THE LIGHT

POSTCARD #4 • Armageddon From a Distance

First a bright light.

Then the shockwave.

What was left burned to the ground…

Everything around me brightens at once. By the time I turn to find the source, the light is already fading. Taking its place, a swelling cloud of ash and fire, climbing toward the sky, trailing a thick stalk behind it. Up and up and up.

DC. Gone.

There’s just enough time to register the silence. Deafening.

Next comes the shockwave, diminished. Grass ripples, unimpressed. The heat comes after—more of a warm sigh than a furnace blast.

Lucky me, I guess.

Fires erupt on the horizon. The rising cloud in the distance blots out the sun, spreads its shadow across the land. Armageddon at a distance. The world just ended. I’m still here. It feels wrong.

I brace for another blast, but nothing comes, only more silence. The neighbors are out now, watching with expressions akin to…what? Reverence? Awe? Disbelief? Maybe all of those things.

We look at each other. The world has just changed. It registers on our faces at the same time. Everything we thought we knew, gone in a flash. Literally.

The world blurs, my eyes sting. Hot tears run down my cheeks. Tears for the future, and for the past. The kids have all grown and moved away. Mary died last year.

I don’t think I can handle what’s coming. I’m not okay, but that’s okay. There’s a gun in the house. And I have bullets. I only need one. Just one to stop the pain before it starts.

The neighbors watch the cloud, still climbing. They don’t notice as I turn and go back inside. I wonder if they’ll hear the shot.

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Postcards from the End of the World — a recurring column