Audio: You’ve reached the mail box of _insert name here_. They can’t come to the phone right now due to the inevitable burning of the planet. Leave a message if you want... Whatever... *beeeeeep*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Want a cigarette?

 

Mmm?

Oh.

I don’t smoke.

 

Well now would be the time to start

 

 

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Might as well.

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You’ve got to breathe in.

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Don’t laugh.

 

I’m not laughing.

 

You were going to.

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You know I don’t think I’ve ever actually met you.

What a good neighbor I am.

What’s your name?

 

Kate.

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Jay.

 

I know.

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I heard shouting in there.

 

Fiancé.

Doesn’t like me smoking.

 

 At a time like this?

 

She hadn’t heard.

 

Still a bit of an overreaction.

 

Not really.

I’m dying.

 

We’re all dying.

 

No, I’ve got lung cancer.

 

Oh. I’m sorry.

 

Nothing to be sorry for.

I was dying anyway.

I should be sorry for you.

 

I really wasn’t doing much living honestly.

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Aren’t you going to call her?

Tell her what’s really going on?

 

Nope.

And I know she won’t call me

when she finds out either.

 

That’s sad.

 

Not really.

 

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Sorta beautiful isn’t it?

In a terrible, frightening kinda way.

 

What is?

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It doesn’t look any different.

 

I just never really looked at it before.

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Then why now?

 

I don’t know.

Because it’s about to kill us?

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Something had to.

 

But isn’t it kinda lovely?

 

That would be like saying

my tar infused lungs are lovely.

 

They might be.

 

Not when it causes this much pain.

 

Everything causes pain.

 

And nothing is beautiful.

 

You can’t really believe that.

 

 I’ve seen too much of the world.

 

I don’t believe you.

I haven't seen enough.

 

 It’s not much.

 

That can’t be true.

 

You’re young and cute

so I’ll be honest with you.

It’s nothing to write home about.

 

Really.

 

Completely full of shit.

 

Everything?

 

Everything.

 

Everyone?

 

Everyone.

 

You must have loved your fiancé.

 

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She threw this at me.

For dying and wanting a cigarette.

The world is ending and she won’t even call.

Not to apologize.

Not even to say she wasted her time.

 

You won’t either.

 

I’m just as shitty as she is.

 

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What did you do that for?

 

Not worth anything now is it?

 

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Well what about your family?

 

Haven’t got one.

 

None at all?

Not a single person you care for?

 

Why do you think I’m talking to you?

 

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Why are you still out here with me?

You must have people that care.

 

I’m rather forgettable.

 

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So what about me?

Am I as ugly on the inside

as the rest of the world?

 

Probably.

 

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You asked.

This isn’t the time for lying to each other.

 

I wouldn’t say that of you.

I think you’re sorta beautiful.

 

Then you’d be wrong.

Me? Beautiful?

 

I’m serious.

I mean even now,

behind this bullshit mask you’re putting up.

 

Hun, there are no masks.

Everyone is just as shitty as they seem.

 

I mean look at you.

A silhouette of a dying man

with a cigarette in his hand,

scoffing and scowling at the end of the world.

 

You’re too much of a romantic.

Look at me.

How is this beautiful at all?

 

You’re an image.

A perfect image.

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You think I’m stupid.

 

You’re no different from the rest of us.

Another?

 

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I keep thinking about this poem.

 

Which one?

 

The one with those last lines:

“this is the way the world ends,

not with a bang but with a whimper.”

 

 And?

 

Well it seems like a bang to me.

 

But it’s a whimper too.

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Audio: One. I saw my first sparrow of the year this morning. It had such tiny legs. Made me think of you.

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What the hell…?

It’s all the money I could find.

 

What kind of trick are you trying to pull here?

 

Haven’t you heard?

 

What that you’ve gone mad?

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True, but not what I’m referring to.

 

Then what?

 

The damn world is coming to an end.

 

Like hell it is.

Fucking with the beggar now are you?

Don’t you think I’ve had enough?

 

I’m not kidding.

It’s really happening.

Sun ’ll fry us all alive in a few hours.

 

Right.

Get lost would ya?

 

Poof.

Flambé.

Vamoose.

 

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Those madmen pass by here

at least three times a day.

 

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Oh shit.

 

Oh shit is right.

 

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I see you every day without fail.

I’ve never given you a cent until today,

and none of it’s worth shit anymore.

I don’t even know your name.

 

Destiny.

 

Just like me.

The world’s about to be fried,

and who do I choose to talk to?

Destiny.

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Why?

 

I can’t say.

I guess… Well…

I know you, but I also don’t.

I can talk to you without a past

and without a future to bother with.

 

What makes you think

I want to talk to you at a time like this?

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Something tells me

you don’t have a large selection.

 

Ouch.

 

Well it’s true isn’t it?

 

Maybe I’d rather not talk to anyone.

 

Well would you?

 

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I don’t even know you.

 

I’m just another guy in a suit

that doesn’t give a shit.

 

Name?

 

Phil.

 

Well, Phil,

I don’t blame you if it’s any consolation.

 

Nothing’s any consolation right now.

 

Welcome to the last decade of my life.

 

That bad?

 

Well look at me.

 

Could have been worse.

 

Could it?

I am homeless, penniless,

without a single friend or family member to speak of.

