Josh Wells
Chapter 2
“Quarter life crisis?”
“Quarter life? Fuck that, that’s eighty. That’s the life expectancy for eighty year olds, we’ll live for ever.”
“Who wants to live forever?”
“Not Pete right now, obviously. But saying you want to die at eighty is a lot easier when you’re twenty. A lot easier when you’re sixty, even.”
“Me neither, Pete, I’m not being a vegetable, I don’t even know what the morse code is for “please kill me,” I’ll just bang my head any which way until they get the hint.”
"What is your theory on Justin Bieber anyway?"
"It’s more of a worldview."
"My god you’re a wanker, you sure you’re the one who did the dumping?"
"I’m not entirely sure anymore."
"Nice one, Lauren, you asshole. Would it cheer you up if you explained your theory?"
"Not right now."
"Oh come on, you’ve mentioned it now."
"You know what? Fine, okay, so this is my view of the world, right? Look at any case of subjugation in the world, I mean look at Justin fucking Bieber, I’m not saying the kid isn’t an asshole, I’m just saying maybe he was fifteen when we were all fifteen, and maybe he was on the same websites we were when we were all calling him a spoiled brat. And who is he to dissappoint that many people? The only reason the kid had a Ferrari that he could crash on a drunk joyride in the first place is because he managed to be what a bunch of people wanted him to be."
"Cool, so what does that mean?"
"Anil you’re such a twat, he just said what it means."
"Okay explain it to me then, Pete."
"I don’t know, it probably doesn’t mean a thing."
--
Anil and Lauren fall asleep on each other’s shoulders. Peter contemplates the walk home, makes it as far as the door before the hiss of rain stops him in his steps. Hopeless, he returns to Lauren’s living room. Peter visits Lauren enough to know how to mute her television and turn on subtitles. He flicks between channels but the same owl-like newsreader stays on the screen. He thinks little of it, blames his own ignorance, before realising that the channels are infact changing. He leaves the remote, waits patiently for the channel information to clear room for the subtitles.
Whilst seismologists are still yet to reach a consensus toward/
whether such an event could be predicted, all we can be certain/
of at this point is the need to stay aware, prepared/
and calculate the logistics without falling into hysteria.
Thirteen years ago, a similarly dressed lady had denied Peter his morning cartoons. And so with the realisation comes a familiarity, and with that familiarity a sense of dread.
We are currently unable to speculate the damage, but/
the cloud patterns shown presently indicate that the/
safest location at present includes the south-western areas of the Asian-Pacific.
Violently frustrated, but with no direction, nor any reason to blame, Peter turns to the internet. The Huffington Post, The Times, even Cracked is down. He finds the homepage for twitter, remembering that twitter is where news breaks, apparently. The network is exceedingly slow, but eventually he loads the trending topics:
#Apocalypse
#Yellowstone
#EndofWorld
#Obama
#SurvivalTips
Yellowstone had erupted, Peter is almost relieved to finally receive clarity. Much younger, he had seen a television program depicting Yellowstone’s eruption and the subsequent effects. The world did not appear covered in ash, but he hadn’t looked outside yet, what with the rain and all. The program had made no mention of precipitation, just layers of ash and flash winter, so Peter took to the window. The reflection of a streetlight wiggling in the rain, the outlines of trees shaking lazily. It certainly looked like winter outside, but only because it was. The reality, because the reality is so many million miles away, takes a full minute for Peter to comprehend it. The world was ending. The world was ending, he’d broken up with his girlfriend, and still he can’t bring himself to wake Anil or Lauren to tell them. In the face of the universe Peter suddenly feels small, helpless, and dreadfully tired.