One Point Ending

“The fate of the world depends on me not doing my homework,” I explained to the teacher for the fourth time. Teachers can be so dense.

“Well, if you don’t do it by tomorrow, then the fate of your report card will also be impacted, so I would put some serious thought into this,” the teacher responded.

The assignment is a fun writing prompt for my English/Language Arts class that I would usually be excited to do. I am supposed to describe how the world will end, borrowing from a provided list of existential threats to humanity, including AI, runaway physics experiments, asteroid impact, plague, a gamma ray burst, or, if I’m feeling whimsical, a zombie apocalypse. The problem though, and the reason that I’m talking to you via vertical video on my cellphone right now, is that everything that I physically write down comes true.

And now, a demonstration.

As you can see, I hold in my right hand a small stuffed animal in the shape of a dragon. In my left hand, I hold a Sharpie marker and on the table in front of me, which you can’t see right now but I will show you in a second, is a piece of loose computer paper. I will now write on the paper and, while I do, please watch my right hand.

And there he goes. As you can see, the stuffed dragon toy has come to life and flown across my bedroom. You can see what I wrote on this paper I’m now holding up. I will reverse the camera on my phone now…and…as you can see, the dragon has joined several other dragons sitting on my dresser. And one lemur. And a tiny, surprisingly well-behaved velociraptor. I will worry about them later. Now let’s switch the camera back toward me, and…

So, I am in sixth grade, and I am a very good student, because I must be a very good student to be allowed to participate in the school’s elite dance team. We travel to dance competitions, paid out of the school budget, and the deal is that only A-students can participate. My ELA class only has nine total grades for the trimester, each of which counts for the same percentage of our grade. As my math teacher would tell you, 100 total points, divided by nine total assignments means that each grade is worth about eleven points. If I lose ten points, I can maintain an A-, but eleven would be one point too many, pushing me into a B+.

I love dance. Last year I did the greatest solo to a song called “Slay All Day.” It was so sassy and fierce. I wore this amazing red leotard with mesh parts that were a little bit see-through across my belly and shoulders, and it had rhinestones absolutely everywhere. My yearbook picture was me in that leotard. I did the dance in the school talent show and got second place, just behind a boy who juggled little pocket constitutions while reciting the Gettysburg Address.

So, what I’m really trying to say is that I need to do well enough on this assignment to maintain an A, which means I need to get at least one point, so I need to end the world a little bit. I acknowledge that doing this sucks, but I don’t see another way out of this. My goal in this video is to crowdsource ideas for ending a little bit of the world super gently, but enough so that I get my one point.

Some ideas that I’ll throw out there:

-- Asteroid the size of an Amazon warehouse hits dead center in Antarctica, super-heating the area and melting all of the ice, which sucks for Miami and such, but overall isn’t as bad as it could be.

-- Worldwide plague of locusts, but they only eat olives, mushrooms and peppers, impacting dumb grownups’ pizza orders and probably some other stuff that I’m missing.

-- The world is already ended and we’re all living in the Matrix and so no change day-to-day. If we’re not already really living in the Matrix, I don’t really know how this works with my writing things and making them come true thing, but maybe it breaks it? Or maybe it retcons all of human history? Hard to say.

If anybody has any other ideas, please reply to this video and put them in the comments. I plan on writing my assignment in a couple of hours after dinner. So, also…you know…kiss your loved ones by then and all that just in case. Signing out.

Hey guys, I’m back. Really disappointed in the submissions. I don’t know why you all think this is a joke. I showed you the dragons. And the velociraptor. Maybe I could end the world by having all of the children not named Rowena contract virulent cholera. Funny now?

There was one suggestion that I liked – thanks Colten – so I will try that one. Here goes. I’ll read out what I’m typing as I type it and keep the phone going as long as fate allows. Good luck everybody!

“The squirrels all grew ten times larger in a matter of moments, suddenly reaching the size of Pomeranians. Whatever caused the change also made the squirrels terribly, shockingly, world-endingly vicious, like an army of Mega-Squirrel Death Zombies.”

Oh yeah, I should say, close your doors and windows. If you don’t have the really good, reinforced glass in your windows, interior rooms and closets may be the right choice for you for the next ten to twelve hours.

“Thankfully, the change was temporary, and the evil plague of Murder Squirrels would end at first light. The world would end, but just a little if it’s people could survive the brief onslaught.”

Also, should have mentioned, if you know anyone in other time zones where it isn’t dark yet, you may want to call them and give them a warning. This is a nighttime thing, and they have a great chance to be more prepared than us east-coasters.

“Everywhere all at once, the squirrels attacked people on the streets and at outdoor tables at restaurants, and in cars with the windows down playing music for other people to hear that other people very much did not ask to hear. Now their screams were the music.”

Actually, I think I just heard a scream. Just a second. There it is again. No that’s not a scream. That’s more like a howl. Oh crap, Herman Barkville is in the backyard. Gotta go!