The End of The World As We Know It

The end of the world was a lot more mundane than I would have ever anticipated. Maybe it's the fault of the movies and comic books that I've been reading and watching since my adolescence. It could also be the news or the man who used to stand at the corner of Market Street yelling about the retribution and how the Lord will curse us all for our hedonistic desires. I used to stand by the Burger King outside and watch him while I waited for my friends to go shopping. He would yell for hours at a time, never resting nor changing the intensity or conviction in his words no matter how disinterested the techies and tourists who passed by him staring down at their phones appeared in his presence.

I wonder what he's thinking now. Is he still out there yelling into the endless void or is he now staring at the empty street? Maybe after it all begun he decided to rest and now he's gloating somewhere remote knowing that finally after all the jeers and apathy in the end he was right. In this world maybe the sanest person of all was a man yelling out warnings on a street corner downtown, because after all that happened he was the only one who was truly prepared for all of the chaos.

When I was a kid, I used to play a game in my head before I went to sleep. I would close my eyes and then plan out my course of action for a Zombie apocalypse or any sort of attack. I would always take my dad's pick up truck in these scenarios and I would pick up Suzy my friend who I not so secretly had a crush on. Then we would hide out at Costco. I figured if we went to Costco we could hide in the warehouse and we'd have enough supplies to last in case of any conflict. I thought that we could even hide on the higher shelves so that we'd be even more safe from intruders hidden behind the stacks of boxes in a tiny enclosure.

Obviously, when this all began I didn't have the chance to go there. It was too crowded. Everyone was rushing to get their supply of toilet paper or alcohol wipes. It wouldn't have been so bad if everyone wasn't trying to hoard or sell things for a huge profit margin online. I wonder sometimes if we had actually listened to the poor man's prophet and tried to do better to each other would this really have happened? Maybe it was inevitable in the end.

I remember when the news first happened it was surreal. I was living abroad at the time and I had a plane flight the next week. Everyone was so scared where I was living. People were wondering if they should quit their jobs. No one wanted to be outside, because everything was so mysterious at the time. Everyone was wearing masks and no one was laughing anymore even though it was Christmas. It didn't feel festive at all. All the lights felt hollow and empty as I walked down the streets by the Sky Tree.

It was even more strange coming back home. The news didn't seem to affect anyone here yet. Everyone looked at me strangely on the plane while I wore a mask. As soon as I landed my mother told me clearly no one does that here. By that she meant the mask. She thought I was being ridiculous. I felt even more out of place, but by March everyone was wearing masks in my city. And by the time summer hit, if you weren't wearing a mask people were quick to get into your face and depending on they day it could even become violent.

The days continued like this. There were more riots and uncertainty. People were scared of each other and in that fear they took it out on anyone they could find. Their neighbors, families, and friends. More than the actual calamity it seemed that humanity was the real disease.

I remember reading an article once that said if you wanted to impress someone on a date you should take them on a roller coaster ride, because the adrenaline and fear from the ride will be associated with you in their memories. Apparently adrenaline is good for dates. It means that they'll think you're more fun than you really are. I'm not sure if the roller coaster trick works, but the end of the world was really good for my relationship with Suzy.

During the craziness we reconnected. At first it just started with me wishing her a happy birthday and then it continued with her asking how my family was doing. We started through the familiar green and white bubbles in our phones and soon we spent long nights on the phone. It was risky at first to see each other, but eventually we found a time when there weren't too many patrols on the streets. We were able to hide in with the other laborers during the early morning hours and luckily our houses were close.

Despite the risks, I would still see her every week. She would play with my dog and I would paint next to her. We'd listen to music and on days we couldn't meet I would give her books to read with notes in the margins. Maybe it's because of her that I was able to forget the number of people who died on the news or the general unrest that was bubbling under the surface of everyone else who was cognizant to the issues around us.

It was nice though. I forgot about everything around me. I was lost in everything that I always wanted. I was afraid too that one day she would leave. Before the whole world fell apart she was planning to move away for graduate school. In case it happened, I bought a heart-shaped locket for her to keep to remember me in case she left. Although after I gave it to her it looked like she would have to postpone her educational plans at least temporarily. She still wore the locket every day.

Despite the world being completely in disarray I was happy. It feels bad to say it knowing how much it affected people in other communities and around the world, but everything near me was for the first time in awhile okay. I mean I didn't like having to sneak around at night or the fear of being caught, but it was thrilling in its own twisted way.

Everything continued in this way for months. It was around Thanksgiving when the first shots were fired. At first we thought it was nothing serious, but eventually things began to change. Countries around the world began criticizing each other for the catastrophe and people were beginning to suspect that it began with a lab. It wasn't true. And not that it mattered anyway, because the real problem was a lack of funding, infrastructure, and adequate response from the people in power But with the constant printing of money throughout the first world countries there was a legitimate fear of hyperinflation and officials were worried that we would become another Venezuela.

It was easier to point fingers than to look internally and find solutions. I'm not really too sure what the answer would be to be honest. But I know that the answer that was chosen was wrong. During New Years Eve was when things really began to change. At first we thought it was just fireworks, but then we realized it was something else. It's funny when I lived abroad I remember getting nuclear warnings on my phone. In the middle of the morning my phone would scream out warnings in a language I could barely understand. It wouldn't stop for at least a minute. But at that point once the bombs were shot off there was nothing anyone could do other than wait and pray.

As my relationship with Suzy solidified the world crumbled down further. It was a few years later after the food became scarce. And after the buildings around us crumbled even more that they began holding lotteries. The world was in shambles from its former state and some rich philanthropist tech billionaire decided to spend the rest of his fortune on building rocket ships to a new satellite colony. It was too soon for us to colonize Mars, but they figured that we could at least be safe in orbit for some time and they finally figured out how to grow food sustainably up there.

It was during this time that Suzy got the news. She was to join the next launch and I wasn't. She left to board the ship yesterday and as I watched the flames lift the ship into the air. I held onto the locket I gave her years ago and sat down in my room alone. With nothing having really changed from years ago.