Picnic at the edge of the world

The world had already ended. Now, it was simply a matter of time before we all followed suit.

That night, I sat on the rooftop of my apartment building which was half collapsed and in shambles. The stars were still falling - of course, they weren't really "stars", but we called them that to make it all feel more poetic than it was. In truth, they were just satellites burning up in the atmosphere as they careened towards Earth, a final result of Kessler syndrome. It was a long time coming, but even so, world governments and a few wealthy technological aristocrats managed to cram as many hunks of metal into orbit as possible before it all came, literally, crashing down. Only then did they admit it had all been a big mistake.

It was interesting to watch, the end of things. Some people had seen it coming, seen the signs and did nothing about it. Others were still in denial, despite seeing the "stars" falling every night over the course of five years. Some of those stars even fell on their homes or their neighbors and still, they attributed it to simply a stroke of bad luck and went and got Starbucks the next morning like everything was fine. Well, until Starbucks got crushed too. And then, of course, there were those who said it was punishment from the Lord Himself, that our hubris and general lack of empathy and faith was to blame and that we, ultimately, deserved what we were getting.

Frankly, the "why" of it all didn't seem to matter much anymore. I'd made my peace years ago by finding God through my own personal world shattering events. Things like losing my job, losing my home, being isolated and alone with crippling anxiety and chronic illness. I'd overcome those things though and I genuinely felt fine. At one point, I'd already lost everything that I thought mattered to me and found out I was wrong about it all. So, even as I sat on this parapet with an expired can of tuna and my last Diet Coke by my side, I still felt pretty good about my life. While all of these people ran around in a panic below me, losing their minds because suddenly nothing they spent their lives doing felt meaningful, I felt... whole. More whole than I'd ever felt before, maybe.

That's not to say I wasn't scared. Of course I felt afraid of the end of the world - who wouldn't? But fear and hope are two sides of the same coin. And the hope I felt wasn't for things to go back to the way they'd always been - that's how we got here in the first place - but rather, for what was to come. Whether that was death or otherwise, it didn't matter. Even if you lived through this, you'd still have died somehow. The vision of who you used to be was dead. The desires you carried were dead. What you thought was important and crucial for living a happy life, those things were dead now too.

But for the moment, I was still alive.

And in that moment, I watched the "stars" falling and they looked beautiful. Fiery green and red streaks in the sky, sometimes breaking apart and creating little baby streaks which tumbled away to find their home elsewhere. Probably on someone's private property. Occasionally a sonic boom or two would rupture the peace and the chaos would erupt again. After five long years of this, people had begun to act erratically and irrationally. Honestly, the scariest part of it all was the people. Having your house crushed by a large metallic object was bad, but dealing with the destruction humanity wrought in disaster's wake was worse.

As I dangled my feet over the edge of the roof, I heard a voice from behind me ring out.

"I knew I'd find you here," it said. "You always did love a good light show."

I smiled and continued chewing my sour tuna. I felt them sit next to me. Their presence had become more tolerable the older I'd gotten. I lifted the Coke can towards them.

"Want some?" I asked.

"Nah, I don't drink that shit anymore. It's bad for your brain."

"Only you would consider healthy eating habits at a time like this." I drained the can and dropped it off the edge of the building but immediately regretted it.

"Things like that are what got us here in the first place," they said, watching the aluminum fall hundreds of feet into the darkness. "No consideration for what's below you."

"You're right."

"If you die soon, what do you think you'll regret most?"

"Probably that I never got to have sex with another woman. How about you?"

"Same, probably."

We sat in silence for a while, watching the fires burn on the horizon. For some reason a lot of satellites had fallen in a cluster to the east of us. The sky over there was a dull brownish orange.

"Is that it?" They asked. "Anything else you wish you could have done?"

"I don't know, I feel like having regrets is stupid."

"Why?"

"Because it implies I could have ever actually done anything differently, which I couldn't have. So it's pointless to fixate on it."

"I see."

Down below, too dark to see with the streetlights all burnt out and the power gone, I heard a scream. It sounded like a woman. The scream was followed by a gunshot. I brought my knees to my chest and hugged them.

"I can see why you're up here now," the voice said softly.

"Yeah."

"People show who they truly are when they're put in situations like this, don't you think?"

"I don't know."

"You don't?"

"No, because I don't want to do anything like that."

"Maybe you're just a good person and they're not."

"Maybe. Or maybe they're just desperate for something I don't understand. Maybe they have a stronger will to live than I do and so they're willing to do horrible things in order to survive."

"Do you think they couldn't survive otherwise? Like, if they did good things they'd die more easily?"

"History has always shown us the good people get killed for doing good things. It's not like doing good things has ever saved anyone before."

"What about you?"

"What do you mean, what about me?"

"You were saved by doing good things, right? I mean, taking time for yourself, becoming sort of a recluse but like, in a way that monks do to find enlightenment and God and the meaning of life and stuff. And, you know, therapy."

"Yeah, that's true. But nobody wants to hear about that."

"No?"

"No. They'd rather hear you'll be saved if you can like, make the most money or have the best job or whatever. If you're unemployed they'll call you a criminal, because even if you're making a negative contribution to the economy and to society, that's still better than not contributing at all."

"Hmm..."

"You know it's true."

"Yeah. I do. But hey, now there's no jobs or whatever anymore, so looks like you're all finally equal in that sense. Maybe once this is all over and some of you survive, you can find different ways to value your lives and, you know... your role in whatever semblance of society is left."

"Yeah. Maybe. Maybe I'll just kill myself and start over."

"Would you do that?"

"No," I laughed. "Never did before, so why do it now? I was born into this time for a reason, and I don't think I have it in me to hit the restart button. Besides, as a 'good person', I might actually have something to contribute to this new world."

There was a pause. A cool breeze passed by and it felt refreshing.

"What do you think you'll do? Assuming you don't get crushed to death or shot or whatever."

"Hmm," I leaned back on my hands and stared up at the sky. "I think I'd like to be in charge of something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Like what? I wanna know."

"Something like... how to achieve harmony between nature and buildings and technology and people. It seems important. We got to a point where all we could think of was infinite growth and shareholders and profits and all this bullshit that made no real sense in the grand scheme of things. It got us here, and here fuckin' sucks."

"Yeah, it's not that great. What does harmony look like, anyway? Don't you think if it could be found, it would have been already?"

"Not at all, I think people wanted domination more than anything. I mean, I can't speak for ancient civilizations or anything. Maybe they found it, but in the end obviously they died out too, or evolved into something worse. So no, I don't really think we ever truly wanted it. Or, at least, nobody important ever did."

"'Important' - what a terrible word."

"Tell me about it."