At the End of the World

Instead of chapters, this story is broken up into 'Days' (Totaling seven days or one week). This is only Day 1.

DAY 1

     God finally spoke to them. No one knew how they got the message, but they all knew they got it. Everyone was one hundred percent sure of this. They woke up one morning knowing. And the message was this: In one week's time, the world would end. The morning it happened everyone told each other what they knew to make sure they weren't crazy. Sure, enough everyone agreed. And when they found out that they agreed, they became scared. Many claimed it was some sort of disease a contagious mental illness that somehow infected the entire world's population overnight. But most didn't believe them. They knew better. And those that purported the idea knew better too. A futile attempt to comfort themselves. Even the children knew. The ones too young to speak. As if God had told them in their own language.
     So now that you know that everyone knew, let’s move on to what happened. First off, I’m going to spoil the ending for you right away. The world did end. Sure enough in exactly one week’s time the world came to an abrupt and brutal end. So don’t go through this thinking somehow the day will be saved. It won’t.
     Joe McGuire woke up at 6:09 a.m. knowing. He woke up at 6:00 a.m. thinking, pressed the snooze button and woke up nine minutes later knowing. He got up and sat at the edge of his bed. He stared at the floor thinking about his knowledge. He turned on the TV in his bedroom and found regular programming to be on. This comforted him, but he still knew. He began to get ready for work, trying to press it out of mind. He put on his shirt and tie as if his standard dress would remind God that, “No, don’t be silly. The world’s not ending. Stop telling me this nonsense. Look if the world was ending, would I be going through my normal routine? I don’t think so. Silly God.”
     On his drive to work he ran into deserted roads followed by sporadic bursts of bumper to bumper traffic. He turned on the radio. He played around with the dial. He came across an evangelist station with a religious zealot screaming about judgment day. A bit unsettling but he brushed it off as business as usual. He turned it to his favorite oldies station. Sure enough, old songs were playing and no one was talking about this apocalypse nonsense.
     Joe’s commute to work wasn’t too long. It was about twenty minutes that he spent everyday with a blank mind. He kind of enjoyed it. It was zen. He was focused on nothing. The motions he went through to drive were instinctual. He didn’t need to put any thought into them. But doing them allowed his mind to be a truly clean slate. He wasn’t thinking about what he should have said at that job interview. He wasn’t thinking about the time he should have called Sarah to tell her that he loved her. He wasn’t thinking how the world would soon end.
     Soon enough though he would have to go back to thinking about all that stuff. He would soon reach his workplace. Getting out of the car, a rush of worries hit him like a gust of wind. He reluctantly went back to his problems. He worried about how he would greet the cute receptionist as he walked by her. What if she was preoccupied by reading a book? Should he go out his way to say hello? Or should he walk on by? If he walked by and she saw him would she be offended? Maybe he could pretend like he was in a hurry. But, he wasn’t late for work. So Joe got back in his car and waited ten minutes. Until the time was 8:58 a.m. Then he got out of his car and began a quick, almost running pace. Sheila was there and she saw him.
     “Cutting it close today, Joe.”
     “Yeah.”
Joe let out a half hearted chuckle in his response. Now he would have to worry about what kind of impression this interaction made on her. He would also have to worry about how his boss would feel about him being slightly late. By the time he reached his desk it was 9:03 a.m. The elevator ride felt like an eternity.
     Good thing for him, his boss didn’t notice his tardiness. Apparently everyone was talking about some weird dream they all had. None of them quite remembered it but they all got the same idea from it. After more than two people said they had the same dream people started to become intrigued. Soon there was a crowd around the water cooler. But eventually everyone dispersed and went back to work. The general consensus was “Wow, this is really eerie, but it isn’t enough to justify not going on with our day.” So everyone sat down with the same unspoken unease and continued their day.
     Joe had a lot of paperwork. Today he was responsible for filing all of the new employee records. It was easy enough. Berkowitz, B, Johnson, J, Lansing, L. All you had to know was the alphabet and Joe knew the alphabet forwards and backwards. Even though all he needed to know for this job was the forward part. He was overqualified. Nonetheless, he toiled and worked and ripped each file from their original soil and planted them anew, in the new filing system. Most of these new employees would now grow roots and anchor themselves in the company. Whether they planned for it or not. Many would end up like Joe and like the comfort that a familiar place brings. Brad would end up like this. Well, at least for the week he had left.
     Brad Kyler came to his first day of work with less than bright eyes. This job was taken out of necessity. Brad had big dreams and two worthless degrees. In this world that means he need money and had to take a menial job. He knew going in that this is how the lives of unhappy people start. They go into an office job assuming it’s temporary and never leave. He vowed this wouldn’t happen to him, but he knew that everyone else who ended up like that also took a vow. He set up his desk, took a depressing life de-affirming sigh, and introduced himself to his cubicle neighbor. He shook Joe’s hand and told him his story. Joe told him his story. Both were stories that have been told a thousand times each so we don’t need to tell them here. Just imagine the usual stereotypical stories and you’ve pretty much got it.
     Brad didn’t know what to do on his first day. He hadn’t been given an itinerary and he didn’t know where or who his boss was. So he offered to help Joe with the filing. The two of them went at it. They sorted names so that they could be easily accessible for when the information was needed. Most of the information would never be needed. Brad got his first taste of a truly meaningless task. Something he’d be doing for the rest of his life.

