“An Apocalyptic Love Story: Or, One Man’s Account of the End of the World"

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Book I: The Heat, The Flood, and The Fear

 

The world as we know it will soon cease to exist, and standing here, at the brink of its annihilation, all I can think about is her…

 

“In the beginning…”  

Well, I guess the beginning doesn’t matter very much right now; it’s the end we’re primarily concerned with here.  “In the beginning…”, God created the heavens and earth, day and night, and everything on the planet.  Now, apparently, he sees fit to undue his finest creations once and for all. 

That summer was the warmest on record with no relief in sight, triple-digit temperatures forecast for days.  Nations across the globe were affected by the oppressive heat wave.  Massive drought, colossal wildfires, people dropping like flies from exhaustion, overwhelmed and overcome by the thick, humid air suffocating them, making it impossible to breathe; grasping at one final breath.  Crime went up, as increasing draws upon electricity caused wide-spread power outages.  Entire countries in complete blackout; the blistering sun, or the night stars their main source of light. 

Heated rhetoric on global warming stalled, as arguments between governments went in circles, causing inaction: but soon there was no debate or doubt about what was occurring.  Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Liberal; no Party could deny what was transpiring.  It took millions of years to reach this point, but once we did the cataclysmic effects started taking place almost immediately: no gradual dissolve, no slow decay.  One-by-one, gigantic glaciers broke off from ice caps with thunderous claps into the murky Arctic water, echoing throughout skies no longer frigid in temperature.  Permafrost and sea ice thawed at alarming rates, creating giant tsunamis and enormous tidal waves, ravaging any and every country in their path as the oceans began to rise and revolt. 

Titanic chunks, hundreds, if not thousands of miles wide, larger than any before in recorded history, crashed into the dark abyss; a block of frozen tundra breaking off with the force of megatons.  The ripple from that fissure catching momentum, over time billowing, swelling its liquid breast into a raging, awesome wave of monumental proportion; a water wall of sheer ruination making its way toward the unprepared offerings for the slaughter. 

The first was an anomaly, a freak accident.  The second and third were a pattern.  The oceans unsatisfied, Neptune, Poseidon, or whatever you wanted to dub him, had an insatiable appetite for more gales of carnage, more territories leveled with the magnitude of his power.  Holding dominion over all province, he summoned the other oceans and seas to impose their will upon the rest of this feeble planet.  

Starting in The Southern it spread, The Indian, Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic soon following.  Entire aquatic ecosystems altered, if not eradicated entirely.  The Southern fed them all, as The Indian bled into the Arabian and Red Seas, and the Persian Gulf.  The Pacific hit the America’s, Asia, and Australia.  The Atlantic touched the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay, and the Mediterranean and North Seas.  The Arctic also flooded into the Mediterranean and North Seas, as well as the Beaufort and Barents Seas, and Baffin Bay. 

Entire countries were washed away.  New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, The Koreas, Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, U.A.E., Qatar, Kuwait, Eritrea, Djibouti, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Beirut, Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Monaco, Sicily, Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, The Falkland Islands, The Galapagos, Chile, French Guiana, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Bermuda, and all of Central America, except for parts of Mexico.

Most of Australia found itself underwater, as did Greenland.  Parts of France, including Corsica, as well as parts of Italy, including Sardinia, were also submerged.  Spain, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Poland, Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Oman, Egypt, Thailand, Laos, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Somalia down the coast of Africa to Kenya, Mozambique, The Republic of South Africa up to Angola, Morocco and the Western Sahara, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname also had greatly diminished coastlines.

In the United States, much of both coasts, as well as Hawaii, were wiped off the map.  In Canada, all the Provinces, except Alberta and Saskatchewan, had dramatically reduced coastline.  

Many inland countries were spared total devastation; countries like Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China.  

Mass migrations weighed heavily upon already tenuous global relations, and the further depletion of available resources only led to an escalation of tensions worldwide. 

By now, we were well aware of what was happening, only there was nothing we could do about it. Seemingly hourly, a new hunk of ice would liberate itself, sending a catastrophic chain reaction throughout the globe.  The Arctic and Pacific didn’t take long joining their brethren in bringing demise to a topography we’ve known roughly some 200 million years.

America regressed, bordering on a second Civil War, conflicting ideologies between Left and Right clashing in the middle.  With no state lines dividing them, political discord was enhanced by dense, immediate, and unavoidable proximity.  Adversaries became neighbors:  

“Nigger”

“Spic”

“Kyke”

“Fag”

“I wanna like people, but they keep giving me reasons not to…”

“Don’t trust anyone!”

