Yin Yin’s mother had intended to save her best plates for a special occasion. But when the apocalypse was approaching, Yin Yin finally took them down from the cupboard, where they had been kept for more than thirty years.

“Careful, ah!” Ma commanded. “Those are the good plates. I kept them nicely.”

“Good plates?”

Yin Yin brought the box down from its hidden spot on the highest shelf of the cupboard, climbing down from the chair unsteadily. She was irritable and sweaty from helping her mother clean all morning. It was one thing to have been forced into chores as a teenager, quite another to be bossed around in her early forties.

Still, she knew she only had herself to blame. She was, after all, the one who had chosen to come home.

This morning, her mother had taken all the pots and pans out of the kitchen cupboard, so that Yin Yin could wipe the shelves and doors clean. Then she had to put everything back. Next, her mother ordered her to climb up to the high cupboard to wipe there, too.

“Ma!” said Yin Yin. “It doesn’t need to be dusted. Who is going to see?”

“I’m not so steady anymore,” Ma said. “But if you don’t want to do it, I’ll do it.” She dragged a chair into place. “I’ll go up myself.”

Yin Yin sighed and bit back any further retort. They were running out of time. She didn’t want to spend her last day on earth cleaning, but it was pointless to argue. In the past two months, she realized that parents didn’t—couldn’t—change. They simply sucked you in further to their orbit of bad opinions and stale habits, like debris being dragged into a whirlpool.

In her mother’s case, it was an extremely tidy whirlpool. Ma took pride in the cleanliness of her home. Long after she lived alone, she kept the house in a state fit for visitors. Nothing was out of place, everything was accounted for. Even now. Especially now.

“You never know,” her mother had said. “They don’t know everything, the scientists.”

“Yes they do, Ma!” Yin Yin had retorted. She was so sick of hearing that shrillness in her voice, the one that made her feel like she was regressing. But ever since she’d moved back home, she sounded like that almost every day. “The world is going to end!”

As usual, her mother stopped replying and changed the subject.

“You just have to accept Ma as she is,” said Yin Yin’s brother Meng when she ranted to him over a video call. But it was easy for Meng to stay calm, to play the zen master. Meng wasn’t here.

Yin Yin had come home three months ago, when the scientists confirmed the asteroid’s path and everyone knew it couldn’t be diverted. All the special deflection missions had failed. The countdown had begun.

By then, there was a sense of weary acceptance. The world had already endured a pandemic and a drought. They had lost count of the earthquakes, typhoons, and other small catastrophes. An asteroid seemed fitting. And final. Even the conspiracy theorists were tired. They still speculated, of course, but you could tell their heart wasn’t really in it. What could be weirder than the truth?

And the truth was this: the earth was shortly due to be crushed. Shattered, annihilated, erased. The exact term didn’t matter. Everything and anyone they had ever known would be gone, and so would their kitchen—nice porcelain plates and all.

Yin Yin opened the box to find the plates were safely cocooned, each wrapped by itself in layers of newspaper. Ignoring Ma’s protests, Yin Yin picked one up: a sturdy, concave satellite. The newspaper left grayish dust on her fingers as she prised the paper apart.

The plate inside was dainty and delicate. Its border bloomed with kitsch pink roses and the scalloped edge was finished in gold.

“We can use them today,” she said, unwrapping a second plate. “For lunch.”

“What’s the point?” Ma said. “Nobody here to see.”

“Well, there’s no point saving them,” said Yin Yin. “How long have you kept these? Thirty, forty years?”

“Just finish wiping that top shelf. Then, you can vacuum the lounge,” Ma said, testily.

Across the world, humans were marking the Last Day in special ways. They were praying. They were gathering in fields and forests. Of course, some people were having orgies—new apps had launched solely for the purpose of coordinating these. But many simply wanted to be closer to nature, to sleep under the stars. To hold their loved ones tightly.

When Yin Yin arrived back in KL, bringing only her essential things from Singapore, she had imagined a peaceful transition. She and her mother would live out their last days with calm dignity. They might talk fondly of Yin Yin’s late father, or of childhood holidays. They might even play Scrabble.

Surely, Yin Yin had thought, this impending doom would put things in perspective. It wouldn’t matter that she had never married or had children of her own, and she would be gracious enough not to point this out, to say, “You see, Ma? It didn’t matter.” She wouldn’t need to.

But she had not expected to be swept up in her mother’s list of final errands.

The tender moments she’d imagined had not been forthcoming. And the closer they drew to the Last Day, the more Yin Yin felt the absence of Meng.

Meng was in Vancouver, where he’d emigrated more than twenty years ago. He’d kept saying he would come home. But he delayed and delayed. When the airlines shut down again, it became officially impossible. Yin Yin was furious at him. He had left her here, at the end of the world, to absorb their mother’s sadness alone.


