IF THE WORLD ENDS, WHAT WOULD I DO?
i. Cry. I am scared of death. I am scared of the afterlife. I am scared of the unknown and I am scared of leaving a life unlived. I have not experienced adulthood. I have not experienced true love. I have not experienced grief. I have not yet achieved my dreams. I want to be a writer but now all the pages of my book are crumpled in my hands. What a waste of a life. I think I’ll cry first, for the person I never got to be.
ii. Hug my dogs. I have two. They don’t know that the end is near. They don’t know their bodies will collapse within themselves and that their life will be cut shorter than it already is. Still, they’ll smile and wag their tails because as long as they’re with family, their world will never truly end.
iii. Check social media. Is everyone else as terrified as me? I wonder what all the celebrities are thinking. It’s weird. They’re in the same situation as I am. Celebrities are not exempt from the end of the world. Am I wasting precious time checking my twitter?
iv. Sit with my family. I will not talk. I have never been vulnerable with them – I find it embarrassing. So, I will sit in silence. But what will they say? Will they cry? That’ll make me uncomfortable. Will they reminisce? Perhaps I’ll laugh at old memories. Or will they sit in silence like I will? What more is there to say? Yes, I think we will sit in silence.
v. Sleep. It has always been my favourite thing to do. If I am ill, I sleep. If I am sad, I will sleep. Even when I am awake, I will sleep. So I will spend my last moments in the room I was raised in, in the middle of the walls I made my own. I cried over lost necklaces in this room, I attempted cartwheels and failed at the splits in this room, I pretended I was twenty and dressed old at fifteen in this room. I lived in this room, so I will die in it.
vi. Accept. I will accept the end of the world with a flutter of my eyes. I am surrounded by family and pets. I am surrounded by old memories and the floor I forgot to clean. What else is there to do?
vii. Die.
Liberty, 20, London - England ✯ IG: @lilithsbl00d
“Liberty is a creative writing student from London with a love for all things literature.”