Internal strife took its toll, along with the disintegration of every branch of government.  There was no Capitol, as most of DC and Maryland were immersed in the Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay.  A provisional capitol was set up in Blacksburg, VA at Virginia Tech campus, as The President tried maintaining some illusion of law and order.  We were a melting pot ready to boil over.  The mood in the country edgy already with high unemployment, incredible wealth disparity, poor education, and inadequate healthcare, this incident was the spark to ignite the powder keg, and there was an outbreak of public furor & uproar.  There was no prolonged discussion about what to do next, or what course of action to take: there was only mayhem. 

Ironically, despite the rapid rise of water, most of America was livable, yet arid.  Overcrowding of cities spilled into suburbs, pushing further and further inland, until there was nowhere left to go.  Even the most friendly of places can be tolerant for only so long.  With boundaries and personal space evaporating, it was one big group of angry people: angry at the world, angry at each other, angry at life.  There was not enough to go around, with everyone fending for themselves.  Confusion, hysteria; the 99% fighting each another.  Average folk forced to defend themselves to the death over meager possessions; forced to leave their homes, start from scratch, in whatever makeshift community would have them.  

People were scared.  Wrecking ourselves from within, not knowing what to do, we resorted to the thing that came easiest: anarchy.  Rogue militia’s tried maintaining some semblance of civility between the rapes, violent crimes, torture, mutilations, abductions, hostage situations, suicides, panic, disorder, havoc, upheaval, fires, and explosions, as life was like a war zone.

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Book II: Armageddon

 

A grain of cosmic dust suspend in space is how it started.  Over eons, it attracted other tiny particles.  Eventually, enough of those tiny particles stuck together, forming something larger, something, apocalyptic.  Viktor Safronov theorizes this procedure, calling it “The Planetesimal Hypothesis”.  In it, he speculates repeating this bonding activity enough times could ultimately lead to the development of an object growing to the size of a small planet, or “protoplanet”.  But sometimes the object doesn’t stop growing: sometimes, it keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger…

This celestial entity originated in a remote realm of outer space; a vacant zone, consisting primarily of infinitesimal specks.  A part of space where it had adequate amount of empty room to expand.  Not content wafting aimlessly amongst the void in the outermost recesses of the cosmos, this titan sought new fragments to further fuse with. 

An asteroid only a few kilometers in diameter causes the same ramifications as several million nuclear bombs exploding in unison.  It’s believed one not quite that size is the stimulus for the most recent widespread extinction on this planet, some 65 million years ago.  It was inevitable the event would occur again one day; the only question was “When?”

Stars, constellations, whole planets succumbed, swallowed by a massive sweep of detritus drifting through the heavens.  Turns out, the planetoid known as “The Source” wasn’t so much expanding, or floating through infinity, drawing subsidiary molecules and compounds towards it, as it was being pulled; pulled to “The Phoenix Cluster”.  

Galaxy clusters are the largest known gravitationally bound structures in the universe, consisting of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together.  It’s when one of these such structures, known as “The Phoenix Cluster”, merged with “The Source”, scientists called it “The Genesis Point”.  Astronomers surmised this scenario:

The Phoenix Cluster possessed power beyond normal scope or comprehension to keep those galaxies anchored and secured to one another; but under this tremendously volatile, unstable strain, it rapidly reached the limits of whatever “control” it once maintained.  What are the odds of that breaking point happening within our lifetime?

They were searching for each other, “The Source” and “The Phoenix Cluster”.  It’s presumed the two collided in a brilliant, unfathomable starburst, the likes of which will never repeat itself again: a light so bright, it illuminated even the furthest scopes of the darkest of space.  Although beautiful and radiant, an explosion of this size also brought with it indisputable, inescapable doom.

Chunks of jagged rock, countless numbers of them, hurtling in every direction.  An asteroid field that’s span seemed endless, heading straight towards our solar system-and a collision course with us. 

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Book III: Chaos

 

“Basically, I believe people are good…”

A giant “reset” button.  There was so much to do, but an equal amount of determination to get it done.  In an unforeseen twist, the flood gave everyone an excuses to start over.  Seeing loved ones swept away in unforgiving currents completely unsympathetic to whatever they engulfed in their wake, we thought: hadn’t we suffered enough?  

Times had changed, and we were all in the same boat.  Generations lost, the rift dividing the “Haves” and “Have Nots” at its greatest gap in history, and widening by the day, this was a brave new world we were heading into, with the old ways of doing things rendered obsolete.  Aiming for a perfect society, for a moment, a split second, we actually believed we could achieve it.  

