melancholia

This is how I envision the world ending:

I don't see an exploding sky of blue and yellow and red and green. I don't see tectonic plates snapping into pieces and surging from the confines of the earth, and into the sky in a slow-motion frenzy of flying rock, flocks of people despersing in every direction, crushed cars, tumbling buildings, and fractures of glass littering the roads, reflecting the glaring eruption of the sky. The people's hysteric screams of terror and panic won't be there to be drowned out by the sun's apocalyptic bang and the moon's desolate wail and the little girl on the corner of the intersection, clutching onto her teddybear, won't be whisked away by chunks of civilization tearing the wind apart.

No, I don't envision the world ending in a cataclysmic, paraoxysm of loud booms and bangs.

Nope.

When the world ends (and it will, everything has an end, even the sun will eventually burn out), I see the sky dimming, illuminating the earth with a feeble tremble of sun and warmth, like a candle struggling to keep its flame. I see the lone car crawling along the desolate strip of road, and the absence of the bustling streets and bright city lights. All the stars diminish one by one, in sudden pops, some flickering in a desperate attempt to thwart the final judgements. Inside houses families clitch despairingly onto life, and the little girl huddles in her corner, shivering. Her teddybear falls limply to the ground beside her; she lets out a small, oblivious whimper. And that is the last sound that no one will hear.

That is how the world will end. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

This is how the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men