Nobody Likes To Talk About the End of the World

I like to think that if every country had a chance to end the world, they’d find a way to mess it up. France would manage to screw something over and drop the bombs on themselves; Iceland would try to pelt people with rocks only to realize they can’t throw that far; everyone in Ireland would die of some kind of skin cancer before they got drunk enough to even hit the button; the only person in England with enough authority to commit such catastrophes is the Queen and she’d resort to the methods from the good old days—catapulting dead bodies to spread the plague, but in this case, COVID-19. Everyone in Asia would make threats up until the last second when their bluff was called and satellites saw they didn’t have any weapons, like a school bully with two broken arms; the United States wouldn’t be able to get along long enough to decide who gets to press the button; Canada’s like that weird neighbor whose master plan of “world obliteration” includes baking you brownies with too much cholesterol; and half the countries in the Middle East would be pointing and laughing at the US until they died of radiation, too.

But the sad thing is that it’s never up to countries but usually one crazy, old, rich man. And, unfortunately for us, it’s people without a sense of humor and a bloated gut of pride that end up having the power to destroy us.

The end of the world has been such a sci-fi notion for so many years, just like space exploration and flying cars. But the thing is that, unlike space exploration and flying cars, the end of the world will probably become a reality before we can appreciate it.

But the end is incomprehensible for the average emotional-thinker which is all of us but the crazy ones who don’t realize it until they see the tip of the missile or the plume of the nuclear wave. The end, like death, is inevitable; but we always used to have the option to preserve our hope through the prospect of heaven. But what is heaven without life? If no one is around to remember you, if we all die at once, will there really be an end? All the people, the plants, the birds. What is history if there is nothing left? “If only” is such a meaningless phrase if no one is there to say it. Like a tree that falls in a forest but no one is around, will Earth have ever made a sound if we end up like another lifeless rock for the telescopes of other spaceships to see in the distance? A broken star on a foreign map. All the dinosaurs, the ancient people; like we were never here. We will die from our own asteroids, fired at and burned by one of our own. By another person to be forgotten in the mess that was us.

Somebody has to be there for the end of the world, so why can’t it be us? By some miracle or mistake, we could escape it for a few more years. But the human race will never just disappear without some big event. Why can’t that event be now? Who’s to say that we’re so special to not have to witness the end? None of us like to think that it could happen to us.

'My house can’t burn down, my school can’t be a victim of a shooting, my country can’t go to war, I can’t die, I can’t die, I can’t die.'

Because that’s stuff that happens to other people. That’s stuff we read in the news or see in movies. So none of us think about it because it can’t happen to us.

But I say that the end seems closer than we ever thought. I, like everyone, have had a childhood and a family and went to school and made friends. I’m a human being that bleeds red blood; that has dreams and ambitions. I want to be a writer even though I know it's hard and I still want a chance to go to college even though it's expensive.

They say there’s a way for everyone, and there is, but when the world is burning, money—like paper—is the worst shield. As much as I dream, I might not live that long. If I don’t start living every day like there’s no tomorrow; if I keep scratching off the days as fast as I can until the Fridays, there might not be any more Fridays and I’ll see that I spent six-sevenths of my life constantly dreading the next morning.

So I’m gonna talk about the end of the world because no one else does. I’m gonna say that someday it’s not just gonna be a movie, but someday we’re gonna turn on our TVs or our radios or our cell phones and we’re gonna see those missiles going up; their white tails coiling in the blue sky like the fluffy cotton ends of a thousand snakes unaware of the terror they’re invoking below.

Then we’ll all look up—finally we’ll look up from our screens and away from each other—finally we’ll all share one mind—finally we’ll see how small we really are. Finally, when we see the missiles going up.

And I hope in that moment, in my last seconds, that I am alone. Call me crazy and call me cold, but there’s something simply terrifying about hearing a loved voice scream. Like how you’re never supposed to see your dad cry, I don’t want to scramble to pick up those last few phone calls or rush those quick meaningless goodbyes. Now is the time for “I love you”s and for hugs and for being with families. Because in my last seconds, I want to know that what I said and did had time to be appreciated.

I want to be by myself, in the grass, sitting in silence even though the world will be screaming. I will be in a bubble when the cities scatter like crushed anthills; when the children point from their playgrounds up at the shooting stars; when the rich rush off to their tin-can bunkers; when the aliens are laughing; when the anger in the man who pressed the button is washed away by harrowing regret. When the first of hundreds of missiles hit, when it’s the end of the world.