“Today, we stand at the threshold of a new world; a world you all made possible…”’

We started cleaning up the mess we’d made.  A new chapter: one of civility, decency, consideration, conscientiousness, and respect.  Differences overlooked, instead, we saw similarities.  Communities revived, brand new ones sprouted up; a renaissance, a resurgence!  More eco-friendly & sympathetic, we became less egocentric.  On the cusp of extinction you tend to take perspective, reevaluating what’s important and what matters most. 

“…Embarking on a new phase of human history…”

It’d been the most prosperous period in America since the Industrial Revolution, with more programs executed in the name of social democracy within those two years than in the previous two decades combined; and this progress wasn’t confined to our country alone.  Throughout the globe, ambassadors from all over the world lent assistance and assurances in pledging to rectify and remedy the pestilence of the past, curing the sicknesses that consumes man…Yet, in spite of our successes, children would learn that sometimes even adults cry, as questions of, “What’s happening?” were met with tears, and the answer, “I don’t know…”  How do you explain this to a child?

We failed to think about space.  Too preoccupied and busy working on terrestrial problems, we failed to recognize its infiniteness, and the wonders it held.

“My fellow Americans…”

husband, father

wife, mother

sister, daughter,

son, brother 

He didn’t know how to finish the sentence.  Does he maintain calm, or tell the truth?  There was never going to be a “happy ending” in this story.  All that hard work for nothing.  We saw things from our fellow man we never thought possible.  We saw the good in them, when we thought it’d all been wiped out.  We saw the global community embrace.  It was a remarkable time to be alive! 

“What happens next…”

You could see them burning in the sky like balls of fire, thousands of them; that terrifying, nebulas glow keeping you up as you lie in bed at night staring out the window, waiting for Judgment Day to arrive.  Even at a considerable distance they were paralyzing, suspended in mid-air, constantly hovering overhead.  

They gathered data from the best telescopes and observatories on the ground, as well as satellites in orbit:  

“Our entire solar system…”

There was only one outcome: 

“Will be no more.”

Then came the pandemonium, showing things weren’t as harmonious as we thought, reminding us how uncivilized a society we really were.  Our utopia devolved into a dystopian nightmare in a manner of minutes, Nihilism, Hedonism, and bedlam reigning supreme.

There were those unwilling or unable to accept their fate, susceptible to charlatans, false prophets, fakers, thinking they could buy their way out of certain disaster.  As if money meant anything, reduced to a piece of paper with a picture on it, better for kindling than commerce.  Those with power suddenly found themselves powerless, as people with knowledge and competency wielded the leverage-and you had to learn to barter with them.  Fear was replaced by depravity and debauchery, because not having to worry about the punishment meant not having to worry about the consequences.  

Some thought they could outrun the Reaper, but this was bigger than him; and if there was a God & a Devil, this combustion put them at risk as well.  Streaking comets, illuminated projectiles, broadcast for the world to see.  The end was nigh!  What is and is not humane was irrelevant: so were inhibitions.  Social decomposition.  Ultimate destruction can be very liberating.  Holding nothing back, people told the truth (“I don’t love you anymore”), revealed revelations (“Your dad is not your father”), and confessed secrets (“I stole the money”).  Humanity overshadowed by unscrupulousness.  Invalids and elderly denied proper medical treatment.  Riots for canned goods; foraging for non-perishables to support the repopulation of the planet: “Someone will survive!”  But it was all death.  

Dignity and virtue fell by the wayside, along with morals.  There was no judicial system, as it was every man, woman, and child for themselves.  Jails remained packed with prisoners waiting to be tried by a fair, impartial jury of their peers.  People leaving behind prized belongings-leaving behind everything!  The misanthropic folk finally happy they wouldn’t have to deal with another person ever again.  Some turned to religion; but faith & worship didn’t carry the same solemnity they once did, sanctums not perceived to be the havens they once were.  Those who didn’t turn to religion turned to booze and other drugs to cope with the certitude.  Liquor stores robbed, hardcore narcotics peddled openly in the streets.  Those who couldn’t take the wait took matters into their own hands.  But who was I to judge?

“It’ll be like a stream roller to a pebble.  A steam roller to a pebble.”

And this is where we find ourselves now…

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Book IV: The Voyage

 

Chapter 1

 

The world as we know it will soon cease to exist, and standing here, at the brink of its annihilation, all I can think about is her…

“Are you coming?”  I left my family to be with her, she should be able to do the same for me.

“You know I can’t go.  I have to stay with my mom.”

It didn’t matter she was right.  No doubt in my mind this was my time, I wanted her beside me every step of the way.  

