Seven Days

Content Note: This story deals with dark themes including mass murder, suicidal thoughts, and mass suicide.

7

The number is literally everywhere. It’s not an uncommon number but it’s kind of weird that I’m seeing it on anything that has writing on it. It’s in places that make sense, but it draws my attention. I notice it on the microwave clock before noticing that the time is 6:17. When I pull out the package of sausage that I’m going to cook up, I notice immediately the number 7 in the number of grams for sugar and carbs.

It gets to be annoying and after a while, I stop looking at things with writing on them. Something nags at my mind and I want to ignore it. As my head starts to hurt, I put a cup in the coffee maker and brew up the blessed, dark liquid.

I hate mornings that include hangovers.

Which is weird because I didn’t drink that much last night. I went out to the club with Tony, Sally, and Rachel. I had a couple of drinks there and danced, which always increases the effects for me. I was hydrated, though, and we stopped for pancakes to give us a carb boost before heading home.

I should be feeling fine. Tired, sure, but not like this.

The coffee finishes with a wet snort from the coffee maker. I pull the cup to me, look down, and just stare at it. Coffee grounds in the coffee is annoying but okay. It’s what I get for getting the knock-off cups. I’ve learned to just accept it and move on. That’s not what’s bothering me.

The grounds have formed into the shape of a 7.

I pour out the coffee and walk over to the kitchen window. It’s a spring day. The sun is shining. We’re at that point of the season where the leaves are newly sprouting on the trees, so things are filling in, but not yet bushy. It’s a beautiful time but aggravating on the allergies.

This is when everything is blooming too.

I look into the trees, wanting to get lost in the random shapes and patterns formed as the branches overlap each other from different trees. The shapes, though, aren’t random at all. I keep seeing 7 formed in the patterns, over and over.

My pulse speeds up and a light sweat breaks out across my body. There was a movie I watched years ago with a boyfriend of mine. It was this bizarre and twisted movie that I can only somewhat remember the plot of. The thing that stuck with me in the movie, the thing my mind turns to now, is a brief scene, a shot outside of the main character’s house, where the random pattern of the leaves of the tree spells out “Help Me.”

I pull down the window shades and try my best to shake the feeling that is starting to well up inside of me. It’s that feeling like panic, where your body starts to go cold your blood feels like tiny needles trying to escape your skin. My heart races and it feels like the whole world is trying to turn upside down.

“What’s going on?” I yell to my empty bungalow.

The world is ending in seven days.

It’s not a thought, but it’s not words I hear either. It comes across like the cool, professional tone of a receptionist announcing the office schedule over the loudspeakers. I have no idea what is going on except that the world is ending in seven days.

I know this with the same certainty that I know I have two arms with hands on the ends and a linoleum floor under my feet. I don’t know why the world is ending. I don’t know how it is going to happen.

But I know it is coming.

The end of the world.

I shake off the strange feeling that follows this knowledge. I’m not noticing the number seven everywhere anymore and my head is not hurting so bad. I put in another knock-off cup. I really need the coffee. This one seems to have no grounds and I sip it as I sit down and turn on the television to see if the news has anything about what is happening.

For once in my life, no one else knows more than I do about anything. I put on cable news to see that, yes, the world is ending in seven days. It should be six days in the UK, which is the topic of discussion now. The UK shows 7, though, just like we do.

How do time zones work?

That is literally the caption at the bottom of the screen over the ticker.

Around a table, six pundits speculate what it means for the world to end in seven days. What does it mean that our countdown on the East Coast – I'm in Atlanta and they’re in New York - is the same as in the UK and Moscow and Bejing?

“Obviously the world ends at the same time,” Pundit One says. “You can’t have the world end everywhere else and not here.”

“Then they should show it ending in six days, and seven for us,” Pundit Four says, “Seven days for them and for us is going to be a different time. Since it obviously isn’t, my question is, will we be able to get live feeds out from the areas it happens first so that we know what is coming.”

