The End of the World
How do you describe impending doom?
Sometime in 2008, I tried to describe the feeling of “impending doom” that shadowed me throughout my childhood and young adulthood. I was a… haunted child, always afraid of something I could not see, but could always feel. I never described it as supernatural, because it didn't “feel" like a ghost; I just felt… plagued.
I didn't get far, and I'm not sure exactly where I was going with it, but in looking for another very old piece of writing from 2008, I stumbled across this in my sent folder, forwarded from a couple years later in 2010:
The end of the world lies just beyond my second-floor apartment screen door. That's right… just open the screen door, walk out onto the balcony, and look straight across, tilting your head about 45 degrees upward: there it is. You probably can't see it so clearly from any other position in the world. Only from my balcony. And even there, you're risking a great deal. It could come get you at any time. It's right there.
The end of the world consists partly of those dark clouds, taunting the pale blue sky behind that it pushes aside, forcing our Chinese Golf-loving neighbors downstairs in the courtyard to play in it's shade. It is not, however, the entirety of the end of the world; the dark clouds are only the first omen of the coming Doomsday.
When said Doomsday will occur, I do not know. I'm sure the clouds know, the trees in the distance that dance with the dark clouds, laughing at us down below, thinking, knowing, that we're living on borrowed time, I'm sure they know. They must, otherwise they wouldn't laugh so hard lately. The trees have such cruel voices these days.
What I do know --and what the trees, clouds, and Golf players do not -- is that I can stop the end of the world. I, single-handedly, can stop the coming of Doomsday.
Some people just don't think about these things. They just don't notice, or they just don't care. They just don't realize what is going on, and what it is that they can do to prevent it.
No, it's not about driving an electric car, buying organic, or recycling… no, no. The end of the world –Doomsday-- will not happen because of our human instinct to take over all we can, or holes in the Ozone, or waste in our drinking water. Nor will it happen because we over-populate our earth or do not pay adequate attention to the threat of global warming.
In fact, it is imminent because of reasons beyond our control. That is, reasons beyond your control. Remember; I alone can prevent Doomsday.