“There’s nothing for me here.”  

“I’m here.”  

That should’ve been enough.

So in love, anything she asked I would’ve done to make her happy; her happiness my most paramount concern.  Back then I was too blind to see.  Back then I had dreams, goals, ambitions, aspirations: things I thought were more important than her. 

“This is bigger than you and I, Holly.” (thinking her name hurts my heart, let alone saying it out loud). “This will be good for us.  Lara’s dad lives in Boise, and he said we can stay with him!  There’s going to be so much opportunity there!”  

She was my queen, my goddess; worshipping her, I wanted to treat her the way she deserved to be treated.  In no place was I safer or more at peace than wrapped in her arms, feeling the warmth of her soul emanating through her skin as it pressed against mine.  Breathing in her scent, I could spend eternity in those arms, and it still wouldn’t be long enough…but she had to tend to her mother, and I was too insistent to listen, too stubborn to care.   

Able to find work, Holly’s sister and husband were staying.  Being the all-American couple they were, certainly they would have no problems adjusting to their new way of life.  Surely it would take some getting used to through trial and error, but the two of them always landed on their feet-and had perfect hair while doing it.  We survived a global flood, and they were preoccupied with which color rug would look best in the living room.  They didn’t know travesty: they were simply weathering an inconvenience.  Through this tribulation, the sun eternally shined on the “Golden Couple”; their glow could keep Holly’s mother cozy on even the coldest of nights.  What better hands for her to be in?  

All Holly had to do was take my hand, join me, and we could live our fairytale of happily ever after…but life isn’t a fairytale.  The world is a mean, cold place; even in this sweltering heat.  Life is hard, life is pain.  Life will make you bitter, jaded.  There was a time when that’s how I felt: a time when all I saw was misery in my existence.  Now, I see the joy in the possible, the beauty in the sadness.  My only regret is how long it took me to realize how wrong I really was.     

Holly, her mother, her sister, her brother-in-law, and I moved into her grandparents’ home in Emerald, PA after the flood.  In a committed relationship when the disaster occurred, it was assumed I’d accompany them when they left.  Dating over a year, for better or worse, Holly & I were inseparable.  My family, however, wasn’t going to Emerald.  My mother, father, sister, and brother-in-law were going somewhere else.  Holly would be my family now; Holly would be my everything.  

“I made sacrifices, Holly; can’t you make some?”

“You’re asking me to choose between you or my mother!  I can’t do that.  I’m sorry: but you’ll have to do this alone...”

The end of the world, and all I want to do is get back to where I was running away from.  Young, impetuous, I didn’t see what was truly important.  Selfish and callous, I couldn’t see beyond myself, my needs.  It was all about my career, my advancement, my happiness, me, me, me!!! 

At first, Las Vegas seemed the obvious choice in how to proceed redistributing the remaining population of the West Coast of the United States, but news flash: nobody wants to live in the desert!  

“It’s so empty.”

“And hot.” 

“It’s just sand.”

So, they went up north a bit.

“Who knew Idaho was so pretty?”

Long before the throngs and masses started migrating to this Northwestern metropolitan paradise, Boise had been touted “One of the Best Places to Live in the United States”.  Armed with this knowledge, and having the fortune to avoid the devastation leveled upon many other once prominent poleis, Boise readied itself for ascension into the upper echelon of, not only American cities, but world cities as well.  This was a coronation of sorts, as people began flocking to this Midwestern Mecca in droves to stake their claim on prosperity.  I would be one such person.  

Lara’s dad, her biological father, that is, happened to be from Boise.  In fact, that was where Lara was born, moving to Connecticut at seven, and sitting next to me in second grade.  Lara would’ve gone herself, but her fiancée procured a prime position at Ohio State University as an IT guy, and in today’s economy a job, any job, was not something to scoff at, or easily repudiate.  Lara’s mother went on to have two more children with her new husband, but Lara was her father’s only child, and so there was, for all intents and purposes, an empty nest waiting for me in Boise if I wanted it; if we wanted it.  

I thought she’d be excited.  This was our new beginning.  Together.  Now do I understand how much I needed her.  Why did I think I could ever forget?  Fooling myself into thinking I had.  Unbeknownst to me, the sentiment lingered dormant beneath the surface, undetectable, bidding its time for a triumphant resurrection.  When this opportunity to leave presented itself, fully comprehending or grasping the ramifications of my decision was out of my reach, beyond my capacity to fathom.  Ignorant to the effects such a void of emotional deficiency would have upon me, I left, unwavering, undaunted in my conclusion. 

“You’ll have to do this alone…”. And so I did.

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