We knew it was coming, I knew it was coming. We were all resigned to the fact that it was coming, the bowed heads, and bloodshot eyes at the bus-stops told me enough. Sunday 15th September 3026, midday. The day the world would end, and our greed would consume us whole.
Today, I decided to do the things I normally wouldn’t do, like take the day of work -nanotechnology no longer needed to be sought after-, listen to the radio, eat unprocessed food, smile once in a while. Try to die happily.
---
When I woke up this morning the sun was shining through the gap in my curtain, only this time I didn’t curse--or groan and moan, I stood up and opened the curtains, and then the windows. Letting the smell of a new day wash over me. The sky was a mixture of green, blue and yellow with the sun looming over it.
Stepping out of my T-shirt turned nightgown I took long languid step towards the shower, I was going to do everything differently today. Brushing my teeth took even longer than usual, it was like I had all the time in the world but I knew I didn’t.
9:15
Next I walked to the department store, but it was empty. Like a ghost town that even the ghosts had fled. The doors were opened but there was no one to be seen for miles. I walked in and picked up what I wanted: A length of brown rope, Cheerios, and milk.
A marriage made in Eden.
Then I walked out, waiting for the security guards to jump out accusing me of shoplifting but it seemed that when death was eminent people didn’t care for “material things” but I did. Material things got the job done, things like love, and fear. and family did nothing but hurt you. Especially the latter.
‘Hey you?’ I stopped and waited, something I normally wouldn’t do. The scruffily dressed man walked up to me, alcohol on his breath, staggering as he reached out to me Bible in his hand.
‘Hello.’ I said, forcing a smile.
‘Do you know God?’ He said, ‘because I sure as hell don’t.’ He continued. I watched him take a swig out of a bottle of Crescent Moon and I felt myself flinch, and recoil in fear.
‘Why not?’
‘She’s asking why not?’ He said casting his arms out to an invisible crowd. ‘Why not? We’re going to die, aren’t we? That shitty thing up there in the sky, it’s going to fall isn’t it. Gravity is going to fail, we’re going to die slowly and horribly, charred by the very thing that brought us life. And you ask me why not? What the fuck has God ever done for you?’
I didn’t know what to say so I kept my mouth shut. In the past few days I found myself starting to think “What if there is a God?” a regular old Santa Claus riding in the clouds passing judgment on us all. Loosening his hold on the sun, sending us to our doom. So I stopped doubting God and instead started banking on his existence, hoping it would save me. Somehow, I’d rather heaven than nothing at all.
‘That’s what I thought.’ He said, and then walked away swigging on his bottle of Crescent Moon and walking into the department store, probably for another.
9:35
I found my way back home, turned the key in the lock, and flung the door open. I’d not done that in a while, at least not since I got the house. Then I sat on the stairs and looked around, first at the ticking bomb in the sky, then at the manicured lawns, and the tiny mini Coupe’s, the lack of movement in the area, and the silence. Times like this I wish I hadn’t gotten a house in an area meant for 0ver 60s and upwards.
No-one to party till the end of the world with--but knowing myself I wouldn’t be able to. The drinking would stifle me, as would the drugs, the dancing would annoy me and aggravate me as I am incapable of moving my limbs to a steady rhythm. The men would insult me for I am far too dowdy for my time, with long brown hair, hardly enhanced despite the technology today, and a penchant to become melancholy and dismissive. And the women---oh the women---to pour Arsenic in their tea would recur in my sweetest dreams, taking away their breath as they soil feminism.
I ran a sponge around the sink, and then rinsed it twice. Following that I poured the entire litre of milk into the sink and then the pack of Cheerios. Using the wooden spoon, I shovelled the food into my mouth. Exhilarated and knowing this was the nearest to adventure I would ever get to.
10:00
I turned on The Box, tapping my ten digit code into the mainframe it lit up like a kid on Christmas day. 10 messages it read, all from ‘Do Not Answer.’ and it ran a countdown till the end of the world. I scrolled down to the music channels, and screened for ‘End of the world’ play lists. Ironically enough there was enough to serve a lifetime. Sitting on my cheapo leather couch that smelt like drying paint sometimes, I listened to the music and it lulled me to sleep.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
11:00
A whole hour of my life left without saying goodbye like the man I‘d met outside the Department Store only it wasn‘t holding a bottle of Crescent Moon, and it didn't ask me unnecessary questions. Think fast. Must keep to schedule. I booted up The Box that had already gone into standby
Call ‘Do Not Answer’ I said, and I watched the blue dotted lines go in circles and then freeze into place as the connection was placed.
‘Rena?’ I heard her voice shake in surprise.
‘Mother.’ Sometimes I wished we lived in older times when connections cut off without the aid of the speaker, and excuses could be made for simply not wanting to talk to someone.
‘I missed you.’
‘Me too.’ That was a lie.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you forgive me?’
‘No.’
‘I understand.’
‘Logic demands that.’
‘Rena?’
‘Yes.’
I heard her take a deep breath and I could feel older times setting in, and a vision of my mother swinging on a rickety chair, arms akimbo, lips pursed. ‘Don’t backchat me.’ She parroted. Her dark brown eyes-almost black, blending in with her brown skin, and darker hair.
‘I’m not mama.’ I parroted and suddenly it was like I never left. Like she never swallowed me up with her ambition, hit me with the belt strap when life got too hard for her, lied about my father, lied about money, lied about my future, lied about everything. Like she never hid my colledge acceptance forms and when caught she simply said… ‘Women aren’t created for hoity toity jobs, nano--what? Crazy girl, stay at home and clean the dishes, they will do you well.’ in her heavily accented English and this was in the year 3000.
‘It would do you well not to.’ She began but I had already hit the disconnect button. I had already wasted too much time.
----
10:19
Way too much time.
There’s no one else. That’s it. The list has ended. But I have two hours to go, I go to the kitchen and place the rope on the glass chandelier, a chair under it, and a note that said ‘KABOOM.’ written to be destroyed at the end.
I returned to the box and put it back on the previous play list listening to it as time flew past, another thing I normally would never do. Listening to music made me realise what a hole I had inside of my life, inside of myself.
10:30
It’s like the world will never end.
It’s quite annoying, and disappointing.
So slow.
230 songs listened to played over and over again.
10:40
K
A
B
O
O
M
!
------
10:50
I have resorted to counting sheep. On 300 now. Counting too fast is a hindrance, numbers are skipped. The Box’s novelty has worn off, I am now in the mood to work.
11:30
I walked up to the chandelier, putting the rope firmly around my neck knowing it had a firm grip on me, knowing that one step off the chair was death. Then I watched whispering the seconds to myself until it took on a calming sort of effect.
11:57
I took one foot off the chair, and then the bell rang. The fright nearly making me take my own life. Stepping down from the chair, and walking up to the door. Standing on the other side of the door was the postman gesturing wildly to me, a parcel in his arms.
‘Yes.’ I said tersely my eye on the clock.
‘Parcel for you.’ He said in an awkward squeakily high voice, dressed in the garb of a postmaster; blue overalls and a white hat.
I picked the parcel up, turned it around and frowned. ‘It’s not mine.’ I said disgruntedly.
‘It’s for next door.’ and then it started. The sky began to fall. My world began to end and I could see the aftermath in my minds eye, charred bodies, charred houses, never-ending silence. I looked at the postmaster, his face frozen in horror, his eyes bulging out of his eyes. I never knew. I never knew why he worked on that day…
and I guess I never will.
KABOOM.
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