They sit and debate this back and forth. No one at the table questions if it is true. They aren’t even asking the questions of how and why. It’s like they just accept it is going to happen and want to argue the logistics of the timetable.

As they inanely ramble on, it hits me. The thought comes with perfect clarity, ringing in the voice of my old college physics teacher.

You can know its position or its velocity. You can’t know both.

And I just know this is right. I can’t know why or how. It’s like someone replaced that passage in the bible with the Heisenberg Principle. Now that we know the when, we can’t know the how or why. If we knew the how or why, we wouldn’t know the when.

I watch Pundit Four brighten. “I just realized something important. We can only know one truth about the end of the world. We used to know why the world would end: us. For a while, we were pretty sure of how, but when or why anyone would just let it happen was unfathomable. Now we know when, but not the rest of it.”

“I fucking hate you.” I say the words hoping Pundit Four will pick up that too, but he doesn’t. Instead, the six of them just sit there at the table, debating the concept of only knowing one property of the end of the world. They debate how many total properties there can be. Pundit Six raises his finger to the sky and postulates that maybe what Nietzsche said is true after all.

Maybe this means that God is Dead.

I turn off the television. It’s useless and I’m frustrated. I pick up my cell phone and try to make a call. I get a network overloaded recording instead. Everyone is trying to call everyone at the same time, I guess.

It makes about as much sense as anything else does. I vow to spend the rest of my day with my ass planted firmly on the couch and turn on the television back on. I take it off the news and find something fun to watch.

Every show today features a mystery where they can only know one thing.

“I hate the end of the world.”

6

Monday, and life is mostly normal. I’m late to work, but that’s not unusual. I’m not sure why my boss puts up with it. I take the train into Buckhead. It’s almost ten when I walk up the street from the station to my office building. A music playlist drones in my ear. Mall traffic is light today. I try to think about that and remember if the parking lot is ever full this early on Monday morning or if it seems more deserted than usual.

The truth is … I have no idea. I walk up this road every day and I have never once bothered to take note of the mall and how busy it is or isn’t in the morning. I pull out my phone, stop the music, and find a news channel to see if there’s any change to our inevitable end.

A new set of Pundits are on the screen, going on about world events. At first, it’s like the day is normal. Unrest in the Middle East. Europe walks a tight line between order and chaos. China. South America and Mexico.

They’re on about immigrants now, waiting in camps to see if they’ll be deported or not.

And that is when the world catches up with me again. It doesn’t really matter if these poor people are going to be deported or not. There isn’t going to be a next week for them to have hearings or be pulled out of the camps. After Saturday, there won’t be anything …

… as far as we know.

I change back over to music and try to ignore the mall. It seems like it’s not very busy today and honestly …

Why do I care?

Is there some secret to existence that lies in how busy the mall is on a typical Monday morning? If I knew the square root of how many cars should be here and divided it by the square factor of the number of cars present, would I find the value of a ratio that would reset the world?

I make it to my building and walk inside. Lou sits at the security desk like he does every weekday morning. I wave to him and walk to the elevators. The bell dings to inform me and anyone else waiting – there are three of us – that the elevator has arrived. The metal doors slide open, and the inside is sprayed in deep red.

The scream from the woman behind me doesn’t really register at first. I’m just looking at the spray pattern, as though someone exploded a balloon with thick, red liquid inside of it. As I look at it, I realize that there’s something greyish there as well, chucks of something that hug the backlit walls of the elevator car.

The second person waiting for the elevator wretches, and I hear something wet spill out onto the floor. I finally look down and see that the man lying there in a thick pool of red is missing part of his head. A shotgun lies next to him, kind of in front of him. It looks like it was in his mouth. Well, what is left of his mouth. His jaw hangs odd, bloody, and broken.

I turn around and the third person waiting with me is pale. I walk over to the front desk and tap it to get Lou’s attention. He has his walkie-talkie in his hand and is talking into it, his eyes darting around the lobby.

