14 minutes now.
There wasn’t anything I could do about it. The missiles were on the way and heading my direction. There was an important military base located nearby where I lived, so it was well-known it would be a target.
Before the last few months I hadn’t thought too much about it. I grew up in the area, the base was just a fact of life. I had a lot of friends who worked there. They talked about repairing planes or checking IDs at the gate, nothing special. It wasn’t like they were the ones working on the bombs stored there.
I was thankful I wasn’t working in the office today. I’d taken a week off to de-stress. Up until this point I was having a good day. The weather was nice, I was sitting on my porch, reading a book, and drinking an afternoon cocktail. If I was at the office I would be pissed.
Not that I was ecstatic about what was going to happen regardless of the location. Shortly I was going to die. And there was nothing I could do about it.
It only made a difference because I was in a comfortable place. It’d be awful to be at my office, sat at my desk, under those hard fluorescent lights. I didn’t…hate my coworkers, but we weren’t friends. They weren’t the people I would have surrounding me if I was on my death bed, so I didn’t want to be around them in this situation. I could only imagine the chaos and noise going on right now.
Things were going to get loud in a few scant minutes, the build up to that I didn’t need Heather crying and trying to get me to commiserate. I wasn’t going to go into this in complete silence. From my phone I pulled up a relaxed playlist I used when I had trouble falling asleep. I turned it up to cover the sounds of sirens and screaming coming from the street.
I went over to my liquor cabinet and reached in the back where the good stuff lived. With only minutes left before I died in atomic hellfire I knew I’d only have time for one drink. Stupidest death would be one where I tried to slam down as many shots I could and be puking when I died. I’d be dead, but the thought was still embarrassing to be found by survivors in a bizarre Fallout-esque environmental storytelling skeleton pose.
There was an expensive bottle of Scotch I bought after I got my first raise at work. I was saving it until a special occasion: getting engaged, something monumental and worth toasting to. It could’ve been celebrating quitting my job when I got a better one. In a way this was like quitting.
No…more like getting fired.
Ha!
Fired.
I killed myself. Metaphorically. The nuke was going to kill me literally.
I passed on the Scotch. There was a sour emotion in drinking a whiskey I’d intended as a celebration for a memorial, even if it was my own. Instead I selected an Irish whisky that was half-full. I’d only had it on rare occasions, but I knew I liked it. Why not go out with that on my tongue?
Inelegant, I filled a pint glass so full it spilled over the top. In a different circumstance I’d be licking up what pooled on the counter so nothing went to waste. It was undignified to do in my last minutes.
I went back out to my small apartment balcony and sat in my deck chair. I put my feet up on the rail and looked at the sky. My balcony faced the military base so I had front row seats to the fireworks display.
The outside was noisy and chaotic and I needed to turn my phone up to full blast to drown it out as best I could. I could’ve put in my earbuds, but I didn’t want something jammed in my ears right now. Thinking about it, why be uncomfortable at all? I got up and stripped off all my clothes, basking in the sunshine.
Felt good.
Instead of sitting back down I leaned against the railing, drink in hand, focus on the sky in the distance.
Right now it was a clear shade of deep blue. There was the smell of grilled meat on the air; someone’s last meal. I guess my last meal was the toast I had for breakfast. Nothing special, nothing grand, it wasn’t like I knew it would be the last thing I ate. Had I, probably wouldn’t be able to decide. How did prisoners choose their last meal? It was the last thing they would ever consume, what would the choice be? Do you go nostalgic with a childhood favorite? Chance something new and risk ending up disappointed? The choice paralysis would mean them flipping the switch on the electric chair and me dying with an empty stomach.
Didn’t have much of an appetite now anyway. The whiskey in my glass was the only thing I could imagine getting down and that would only be a few big sips.
My phone buzzed with incoming messages and missed call notifications. I ignored them for the same reason I was happy to not be in the office: I wanted the quiet. I loved mom and dad, my brother, friends, but I didn’t want to deal with all that emotion. Not enough time to process it. Better for all involved if they got their feelings out to my inbox. The good thing was that I wouldn’t feel guilty about this decision later.
I barked out a laugh at that and tears sprung to my eyes.
I was trying to keep it together in these last minutes, trying not to break down at the thought of my imminent death.
I was too young for this. Some asshole would say I made it to my 20s, what about all the people who died as babies? That was tragic, too. Sudden death was always bleak. We all strove to have that romanticized death: old age, faculties intact, surrounded by your loves ones, then passing with no struggle in your sleep. I’d imagined having decades to come to terms with my mortality. You know, growing older, knee going bad at some point, hip surgery later, maybe a cancer scare. All those little things easing you into the inevitability of death like a hot bath.
So, no, not going to answer any calls or check messages. No one was around to see me, there would be no body to find, but when I blinked out of existence it would be with a little dignity.
Just ignore that I was naked and drinking a pint glass of whiskey. I said a little dignity.
In the horizon I saw it.
The rocket.
Missile.
Whatever it was whoever fired at us. I couldn’t see the details, only that it appeared almost like another sun in the sky. It soon defined into a rocket shape. It was admittedly impressive.
I imagined the dinosaurs though the same thing as the asteroid crashed down.
I raised my glass in a toast to it. As I took a long drink the light turned my whiskey into a beautiful color I’d never see again.
Maybe it was my imagination trying to make the situation more romantic, but it felt like everything went quiet. The lightshow, the biggest fireworks display, was a silent movie.
It was a mistake to be entirely naked. I should’ve grabbed my sunglasses so I wouldn’t be as blinded as I was. I watched the explosion through the slits of my fingers as I tried to block out the light.
Then it was heat.
Then pain.
Darkness.
…
…
…
Then pressure.
And light again.
Pain. Never thought I would be thankful to feel pain. It meant I was alive. There was a piece of rebar from my destroyed apartment complex digging into my ribs.
Eventually, after many hours of digging and shifting, I was able to crawl out of the rubble. Everything around me was leveled. Anything not flattened was covered in soot. The air still burned and it was uncomfortably hot. Smoke from all the fires stung my eyes and blocked out the sun, casting everything in shadow.
Other than that I was fine. Not a scratch on me. I turned in a circle, looking at all the ruins. I was the only living thing I could see.
Hell of a way to find out I was immortal.
-END-
