AN: I spend a lot of time thinking about the end of the world. Is that healthy? I don't think it's healthy.
It was, he
reflected, quite ironic. The hyperbole, he meant. Every day people would
overreact over small things, saying it was such a terrible thing to have
happen, that they had the worst day ever, that it was the end of the world.
They weren't
prepared for the actual end.
But then, who among
us would have been? He mused. Who could have seen it coming, the sudden
military action, unexplained disappearances, threats of war… Entire countries
and their largely innocent populations being wiped off the map like spilt milk
from a countertop. ICBMs coming to life and stretching from their hidden
underground tombs, reaching for the sky as bombers awoke from their steel
cradles. More nuclear material than any single group could have even have
estimated having been harnessed for weapons, now hurtling towards each major
population centre as the world's superpowers raced to eliminate their enemy
before the mutually assured destruction hit them, so they would have the brief
moment of victory before being engulfed in the white shroud of fission.
And what for? He
wondered, taking a swig of cheap scotch - the closest one at hand. Why must
such short-sightedness happen? He had seen it time and time again. Any
difference, no matter how small, how insignificant, being used to pry people
into separate groups, and then those groups being shaken into a frothing rage
at the mere mention of their former partners. Each group thought themselves
superior to the other, more intelligent, more righteous.
How wrong they were.
Everyone had left
now, warned of the imminent threat, to search for a basement or a school desk
to hide under. Likely, he thought, more than a few had grabbed a nearby
acquaintance for a final 'rendezvous' before the bombs hit. Instead, he sat
alone, on a borrowed chair, on the roof of his building. Funny how he thought
of it like that. His. He didn't own the deed. But then, in a few minutes, such
papers wouldn't matter any more. A gentle breeze caressed his face.
He took another swig
and stared out at the landscape before him, the concrete and steel and glass,
the water and trees and grass. The beauty of it all, once the people were
cleared out. They should have made more buildings like that, open and
interesting, and intertwined just ever so slightly with nature, instead of
walls.
But it was too late
to fix that. Too late for regrets.
The story of his
life.
Swig.
He could see
the bomber now, a speck on the horizon
accompanied by an escort of three smaller specks.
"It's time
then, is it? Think you can still press the button, knowing what you're about to
do? What you're not going to be able to go home to?" He stood and took
another swig of alcohol. "Are you ready to kill a million people with a
single press of a button?" He paused, and muttered. "Has someone
already done the same to your family?" He took a final swig and tossed the
empty bottle over the precipice. "ALRIGHT THEN! I HAD A GOOD RUN!"
His time came too quick. "I'M READY FOR YOU!" He didn't want to go.
"PRESS THE BIG RED BUTTON!" He didn't have a choice. Nobody did
anymore. He sensed, rather than saw, a change in the specks in the sky. The
bomb had dropped. Soon it would be only burning light and searing heat. He
closed his eyes.
"Farewell, old
friends."
The bomb blossomed,
it's flower of heat and smoke blooming into the sky, engulfing the centre of the city. The initial flash
over, he opened his eyes and raised his arms to greet the oncoming shockwave
with an embrace.
There was a loud
roar
And then,
Silence.