“We need someone to clean out the elevator.”

Lou starts to say something, but I walk over to the stair well. I don’t really need to take elevator this morning.

Four flights up and the scene begins to take on meaning and context. I have the other six to work it out. A man had come to work with a shot gun and blown his brains out. It’s a weird thing, I think, to bring a shotgun to work to do that.

Why not just blow your brains out at home?

I get up to my floor and the door is locked. I try my key card and it fails. I roll my eyes and try to dial up Lou’s desk as I make my way back down the stairs. It’s good I didn’t go to the gym this morning. I’m getting all the exercise I need right now.

As I reach the lobby level, the door opens, and a police officer steps inside, his hand close to his gun as he evaluates me.

“Are you injured?” he asks me.

“I’m annoyed,” I say. “Someone locked the doors on ten.”

“All of the doors are locked.” The officer extends a hand and guides me out. He barely touches me, as though I might be made of glass. The lobby is slowly filling with people. Some of them are sobbing and a few are covered in blood. People are chatting all at once and I can’t really make out what people are talking about. I just mill about until Lou nods to a police officer, and I’m told I can go home.

In the silence outside – the road is blocked off and cars can’t come to the building – I put my plugs in my ears again and bring up my news app. Apparently, there was a shooting in an office building on Peachtree Street in Buckhead. Reports are that the shooter has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and those not injured or direct witnesses are being evacuated from the building.

Normally, a mass shooting leaves me feeling chilled and helpless. I have strong opinions on some issues. When it comes to guns, however, I’m torn. It’s not that I think guns aren’t dangerous. They’re made to kill. That’s their purpose.

Guns are simple and straight forward. Gun control is nuanced. It’s become so convoluted, though, that I don’t think some people want to argue in good faith. People just want to be right. When that happens, you can’t reach common ground.

You need common ground to come to a compromise.

It’s not like being gay or trans. There is no compromise about if you really only like men or if you’re really a man or a woman. Those are existential questions.

You are or you aren’t.

Guns are only an existential question for the person looking up the barrel. If everyone would argue in good faith, then we could find the middle ground between all of the guns and none of the guns.

Every time there is a mass killing, these thoughts come to mind and leave me feeling dark and helpless. I have often wondered what I would do if a mass killing happened near me. Now I’m here and I just feel …

I don’t know if numb is the correct word. No, I don’t think it is. I’ve felt emotionally numb before and that was not this. That was a cool, fuzzy feeling in my chest and shoulders. This is cool, but not fuzzy. It is just … I suppose it is the feeling of the inevitable.

We’re six days away from the end of the world. Of course, someone has decided to kill a bunch of people and himself. As I follow the stories about the killing, I come to realize with the same coolness that it was in my office building. Other stories pop up on my phone. Several people have apparently decided to do the same thing.

I realize as I wait on the train platform that the feelings I have right now are actually two different feelings. That cool feeling is directed internally. It is how I am feeling about myself and it is not a good feeling. The other feeling that I could not define beyond the inevitable is something I have felt quite a few times in very different circumstances.

It’s relief. No wonder I’m unhappy with myself. I’m almost glad that a man shot up one of the offices in my building. I’m being harsh on myself. I’m not happy about the loss of life and brutality of what I saw.

So far, everyone I have seen or talked to has been very calm about the end of the world. It’s a thing that is happening. On Midnight Saturday, the world is going to end.

I’m troubled, but I don’t know if I’m troubled by the end of the world or everyone’s reaction to it. Some people, it seems, are very troubled by it. Their world is shaken to the point that they can’t live in it anymore, and they don’t want other people to live in it either.

My guess is that these shooters will be related in some way to one or more victims in the shootings. By the time I’m home, the shooter in my building is revealed to have been the estranged husband of one of the victims. Interestingly, the spouse is also male. I let myself into my apartment and try to think of when I’ve heard of a homosexual mass shooter.