I’m understandably,

suicidally depressed

with no one to grieve my death even

and no courage to off myself.

 

Well

now you’ve at least got something to do it for you.

 

Hallelujah.

 

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I still don’t get what you’re doing here.

You must have people to call,

goodbyes to make.

 

I’m afraid

nobody really liked me all that much.

 

Don’t be stupid.

 

I’m not, just realistic.

 

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You don’t have any cigarettes do you?

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You know,

I don’t even smoke.

I bought them on a whim yesterday.

 

Would you like to start?

 

Well…

What the hell,

why not?

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You’ve got to breathe in.

 

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I had so much just at my fingertips.

My future was brighter than the sun will be.

I worked so hard for my tomorrow

and what for?

Tomorrow’s gone.

 

Tomorrow never would have come.

 

What do you mean?

Of course it would have!

 

Tomorrow never comes.

There is no getting to that bright shining future.

You’ll always be stuck in the present.

 

Cut the lofty existential crap.

My tomorrow would have been great.

 

See that’s just the problem.

Tomorrow’s always going to be better,

we think,

but tomorrows always just as bad as today.

You keep setting your goals further and further away

and you’ll never get to the end.

You’ll die of old age and you’ll still be saying

“my tomorrow was going to be so much better.”

 

You must be an optimist.

 

Just a realist.

 

Short pause, smoking, thinking.

 

Well,

regardless of tomorrow,

the world’s gotten a lot darker today.

 

Yeah, well, it’s about to get a lot brighter.

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Audio: Two. I’ve lost my glasses. Everything looks so warm and blurry like looking at the sky underwater.

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Hey, so you been up for awhile?

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Yeah.

 

So you know.

 

Yeah.

 

How’re you doing?

 

Fine.

 

Yeah?

 

Yeah.

You?

 

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I don’t know.

I had to escort the president to this bunker earlier.

You know, that top secret one everyone knows about.

 

What’re you going to do?

 

What can anyone do?

 

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It’s hard not to think of the futility of it all.

 

Mmm.

 

Humanity will have left not a single mark,

you know? Our entire existence.

 

All of human history.

 

Gone.

 

Charbroiled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well… Alright then.

 

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Okay then.

Goodbye Jay.

 

Goodbye Danny.

 

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I think that’d be terrible,

what the president is doing.

 

What, the bunker?

 

Yeah,

I mean, what if you survived?

You’d come out and everyone and everything

would be dead

and you’d just slowly starve.

Even if he does have rations in there to last his whole life.

That’s lonely.

 

It doesn’t seem that different.

 

You’re going to try to say living in a

torched, empty world

is basically the same as this one?

 

Seems like it to me.

Look around.

This place is already torched and empty.

 

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You think there are others out there

like the president?

Holed up in some bunker?

 

Probably.

Other world leaders

and those apocalypse nuts

that’ve been waiting for this

their whole lives.

 

What if they all survive?

 

That’d be one fucked up society.

 

But they could rebuild.

This might not be the end.

 

There’s some wishful thinking.

 

It’s possible.

 

Not really.

They couldn’t come out.

There’d be no air left.

All burned away in the explosion.

They could only survive

as long as the bunker air lasted.

They’d only be prolonging the inevitable.

This is it sweetheart.

 

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Can you believe Danny though?

Dry as a bone.

He used to laugh at my jokes.

So serious now.

 

No humor at all.

 

He died a long time ago.

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Audio: Three. I bet this would look beautiful from space.

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You’re not going to answer?

 

I don’t care to talk to anyone else.

They’d all be cliché and morbid.

 

Well, so would you.

 

Aw shut up.

 

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What?

 

I’m just thinking about

the people who don’t know

that the apocalypse is here.

 

Who doesn’t know at this point?

 

Those back to nature types.

The no technology, cabin in the woods guys.

 

People on ill timed camping trips.

 

I wonder if they’re looking up at the sky like…

what a lovely day.

The sun looks brighter than I remember.

 

Sounds quite nice actually.

 

You’d rather waste your last day?

 

They sound happy.

 

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Hey you ever think of what happens after?

 

After?

 

After death

like the afterlife or whatever.

Heaven or hell or reincarnation or darkness.

 

Hadn’t really thought about it.

 

Really.

 

No.

 

I thought you said you’d been depressed.

 

I am.

 

But you’ve never thought about what happens after?

 

Well, I mean

I’ve wondered, sure,

but I just don’t know.

I have no idea.

I don’t believe any of them.

 

Hm.

 

Do you believe any of that religious afterlife bullshit?

 

Well, I was raised religious.

 

That’s not an answer.

 

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No, I guess I don’t.

They all seem a bit wishful thinking don’t they.

 

Well,

except the blackness of oblivion one

where you just sort of blink out of existence.

 

I suppose,

though I don’t sign onto that one either.

Something doesn’t feel right about it.

But maybe that’s just me not wanting it to be true.

 

Mm.

 

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How do you think

the reincarnation people are doing

right now?

 

What do you mean?

 

Well,

if everything gets burned

what do they think they’ll reincarnate into?

 

Aliens?

 

Ha.

Maybe. Maybe.

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Audio: Four. For breakfast, I had just enough milk for just enough cereal. Isn’t that just perfect?

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