     Joe had an intimate relationship with his job. He knew the quickest route to his cubicle. Enter the front door, right, take the furthest elevator because it’s the least busy, take it to the eighteenth floor, get out turn left, walk three doors down, go inside and walk towards the back right corner. He knew the right time to use the bathroom. Morning, right before lunch. It was always empty and he was uninhibited to his business. He knew what would and wouldn’t fly with his boss. He knew so much about his job. What would he do with all this information if he was to leave? He’d have to relearn everything. And what if he hated all of the new things he learned? Granted, he didn’t love any of the things about his job, but he didn’t hate them. They were pretty adequate. And besides, it was nice just to have a job. It’s not that he hated his job. Well, sometimes he did. He just couldn’t see himself spending the rest of his life there. He’d leave someday, he’d always tell himself. But he never wanted that day to be today.

     It must have been lunch time when the rest of the world started talking. Around noon the first news story broke. It covered prayer services that started sprouting up randomly all over the nation. They all began after countless people inexplicably showed up to church at the same time. When they got there they started talking and then they started praying. And every time a new person showed up with the same feeling of immanent doom, they prayed a little harder. The preacher’s were the first ones to deduce it. It was a message from God. Clear and simple answer, right to the point. Joe wasn’t sure what to make of it as he watched in the lunch room at work. He was surrounded by his co-workers, some panicking, some not. He wasn’t sure if it was a message from God. Why would he tell us in advance? Wouldn’t he just pull the plug? But the message from God theory did make the most sense, being the simplest answer. Occam’s razor and all. He sure didn’t want to believe it though. Because in that case the world really will end soon and Joe had not yet finished filing.

     After everyone watched the news stories, work slowed down. Now their fears were justified. They all just got up and started talking about what this all could mean. Debating and wondering. You really get to see how stupid the people around you are when something serious comes up. In your day to day work you exchange pleasantries.
     “Hi, how are you?”
     “Great. How are your kids?”
     “Johnny just turned five. We had a little party for him on Saturday. Little bugger just devoured that cake.”
     "Well, tell him 'happy birthday' for me."
     “Will do.”
Not a lot to judge someone’s intelligence on.
     It’s hard to judge a person on anything when you’re not that close. Sometimes even close friends barely know each other. The usual interactions between them are superficial and shallow. Friends hang out. They go to the movies. They go to parties together. They talk about sports, shoes, their other friends. How much can you know about someone based on that? People that have been best friends for years sometimes can’t see what kind of the person the other one actually is. And yet people still defend their friends. People will defend people given basically no information to judge them on.
     “Impossible, Greg couldn’t have done that. We watch football together! His favorite food is pizza! I helped him move! He’s obviously a great guy!”
     They only way to be friends with someone is to never really get to know them. Otherwise we’d only find one or two people in the world worth being friends with. Most of the people we hang out or see everyday are terrible people deep down. It just never gets a chance to show. It’s not until something significant happens that you see who people are. That’s the only way to know someone. And what’s more significant than the end of the world?

     “It’s just a coincidence! Some stupid preacher or something told his congregation that he got this message and then everyone else said ‘Yeah, I think I got the same one’. Then they all started spreading it and making everyone else believe that they got the same message!”
     "Not a bad theory.
     “But we all were talking about it before any of us even saw that news story. Besides each of those prayer circles were completely isolated. They began out of nowhere!”
     Oh. Well, that rules that out.
     “I think he sent us this message to try and save us. That’s why he told us he was going to destroy the world. So that we all can repent. He gave us the gift of foreknowledge. We have one week to beg for forgiveness and to change our ways. If we try really hard we’ll get into heaven!”
     Joe finally decided to interject. Normally he wouldn’t. But he had a question he wanted answered and he forgot to be afraid to speak in front of everyone.
     “If he wants to kill us all why would he also want to save us?”
     “So we can get into heaven.”
     “If he wants to punish us by destroying the world then why would he also do us a favor?“
     Brad decided to chime in.
     “Maybe he’s not punishing us.”
     “Then why destroy the world?”
     Everyone was quiet for a moment. They got so swept up in the questions that Joe raised that they forgot to think about them. Now they were trying to figure it out.
     “Well”, said Brad. “The world’s gotta end sometime.”