While I think this is interesting, the media does not care. The gun rights pundits don’t care either. No one seems to remark that something was dark enough to drive a demographic who doesn’t normally kill everyone to kill everyone he could.

They just gloss over it as they talk about today’s rash of violence across the country. They wonder if there will be more killings as we draw closer to Saturday. Experts give useless tips about identifying if a loved one has tipped over the edge. I say useless because I don’t think these tips are meant to do anything except act as a placebo.

I’m relieved because there is some sanity left in the world. I know that seems crazy to say. But is what these people are doing any crazier than the rest of us talking about the end of the world like Saturday is going to be a sale on meat at the local grocery store? I think these people – they’re not all men I learn as I continue to follow the news on the events – were making a conscious choice on behalf of people who were not showing any capacity for conscious choice.

The world is going to end, which means we’re all going to die. We don’t know how or why. We can accept that, or we can die some other way that we know. These people decided that people they cared about would die some way they know. I almost want to romanticize it, but I stop myself and sober up as yet more shootings pop up on the screen.

Screw these shooters.

They’re not deciding for themselves. They’re deciding for other people. If their concern is that people aren’t being given a choice of how to die, well, they aren’t giving their victims a choice either.

No matter what, people’s deaths are out of their control.

I make myself some hot tea. I think I understand why people are just so accepting of the end of the world just happening. Most of us don’t choose our death or when it will happen. Individually, we face an unknown inevitability daily. We just don’t think about it unless someone comes along to tell us when something will kill us.

Your liver is failing. You have three months.

It’s cancer. Six months at most.

The end of the world is just a bunch of micro-realizations. The only thing new is that we all got the same prognosis.

It’s the end; you have until Saturday.

I sip my tea and watch the news until my mom calls. She is worried because she remembered that I worked in Buckhead. I tell her that I’m fine, that I hadn’t made it to work, and it wasn’t even my office anyway. When she’s satisfied that I’m okay, we just talk.

Neither of us mention the end of the world, but it shapes our conversation.

Of course, it does.

5

Five days until the end of the world. Work is closed. I received a direct deposit this morning equal to the remainder of what my paychecks would be for the rest of the year. That has me feeling a little suspicious.

I know how long it takes for work to process a direct deposit. I don’t mean the actual transfer of funds. I know that banks can do that very quickly, next business day, if it’s set up for it. I’ve had to have that kind of emergency deposit before when my paycheck was screwed up and rent was due in two days.

Processing that one emergency deposit, from verifying hours to getting instructions to the bank, was not a simple procedure. According to the email I received, every non-salary employee received there’s today. Salaried management and executives received theirs yesterday.

The checks had no taxes, insurance, or retirement held out of them.

I calculate my hours worked with the hours I would have worked for the rest of the year and the check was accurate based on my average work week. We are not a small company. Thousands of employees would have taken days to figure out and to have paid out the salary of executives prior …

Someone knew about this before Day 7.

I turn on the news long enough to learn that every major company had made the same move. Companies are keeping their doors open, but only “mandatory employees” are required to report to work. Others could report on a voluntary basis, but no non-vital employee is going to be forced to work for the last five days of their existence.

“How benevolent.” I sneer at the television.

I move to turn it off, but not before a report comes on about more mass shootings. Yet more dumb asses are taking things into their own hands, forcing an early non-existence on others, complete with suicides at the end. It’s madness and I’m afraid to go out.

The news is too infuriating to watch. Most stations have turned off their programming. News channels run. MTV actually plays music, and some of the classic channels are running their catalog. Otherwise, television has decided to go out early.

I consider going out early.

The idea of taking anyone with me disgusts me. If I went, it would just be me. I would go on ahead to whatever was waiting next. I’m not a religious person, so I don’t know what that is. I suppose it could be Heaven like my mom believes in or Nirvana like my friend Jon believes.

Contemplating suicide has this strange effect on me.

