While the world was ending, James and Capriz were falling in love—guiltily, joyously, recklessly in love. With a love like theirs, young and sticky, it was hard not to see the fall of democracy with rose-tinted glasses.

“The great minds are leaving,” Capriz said to James. 

“A brain-drain means I’ll be eligible for tenure,” said James.

“You’ll be censored,” said Capriz.

“But I’ll have tenure,” said James. “We could live close to campus in an old brick home with historic tile.”

He knew she loved historic tile. This was a part of his new collection of fun facts about Capriz. He was flexing his love muscles, showing her he could put a finger on her quirks and melt her. It was working.

Potholes opened up in the road, untended. The schools were getting violent with scuffles here and there, plus, shootings. All the while, Capriz was memorizing the tiny details of her lover’s body, the small hairs on the back of his shoulder blades, the scar on his inner thigh, the rough red pads of his feet. Capriz’s life as a middle school English teacher wasn’t easy, but James texted her short love notes during the day. Memes of kittens and his favorite song lyrics.

Capriz promised her friends, who stayed up late, crying over this trial or that trial; this ruling or that ruling; she promised them, she was sad, too. But she wasn’t. Capriz and James talked till dawn then fell asleep folded into each other on the couch. Reruns of Friends ran on Netflix as they made lazy bacon-filled plans for breakfast.

James’s woven tapestries, rejected in art school as prosaic, culturally appropriative, banal …possibly problematic—were trending. He made long quilts of opposites: black and white; toddler sparkles and millennial gray; neon yarn and undyed organic fibers. It turned out, people wanted a soft, colored thing to hold, here at the end of the world. They hung his masterpieces on their builder-grade walls. They asked for his commentary on polarization. Everyone wanted his swing state opinion. Many of the art galleries were boarded up, as downtown became a sea of broken glass. Certain outlets weren’t publishing anymore. He tried to be bothered by the anti-elitism of it all, but the truth was his work was having a real moment.

James asked Capriz to meet his family over the holidays. The usual places were on fire, but they rented an Air B&B an hour outside the city. There, in a humble cabin by a lake, Capriz asked James about kids and money—big, terrifying future questions, but he took it all with a grin, depositing tiny, precious kisses on her wrists and forearms.

They were so, so, so in love, even as the occasional execution ruined their toast and eggs. The market’s ups and downs made them jittery, and James’s favorite book of poems—sad but tersely masculine—was cast into the Jesus-loving flames. And yet, they read to each other from old copies of banned books, danced in their kitchen to shake-off their nerves, and laughed about the paltry balances of their 401(k)s. They were looking at progressive churches to get married in. A refuge for their dissenting sort. The things they were getting used to! And still, they delighted in the surprise of each other.

The early fall weather dawned bright and glorious on the day of their wedding. An unseasonably warm October had flowers bursting into bloom well into the autumn. It was impossible not to giggle like idiots as they stood, side by side, in the church garden. The officiant proclaimed theirs a union of hope.

It wasn’t that it didn’t sting, when the political party they’d been loyal to for decades splintered and collapsed. It’s not that it wasn’t upsetting—seeing the radicals take the stage and hearing the water cannons, then the rifle fire, as police rounded on the protestors. Capriz might have been out there herself, protesting, but James convinced her not to risk it with a baby on the way.

Capriz found herself distracted with the baby. There were incentives for her to stay home, and she couldn’t teach anymore, anway—she pretended that it was enough to keep their home a little refuge with books, paints, and an old piano. Without the news, there was more time for quiet nights reading and walks in the neighborhood. After the first baby, the second was a foregone conclusion, and soon both Capriz and James were too tired for protests. They meant to keep up with the latest threats—who had been arrested, who disappeared, what dissenters like them were supposed to be boycotting—but their two little boys kept them sleep-deprived, and there was so much they needed to do at home. 

Capriz and the boys sent care packages to friends who had been deported. They helped clean up after swastikas were spray-painted on their neighbor’s garage. It was sad to see so many people move away. Every passing month it became harder and harder to keep in touch with those who were gone, especially since the children were growing so quickly. Some people vanished literally overnight, the doors of their homes left open.

James took a more conservative job, leaving the community art school for a tenure track position at the newly restructured public university. Being a father meant helping to keep a roof over their heads and compromises had to be made. James learned to keep his societal criticism vague and abstract. Capriz would put a hand on his shoulder whenever he spoke too loudly at university dinner parties. She loved his rebel streak, but a wife and a mother has to be practical about these things. Their home was too precious, too soft and delicate. Their sons, too young and sensitive to risk. 

James missed the loud-mouthed faculty and student activists, but his new campus was still beautiful, still full of blood-red brick shining in the sun. Students still learned. Textiles were still crafted, one careful strand at a time, woven cautiously but methodically in the art building. Here he made blankets for his own children, and sat about nesting with Capriz, building a little cotton cocoon for the end of the world.

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Header photography and artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson