Apocalypse
On the porch leaning against the wall with a cup of coffee in my hand, I was
wondering if I was qualified to refinance my home mortgage at a lower rate. The
voice of the meteorologist on the television who said “enjoy your sunny weekend”
in the background echoed in my ears. Nothing was out of ordinary that Sunday
afternoon when suddenly the ground beneath my feet trembled. I felt an eerie force
pressing down on earth, a silent roar perhaps, a motionless storm. The long rows
of enormous trees on both sides of street shivered in concert. Houses shuddered
and every parked car wobbled. Before I could react, the next door house crumbled
before my eyes. The ground cracked open and the entire stretch of houses in the
neighborhood drifted away. The chasm in the earth widened with a furious blast
and the entire city block ripped apart. In a matter of minutes the same calamity
occurred as far as my eyes could see. An invisible dagger viciously slaughtered the
planet in my bewildered presence.
I witnessed the world falling apart. For no apparent reason, the earth shattered
in millions of pieces like a porcelain piggy bank fallen off a child’s hand. The
immutable law of gravity ceased to exist and enormous chunks of the planet
blasted in every direction and scattered in the universe. Shockingly enough, my
house was the only structure left completely intact. The Armageddon had only
spared me and my possessions. I was blessed to be the lone survivor so I thought.
The apocalyptic event didn’t even spill my coffee to stain my clean shirt and to ruin
my day. In a matter of minutes, I found myself standing on the edge of my new
world in the shape of a slice of a chocolate cake decorated with a house lurking in
a green yard peppered with weeds, confined by the wooden fence. My beloved
lemon tree was now slightly curved supporting its two shiny lemons yet its roots now
were all exposed.
A little disoriented by the incident, I dusted off my pajamas and fanned the air
before my mouth to avoid letting polluted air trigger my asthma. Then I gently put
the cup down and held on to the yard’s faucet, cautiously slouched and looked
down to examine the depth of the disaster. The piece of chocolate cake I was
standing on was as deep as the earth itself. The new world of mine consisted of a
thirty five years old 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath house with a high monthly mortgage. It
remained fully furnished with all basic amenities totally functional with the attached
garage pregnant with a 1957 Chevy. Yes, the world was flat built on a concrete
slab. My shock was further compounded to notice the crack on the foundation, the
one ugly symptom of the structural damage in my house that drastically reduced its
market value during the last few years disappeared by the earth movement. I also
noticed a few shingles missing on the roof, those I could fix myself.
After the initial shock subsided, I contemplated the impact this catastrophe had
on my life style. It was impossible not to be affected by such an unprecedented
calamity. Yet I welcomed the doomsday as an opportunity to simplify my life. First I
thought of the leaky junk in the garage. Now I was so glad I didn’t pay the high cost
of repair. I had no use for transportation in the future. So, the first order of
business was to get rid of the clunker before it ruined my garage floor with oil stain.
The garage door was open, so I shifted the gear in neutral position and pushed the
car back and it nicely rolled right out of the garage and fell off the edge. I sighed in
relief.
The disposal of the old junk out of my life disturbed the balance of my world.
The piece of cake suddenly tilted and despite my effort to stay on the top, I too
slipped off the edge. Before I totally lose my grip and plunge into an eternal abyss,
I grasped the roots of the lemon tree I’d planted in the yard and survived the never
ending free fall.
The world teetered a few times and finally regained its balance but now I was
below the surface clinging to the delicate roots. The wall clock also lost its balance
and fell. It too was hanging to the edge by its flimsy minute hand. The hour was
completely deformed in vanity and the clock lost its grip on the reality of time. The
distorted time and I were the only persisting survivors of this apocalyptic event.
Neither one of us could reclaim our original states.
I managed to survive below the surface under such peculiar circumstance for a
long time by digesting worms and grains I found in the dirt underneath my home. At
nights I could see the gleaming moon crescent like a ruthless sickle dangling over
my lonely tree in the yard. By beloved tree was hopelessly leaning forward to
extend its fragile limbs to help me with a somber looks on its face like a mournful
mother sobbing for her dying child. As the time past, I witnessed my tree wrinkled in
the losing battle of life. Its sparkling lemons gradually lost their zest in grief.
My prolonged existence underworld altered my perspective on life. The
physical survival was no longer the main concern of mine as I realized how absurd
it was to relive my life as if nothing had happened. Instead of perpetuating a futile
struggle to resurface, I embarked upon an expedition into the depth of the
chocolate cake to its very crumbs I was clinging. I’d lost everything yet like an
addicted gambler I took a demented pleasure in the bitter taste of loss.
The deeper I descended into the crux of life, the more bizarre the journey
became. In the process, I acquired a vision, a vantage point I never thought
possible. The mundane linear concept of time disintegrated and the shattered
particles reconstituted to form a perpetual series of expansion and contraction of
moments in which I was enshrined. Hysterically I was propagating on the vibrating
strings of a mystic musical instrument feverishly strummed by the rouge flashes of
my memories. I could hear a melancholic melody composed by the filaments of
despair and delight emanated into the air by the fibers of my being.
I’m inundated by a vague mist of memoire. My recollections play a vicious
game, a devious trickery I cannot comprehend. At times a delightful haze of
memory caresses me and before I can absorb the essence of its charm and to
cherish its beauty, it viciously fades into a blurry corner of my past. I cannot
distinguish between the past, the present and the future of mine, the time
dimension of my life is lost forever. I reluctantly embrace what I believe to be my
present, a vague mélange of dreams, real events, fantasies and nightmares I call
life. I have passed the point of no return. Every day I further plunge into the abyss
of future, yet my murky tomorrow weirdly resembles my foggy past.