I’ve never been a suicidal person – which is not true. Well, it’s sort of true. I have never tried to take my own life before. I have, however, had suicidal thoughts. I’ve had them lots of times, but they never looked like suicidal thoughts.

They were thoughts of just leaving my life behind and going somewhere else. Where did not matter, but it was usually Europe or out west. When I was a Christian and going to church with my mom, I fantasized about becoming a missionary and going off to some god-forsaken part of the world.

Those thoughts – of going off on my own and leaving my life behind – those thoughts are a euphemism for suicide. I’ve never liked the idea of my own death. I used to be terrified of it. At the same time, life could be so overwhelming sometimes and others, it just felt like it was going nowhere.

Nothing changed.

Nothing got better.

And the world around me? Don’t get me started.

Running away from everything into some unknown life, not knowing what I would do or how I would get by, just going … that was a beautiful thought. It was mysterious and fun to think about.

Dreaming of vacation is not unstable.

Ending your life as you know it, however …

So here I am, thinking about just ending it. I think about what I have at my disposal and how I might go about it. What would be painful and what would be painless? I contemplate it and discover something.

I don’t want to kill myself.

I laugh to my empty apartment for several minutes. It is so fucking hilarious. I spent years not thinking about what my fantasy meant – making myself not accept what it means or admit to it. I guess I was afraid that admitting it would be the same as wanting to do it and then I would be committed.

Now that I’m here with a pressing reason to commit suicide – the choice between an unknown death and one I control – I don’t want to do it. I would rather wait out the last five days with my inflated bank account that I will probably not be able to empty and just …

“Where did they get all of the money?” I ask the question to my apartment.

It doesn’t answer me.

A company worth millions or billions of dollars doesn’t just have that money lying around. That number is a composite of a lot of things. I go to my dining room table, and I calculate out some numbers. I don’t know what management makes or executives and I don’t care. I’m just going to make my wages the average for everyone.

I’m pretty sure I’m lowballing it but what the heck.

Based on what I had left for the year, the company was paying out over $1.8 billion at the drop of a hat. I can’t even imagine moving that kind of money around. I know what kind of money companies keep on hand. I have to look at it every day.

I put down my pen and just look down at the table.

I’m doing it again. I’m finding something else to think about besides the hard emotions.

“I don’t want to commit suicide.” I say the words aloud and nothing answers back.

For the first time in my life, I believe the words. As tempting as it is to go ahead and end it all, I don’t want to, and I realize that I never did. I fantasized about it in my own round-about way, but I did not ever want to put that fantasy into active thought.

It wasn’t fear that kept me from doing so.

The fantasy was in its own way a comfort to me. When life was too hard, I would fantasize about going off and I would feel better. It would take me some time but, I would get over what was happening. I would contextualize the feelings.

Sometimes I would take a trip, but just a small one. It might be a camping trip with friends or a weekend to visit family. Those little trips were a kind of proxy, a way for me to contextualize the feelings without having to analyze them.

Tear drops fall on the table.

The hardest thing to admit is that I don’t want to commit suicide. I don’t want to die. I never have. No matter how shitty and mundane life gets, I push on because no matter how long it takes to get up that hill, I want to see what is down the other side of it.

I turn on the television, no longer dreading to hear about mass killings. The news anchor, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else, tells us that the frequency of killings is going down for the first time since yesterday. The morning will see what happens, but she thinks that maybe, just maybe, the senseless killing has stopped.

“It’s not senseless,” I say to the television. “I get it. I just don’t want to do it.”

I switch through channels until I find M*A*S*H and leave it playing while I pull out my laptop. Just because it was a fantasy doesn’t mean I can’t go ahead and just take a trip somewhere. I have a Passport and a clean record. I also have over thirty-thousand dollars in my checking account.

There are five days left in this world. I might as well see some place that isn’t North America.

