The End of the World 4/25/08

We went to the Mall of America. I wanted to. I needed to see it, this place I had always wanted to visit. The place I imagined was different than what I got, but I knew it was going to be this way. The mall, once known for its high amount of traffic, was completely empty. Miller and I were the only people there, as far as we can tell. The floors are covered in broken glass, remnants from the day when stuff was worth something. The shelves (when there are shelves) are bare. In some places we find mass quantities of random knick-knacks. A strange collection of dryer sheets, a group of rubber duckies, CDs scattered all over the ground. Things that we, human animals, don’t need any more.

From an old store dedicated entirely to a holiday (Christmas) Miller pulls out boxes of tree ornaments. We decorate trees around the shopping center with the ornaments that are not broken. When we are done we exchange gifts. Clothes we found in backrooms, completely impractical.

This is a disaster! I do, however, find it to be a very lovable disaster and I think about this little bit of writing from time to time with fondness. At the time that I wrote this, I think that I was feeling a very bleak sort of hopefulness. This was the result of reading far to many issues of "Adbusters" and becoming friends with a young woman who spent most of her time concerned with the end of the world. In her view, we were all heading towards some sort of disaster and there was going to be a revolution of sorts that would take down society as we know it. This was all going to happen within the next few months. Two and a half years later, though I have now fallen out of touch with this person, I'm sure that she is still convinced that it is going to happen within the next few months.

The truth is that there are a whole lot of people who think this way. In fact, you can look up a number of online community in which the main topic is the end of civilization. They are all very fascinating because though these people seem to almost be praying for a breakdown of some sort in our society, no one is doing a single thing to either start it or stop it. They are perfectly happy talking about how society is going to end very soon, leaving all of us to pick up the pieces where we can. I used to go to these websites nearly everyday and work myself up into a frenzy of worry and fear over whatever tiny thing they were saying was the indication that the end is near. I finally got over it when I realized just what whack jobs these people are.

I supposed I had to many warm feelings to ever be invited into their society in the first place. They were all very "each man for himself" which I could never get behind. They were also very reactionary. Every single little thing meant that the collapse was coming soon, whether it was a rice shortage or a butterfly flapping it's wings in Peru. It was all a sign. I also didn't like how much delight they seemed to be taking in other people's misery.

My interest in their strange society led to this story. Clearly post-apocalyptic, it's my own take on the end of the world. There will be survivors and they will be friendly people who aren't afraid to go out in public and fancy up a few Christmas trees in the Mall of America. I think that I could take this somewhere if I wanted to but, of course, I would have to clean it up. There are a lot of problems with switching tense. I think, however, that the biggest thing that would keep me from completing this story is the incredible amount of back story that would have to go into it in order for people to find it believable. While it's all well and good that my survivors are generally happy people who can joke about their situation, surely it wasn't all good times and that's what worries me.

If the end of the world is coming, it's not going to be fun and games. It would be extremely difficult. The people on doomsday websites are prepared for it and I am not. I don't even want to write it out.