…


After she’d finished in the kitchen, Yin Yin slipped back to her room, flopped onto her bed and checked her phone. Several friends back in Singapore were making plans to have a final dinner tonight. An ex-boyfriend had sent her a dick pic and a message saying he missed her. And there was a string of automated greetings, sent by companies like her bank and the place she used to get her eyebrows threaded.

“To our star customer [Yin Yin K]!” wrote the brow salon. “Wishing you and your loved ones a peaceful Last Day from all of us at B Beautiful!”

The smell of lunch drew Yin Yin back downstairs. In the kitchen, she found Ma dredging crispy eggs from hot oil. There was a wok of freshly fried mee hoon, ready and waiting.

“Must finish, ok?” Ma said. “Don’t waste.”

The two good plates were set at the table. A minor victory. Yin Yin piled each of them high with mee hoon, finally anointing the new porcelain with oil, smudging the little flowers with sambal.

Fried mee hoon—always with crispy eggs—had been a staple lunch of her childhood. At the end of each week, Ma would toss vegetable scraps in with the noodles, using up whatever needed to be used up. Today was no different. Half a carrot, a handful of fishcake cubes and the final stubby leaves of a cabbage. But together, they were greater than their parts. Everything was a fragrant, moreish tangle, slick with garlicky oil and slightly charred.

They ate quietly. Yin Yin had never told her mother this, but she couldn’t think of a meal she loved more.

“Later, help me take down the champagne, ah,” Ma said. She had finished her portion and was already starting on the washing up.

“What champagne?” said Yin Yin. “Where?”

“The cabinet. Where else?”

Oh. Ma meant those dusty old bottles in their lounge. The display cabinet had been there so long that Yin Yin had forgotten to notice it.

But her mother’s mental inventory was as sharp as ever. There were indeed champagne bottles in the cabinet, placed carefully among the ornamental stones, framed photos and holiday souvenirs. As Yin Yin grabbed them, she wondered if her mother had secretly been saving them for Meng’s return. Perhaps they were as old as the plates.

“Where should I put these?” she asked, bringing the bottles back to the kitchen.

“Give them to me,” Ma said. She took the bottles and began to wipe them. “Later we’ll take them to the party.”

“Party?” Yin Yin asked.

“Ya. Next door,” Ma said, as if Yin Yin should have already known. “They invited us, remember? Number 160.”

“No. I don’t remember. I think I would have remembered if we had plans for our last day on earth.”

Ma tutted. “No need to be rude. They’re quite nice, those young people. Bit noisy, but nice. After the party, we can call Meng.”

“What if I don’t feel like going?” said Yin Yin. She could hear herself, could hear that teenage whine again, but it was too late.

As usual, her mother did not reply.


…


They left the house just as the sun was setting, the milky clouds glowing low over their ordinary street. Next door, the driveway was dotted with people. The gate was open, and guests were freely wandering in, chatting and drinking. It seemed like everyone on the street had been invited, even the local security guards.

“Hi, Auntie!”

A tall young man waved from the side of the driveway, where he sat with friends near a cooler box of drinks. All of them had beards—a style that Yin Yin had seen on social media. It was a trend, apparently: the kids called them “acceptance beards.”  

“Hi, Marvin,” replied her mother, approaching the group. She had one champagne bottle under each arm. “We brought drinks.”

“Nice, Auntie K!” said Marvin. “Thanks for coming!”

Auntie K? Yin Yin thought to herself. Since when had her mother hung out with these young people? Why had she never mentioned them before?

“I’m Yin Yin, her daughter,” she offered, remembering to smile at the last moment. She must have been at least two decades older than everyone in the group. They looked like they were students—or at least, had been students before the universities shut down. 

“Cool, cool. Make yourself at home,” said Marvin. “Grab a drink.”

It seemed gauche to open the champagne, so Yin Yin took a beer. She looked around. Over at the barbecue, someone had just started grilling burgers. Other neighbours were arriving with extra chairs.

The sliding porch gate at the front of the house was open, and so was the door, so she could see straight into the lounge. Usually, houses in this neighbourhood never left a gate unlocked, let alone a door. A sign of the times indeed.

Inside, someone was playing the guitar, the chords woven with the hum of laughter. Slowly, Yin Yin moved towards the music.

In the lounge, the TV was on, with the sound turned down. The pundits that Yin Yin had come to know and hate were still debating the asteroid’s impact. One of them speculated that the asteroid would knock the earth into a parallel universe, where everyone would meet another version of themselves. Yin Yin shuddered at the thought.

But no one was watching TV anyway. The lounge had been filled with an assortment of softly lit lamps and candles. A couple were making out in a dark corner of the room. A small group of others were sitting in a circle, mesmerized by a string of fairy lights that they gathered in their hands like gems. They kept winding the lights around their hands and necks, giggling.

The music was coming from the kitchen, the next room. Yin Yin squeezed past the group with the lights, trying not to trip over them.