4

Airport security is a joke. I’m almost afraid to get on a plane. No new mass killings have shown up on the news, but that doesn’t mean that crazy people won’t still try to do stupid shit today. I mean, we’re on four days left. Things are going to get a little nuts the closer we get to the end.

Crazy, in the lexicon of the people waiting for flights out of Hartsfield International Airport seems to mean parties at the terminals and orgies in the bathroom. I wish I was exaggerating. I made it down to my gate and was immediately greeted by a woman in a toga offering me champagne and Xstasy. I declined both.

All of the people waiting were dancing and singing. I could tell that most of them had been here at least a day. These were more people just ringing in the end than people waiting for a flight.

When I went to the bathroom, two women and three men were piled on the floor together, writhing around naked. I ignored the offers to join and did my best to not feel uncomfortable as I pissed and washed my hands. It wasn’t the act of the orgy itself that bothered me, though I’ll be honest. It was a little off-putting.

What bothered me was how they seemed – hollow. The men’s moans were empty. The women’s eyes were blank. No one looked forced or coerced. They just looked as though …

They looked as though they had accepted the end of the world into their hearts and come out empty in the experience. I got out of the bathroom as fast as I could because I did not want that sense of absolute nihilism to overtake me.

So, one avoided orgy and one raucous party later, I am on my flight waiting to take off for Europe. I’m taking a flight to France, and I know: I’m going against the clock. I’m going to lose some hours from my countdown.

I’m also going to have dinner atop the Eifel Tower. So, time and the end of the world can go fuck themselves. They’re going to have me soon enough. Right now, I’m going to enjoy the few days I have left.

The stewardess goes through the motions of flight safety. We watch and listen attentively. I’m surprised at her composure. I really don’t think this matters at this point. If the plane goes down and we all die … despite my fears, does it really matter? We’re all dead in a few days anyway.

The plane takes off and I spend about an hour nervously waiting for a violent crash. When it doesn’t happen and we’re comfortably over the Atlantic, I relax for a while and just enjoy the flight. It is uneventful. The cabin crew hang out with the passengers – we’re a lightly populated flight – and we just enjoy human company for a while.

I nap briefly and the next thing I know, I’m in Paris. I check into my hotel and discover something that I find hilarious and disturbing. It’s not something that was discussed in the news, not that I watched the news much. No one mentioned it as an oddity.

I don’t know what I think about it.

The countdown here in France does not operate by their clock.

The doomsday countdown operates on US Eastern Time.

I stand in the hotel lobby and laugh for a good five minutes when I learn this from the hotel’s helpful Doomsday Countdown Clock.

Somehow the Eastern Time Zone of the United States managed to be the center of the world.

Who knew?

3

Paris is … it’s hard to put it into words. In some parts of the city, it is just that. It’s a city. I might as well be in New York or back in Atlanta. Tall buildings of steel and concrete dominate the world and threaten to take it over. Looking up at them, I wonder if they are the reason the world is ending.

I wonder if they will be around when the world is gone.

Then I wander into older parts of the city and my impression begins to change.

I have always loved cities. I love the tall, concrete, and steel skyscrapers. I love the rush and push of people. I like how everyone is as distant and cold as those buildings one moment and kind and considerate as neighbors the next. I love the noise and the smells.

Cities are an entity unto themselves, and I like to feel the energy of that entity as I move through it. Being in a city is a sensual thing for me.

Entering the older sections of Paris, though, go beyond anything that I have felt in any other city. The verve and energy are different. The atmosphere feels like an old book smells. Even when people mill about and cars pass by, there’s a strange kind of hush that settles over it all. A truck clanks over uneven brickwork but talking feels like yelling out in a library.

I spend the day just wandering around until I get lost and have to ask for directions. I have reservations atop the Eifel Tower, and I don’t want to miss them. Getting lost in the city is its own adventure, though, and I enjoy every moment of it. I’m a little afraid as strange places and strange people surround me at every corner.

What if someone tries to take advantage of me?

