lead to big changes, so now I meticulously recycle, even the foil from the triangle cheeses Sam buys every week in case we have company though we never do because our condo rings the suburbs and there isn’t much out here. I suggested we move closer to the city, but Sam asked where he’d park the Elantra. When I said he wouldn’t need it, he scoffed. What if work needed him to come in unexpectedly? Which is kind of funny because Sam is a civil engineer and wouldn’t be called in unexpectedly unless maybe a bridge washed out. But it’s hard to give up the things we love, even when we’re cartwheeling toward disaster.

Sam loves documentaries. Last week we watched one about people who got marooned and started drinking the salted ocean and died from dehydration. Imagine thinking you’re saving yourself with the one thing that is slowly killing you.

“You know whenever we watch these documentaries you’re always freaking out. Imagine I did that during Survivor?” Sam says.

I make Sam watch a lot of reality TV, where there are no images of eroding coastlines, or a single polar bear perched on a shrinking sheet of ice.

I think I’m hoping we’ll fall back into the same easy relationship we had before he cheated. I forgave him but think about it every time we’re on the phone and he tells me he loves me, and I pretend I don’t hear and hang up. I wish someone would write a script that makes me forget he cheated, that reverses climate change now that we know our atomic habits are going to blow up in our faces.

“Do you think one day the sun will explode and all the leaves will dry and curl?” I ask.

The documentary is over, and as the credits start rolling I’m left wondering the fate of the single polar bear on the paltry ice floe.

Sam laughs and shakes his head. “When the sun explodes we’ll all be cosmic ash.”

He settles back into his divot in the cushion, his weight buckling the worn corduroy. I watch him bring the bottle to his mouth, watch how he chugs his beer and, the reality is, my mouth salivates, begging for any dregs he’s left behind.

---

KELLY PEDRO — Kelly is a recipient of the 2024 SmokeLong Fellowship for Emerging Writers. Her fiction has appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, Bending Genres, PRISM International, The New Quarterly, Cleaver, and Archetype Literary, and has been shortlisted for Room’s 2022 fiction contest. Find her at kellypedro.ca.

Art by FRANCESCA LEADER — Francesca is a self-taught writer and artist whose fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Wigleaf, Fictive Dream, the J Journal, Leon Literary, CutBank, and elsewhere. Her artwork has appeared in publications such as Scapegoat and FERAL, and Adanna Literary Journal. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter at @moon.in.a.bucket/mooninabucket.