She surveyed the shabby kitchen. It was practically falling apart, and Yin Yin suspected this had nothing to do with it being the Last Day. Here at number 160, the landlord had let things go. The cupboards were missing a couple of doors, and the furniture was horribly mismatched. It seemed the tenants had improvised: near the doorway, where she stood, there was an ugly metal table that looked like it had been stolen from a bar. Next to that, a sagging, brownish sofa.

This was where the guitar player was perched, a sanguine boy of Marvin’s age. He too had a beard. A girl with large, retro-style glasses was slouched affectionately next to him. She lit up a spliff.

The girl looked up, caught Yin Yin’s stare and smiled back, her eyes glazed.

“Want some?” she asked, as if they knew each other.

Yin Yin almost turned to check if Ma was behind her. But then she stopped herself. She was 43, not 14.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting the spliff. She sat down next to the girl.

“Do you know Marvin?” asked the guitar player.

“No,” said Yin Yin. “But my mum lives next door. I’m Swee Yin. Everyone calls me Yin Yin.”

“Oh, you’re Auntie K’s daughter?”

Yin Yin nodded.

“I’m Sandra,” said the girl. “And this is Ali.”

“I live here with Marvin,” Ali added.

The three of them smoked together for a while, quietly, while Ali picked at a few chords in between tokes.

“This is a nice party,” Yin Yin said at last. She was beginning to relax. But one thing was nagging at her, and she had to ask. “But why are you guys here? Where are your families?”

Ali and Sandra exchanged glances.

“Sorry,” Yin Yin said abruptly. “I didn’t mean to—I’m just, I’m curious. It’s the Last Day. Don’t you want to be with your families?”

“My parents bought Pods,” Sandra said. “I don’t really believe in it. I mean it seems a bit desperate, you know? But it reassured them. I’m the only one who didn’t want to do it, and they couldn’t force me.”

“Oh,” Yin Yin said. She knew a few people who’d decided to pay for a cryogenic pod, but not everyone who wanted one could get one, even if they had the money.

“My family are in Australia,” said Ali. “My sister has a kid there, and my parents go every year. They got stranded. But I think they’d want to be there anyway, with my nephew.”

Yin Yin nodded. “I have a brother in Vancouver,” she said. “He couldn’t come home either. Or he didn’t want to.”

Ali gave her a sympathetic glance. He gestured to the kitchen. “It’s not much, but it’s better than being alone, right?” he said. “It’s a good bunch of people.”

“Yeah,” said Yin Yin.

Ali started to play another song. Yin Yin leant back, letting her head sink into the back of the sofa, as if she was home. She was home, she reminded herself. She would never open the door to her own apartment again, but she would also never worry about running out of milk. Her mother always made sure there was milk.

After a while, she might have fallen asleep. When she opened her eyes, Sandra was the one playing guitar.

Yin Yin felt better than she had for days. “I’m going to get another drink,” she said.

Cutting back through the lounge, she saw people were leaving, and the room was almost empty. For a moment, she panicked: Did I miss it? Is it happening?

But no, that was silly. There were still a few hours to go. The party guests had simply gone outside. Night had fallen now, and a few streets away, someone was setting off fireworks. They were small ones, more like a series of stuttering sparks than anything spectacular. But the sparks popped and glittered defiantly, despite their size. People cheered.

In the driveway, Yin Yin found her mother helping to manage the barbecue, chatting with another neighbor.

“There you are,” Ma said. “You want a burger?”

Yin Yin nodded. Her mother handed her a plate.

The burger was hot and charred, slathered in ketchup, and topped with the kind of melty processed cheese that she never bought for herself. It was delicious.  

“Thanks,” she said. “You’re a really good cook, Ma. You know that?”

“Eh,” laughed Ma. “It’s just a burger.”

The light of the fireworks illuminated a glint in Yin Yin’s hands: the gold edge of the plate.

Ma shrugged as Yin Yin met her eyes.

“They ran out of plates,” she said. “So, I went back to get more. No point saving them.”

Yin Yin ate the last of her burger, licking some of the juice from her hand.

“That was nice of you,” she said. “Do you want me to wash them, later?”

Her mother hesitated, then nodded. “OK,” she said. “If there’s time.”

Yin Yin put the empty plate down. “Let’s go see the fireworks,” she said.

“But the barbecue…”

“Ma,” said Yin Yin. “It’s OK.”

She took her mother’s hand, pulling gently. Together, they walked beyond the driveway and onto the street, standing shoulder to shoulder with people they barely knew. When another fistful of sparks burst in the sky, they cheered.

A moment later, Yin Yin’s pocket buzzed. Her phone battery was almost gone, but there was a little bit left. It was Meng calling.

She answered, and her brother’s worried face filled the screen.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” said Meng. “I’ve been trying to get through. Are you with Ma? I haven’t slept.”

Another firework went off, and he squinted, peering closer to the screen.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m with Ma,” said Yin Yin. She swung the phone around so he could see them both. 

Ma gave a little wave. Yin Yin laughed and said,  “We’re at a party.”