The idea that someone might try to kill me or harm me just doesn’t have the same weight as it would have last week. Knowing that the world is about to end, I can’t work up any real fear or dread. What I describe as “afraid” is just nervous, anxious, and excited. I’m more worried about missing my reservation than any actual harm.

If someone kills me, then my end just comes a couple of days faster than for everyone else.

If someone harms me, I only have a couple of days to struggle with the aftermath of that. Can one feel trauma beyond the pain itself if there’s no time for that trauma to set in? I suppose that it would suck if my last experiences were assault or robbery. The world is ending, though.

What do those things even matter for?

Those thoughts, though, invite darker ones that I don’t want to think about. Instead, I stop someone along the street and with the help of my phone, ask for directions. It’s a woman who smiles politely and speaks to me in English.

“You just need to walk five blocks, take a right, and then continue down. You’ll realize where you are soon enough.”

“Thank you.”

I wave and follow her directions. It takes me almost no time to realize just how close I was to my destination. Soon, I see the Eifel Tower reaching up into the sky. As I get closer, I notice some strange decorations hanging from it. I wonder if they are lanterns of some kind.

As I get closer, though, I see the lines of police cars and ambulances. Police and emergency responders are moving between the vehicles and the Eifel Tower. Those that move toward it have empty stretchers. The ones moving away have stretchers with black bags on them. The bulges tell me bodies are inside.

I look up again at the tower and see now that the strange decorations are dead bodies. People have been going up the Tower and hanging themselves from it. From the look, I would say hundreds did it. It must have been some kind of cult action. Listening to people around me, they seem to have done it almost at once.

My better self tells me that I should have empathy for these people. They were afraid and answered that fear the best way they could. Only – I don’t believe my better self. Someone organized this over the past few days. Someone worked these people up to this and these people were willing to believe in it and follow.

I’m sure they were making a point and doubtless some manifesto will be made known tonight, if it’s not already on the news channels and internet. I don’t care. I’m tired of people. They can all fuck off for all I care. I look around at the people around me. They look up, gawking or stare at the bodies coming down on stretchers.

They’re spectators to death, as though it is something unique that is not going to strike them in a couple of days.

My evening plans are ruined. The world is going to end, and I will never have dined at the top of the Eifel Tower. I push my way through the thickening crowd, doing my best to hide my disgust at the people around me. I want to get out of this city and away from people.

I don’t want to see anyone else between now and the end of the world. I call my mom to make sure she’s okay. She is shaken because these suicides are happening in the US too. I tell her not to watch the news anymore. My plan is to spend my last days hiking across the European countryside. I suggest she find something peaceful to enjoy herself.

“I love you, mom.”

“I love you too, hon.”

I hang up the phone and find the stores that I need. I need hiking food, hiking clothes, and something to sleep in. I use my money to get the best stuff because why not? What else am I going to use my money on. I have a small single-person tent that expands on its own and folds almost automatically. It has gold thread. So does my sleeping bag, which is also ultra-lightweight.

I don’t want to go back to my hotel. I don’t want to be around people anymore. I take a cab out into the countryside and have him drop me off when it looks like no one is around. He is reluctant to leave me alone, but I assure him I’m fine. It’s touching to see someone genuinely worry for my safety and I give him a thousand-dollar tip.

I hope he’ll have something to do with the money over the next couple of days.

After he leaves, I walk out into the field and under the moonlight, I set up my tent. It goes up just as easily as it’s supposed to. I climb inside, unroll my sleeping bag, and lie down.

I have no idea when I fall asleep. It just kind of happens.

2

I wake up and the world sounds beautiful. Birds chirp and a light breeze moves over the tent. I crawl out and wrap everything up before enjoying an energy bar. I have stuff to make coffee, but I don’t feel like having it this morning. The day itself, quiet and full of nature, fills my senses and energizes me.

The morning hike is peaceful. I pass a few people, but for the most part, I am alone. I sip water, break for food, and nibble snacks as I go along. I stay along the country road, but I eventually break away from it. By the afternoon, I am deep into fields. I see houses in the distance, but as evening approaches, those give way to light groups of woods.

It seems like I have never had this peaceful of a day before. I set up my tent again and break out my dinner. The meals aren’t very good, but I appreciate their ease. They make it possible for me to enjoy my last moments on Earth without worrying about what other people are going to do. There’s no one killing themselves and ruining my hike. There are no mass killings taking place.

No one is frightening or distressing anyone.

I have no idea what is happening in the world. My phone has no signal, so I can’t try to call my mom. I’m okay with both.

As I eat my meal and watch the stars come out, I realize that I have managed to let go of the world. When I fantasized about leaving and just going off on my own to Europe, this was the feeling that I wanted to have. I wanted to just let go and let the world manage itself while I managed me.

My realization about those thoughts have not changed. I am very much accepting my end. But I am accepting it on my terms. Tomorrow is going to be the last day on Earth and I will be alone for it.

I’m okay with that.

1

I wake up and make myself some coffee. Today is the last day on Earth and I want to make note of every moment of it. I don’t know what is going to happen today. I still don’t know how the world is going to end. Secretly, I was hoping I would. I was hoping that like the knowledge of the end coming, that I would come to know how it was happening.

That’s not the case, though.

I enjoy my coffee and pay attention to the world around me. It seems odd and it takes me a while for it to click what it is. I don’t hear birds. I finish my breakfast and pack everything up. As I start my hike, I listen for signs of any kind of animal, but I don’t hear anything.

No birds move in the sky. No squirrels skitter around the trees. When I break to rest, I dig into the ground and look for worms or bugs, and I don’t find anything. It’s like all the animals and insects are just gone.

By lunch, I realize that I have not felt a breeze either. It’s making the day much warmer than it normally would be, too. The sun, though, is still moving in the sky. There is that at least. There are no clouds, though and I realize that there was no dew this morning either.

On the last day, the Earth just decided to check out. No breeze. No water cycle. No animals. I kind of wonder if I’m the last person on Earth and laugh at myself. I’m in the middle of nowhere. I’m somewhere in the wilderness of France, far away from civilization and people.

It doesn’t matter if there are people left besides me. They are far away from me. Whatever they are doing today doesn’t affect me. I continue my hike for a few hours and spot a house in the distance. I could see if people are there, and if they are alive.

Instead, I turn towards the forest. Mountains are in the distance, but I will not reach them by nightfall. I trek into the woods and let the silence there engulf me. It feels creepy. I am surrounded by trees, but everything feels empty. It’s almost like if I were to peel the bark from a tree, I would only find empty space under it.

I’m afraid and put that fear into energy to speed my steps. I want to get out of these woods, but I don’t want to turn in any direction that will put me near people. I’m caught in this strange place where I don’t want to see people – I don’t want to see the complicated way they’re dealing with the end.

At the same time, I’m afraid to see if there is anyone in that house. It haunts my brain. In my mind, as I move through a forest that feels like an empty building, I am walking up to that house. I look in the windows, but there is nothing there. I don’t mean no furniture.

There is just nothing at all.

The house is a façade. It’s like the trees – empty and full of nothing.

I run through the woods until I’m winded and have to rest.

This is ridiculous. I pant and sip water. It’s close to evening now and the woods are thinning. I walk until they clear and open into another field. The mountains loom in the distance and there is nothing around but me, the grass, and a few trees. I set up my tent and lay out my sleeping bag outside of it.

If I get cold, I’ll crawl into the tent.

Tonight, though, I just want to see the stars. As the sun sets, I watch them come out one by one. I eat dinner and lie down in my bag. I just look up, the world around me silent. There are no bugs making noise tonight and I realize just how full of sound the last two nights were.

Nothing buzzes or chirps.

No wind blows.

The stars come out and twinkle above me.

The world is going to end and I am going to watch the heavens.