What Remains?

You look out the window and, not for the first time, think about how wrong the weather forecast has been.

Granted, it was a tad unfair, expecting the Channel 4 meteorologists would predict The Rapture, but still, one imagines a certain standard would be upheld. As you watch the “clear and sunny” sky, the sulfurous, burning clouds that cover it lighting the city an ominous red, you think to yourself just how fitting it is that the last forecast in the world was wrong. 

What does a person do in this situation? Should you call your mother? Look up old loves, requited or otherwise? Do the freaking purge? Still thinking, you find yourself out your door, your wallet and phone left on the dresser, your door unlocked as your legs carry you through the streets.

The city is in chaos. Sirens wail as people rush all around you, urgently trying to reach the place they chose to die. Doomsayers stand in every corner, screaming now nigh the end is as though that isn’t something everyone can see for themselves. Car alarms, distant gunshots and shattered glass blend in painful disharmony, the soundtrack of the end of the world.

And through it all, distantly, the clopping of hooves, of four horses coming ever closer.

You stop to watch the screen of a store’s television. In a stroke of brilliant irony, it was set to the televangelist channel, showing a well-dressed man crying out in a fake southern accent. “The Rapture is finally come upon us, my friends! At long last, the time for our eternal reward is at hand! All who are just and true to the Lord will rise to their rightful place in heaven, and don’t you worry because every one of them sinners among us will get what they deserve.

Now, my friends, is not the time for doubt, but for action! At this time, our prayers are at their most potent as God’s eye rests upon the earth. If you feel any doubt, any doubt at all as to the fate of your eternal soul, I beg you, call us at the number on the screen, and for a measly ten dollars we shall add your name to our greatest, and final prayer! It is not too late to avoid eternal damnation, and secure your place in the Garden of Eden!”

The sound of breaking glass draws your attention away from the screen. You turn to watch as a trio of looters break the last of a store’s vanity, grabbing a massive TV and the newest gaming console. Curses fill the street as the owner runs out, shotgun in hand, taking aim at the fleeing looters.

The gun bucks, the sound of the shot echoing from the buildings around you. One of the looters stumbles and his friends help him to his feet, pulling him along as they run. The second shot goes wild, and then they are out of sight, leaving the streets strangely abandoned. 

You look around and realize no one is left around you. Still cars fill the road, driverless, engines left running. The owner of the store too is gone, his gun left on the pavement. You turn back to the store’s television, and find yourself staring at an empty studio; no stage-ready preacher, no audience filling the seats.

Slowly, the discordant noise of the city peters out, until only silence hangs in the air. Silence, and the clopping of hooves, oh so close now.

“Think fast” You turn towards the voice, barely managing to catch the ice-cold beer flying towards you. The voice is oddly melodic, almost a harmony of its own, and it fits the man it belongs to. He is tall and stick-thin, garbed in a loose archaic robe, and you find it hard to pin an age to him. 

“Thanks,” you say. Death nods. He settles down on the curb, setting down the six-pack in his hand and taking a can for himself. You sit down beside him. “Is this really it, then? The end?” you ask “Yes. You are the last” Death says

A long moment passes as you drink in silence, staring up at the roiling, burning sky, listening to the dead city. “Why me?” You ask “Why have you left me?” “Would it offend you if I said it wasn’t personal?” He asks, a slight smile curving one edge of his lips. “I just thought the last person on earth might have a unique perspective on a question I’ve been considering for a while”

“Huh. Well, if you get a question, do I get to ask you one too?” Death nods “Seems fair” “All right,” you say “Ever since we were taught the story, back when I was a kid, I wondered - why the apple? Why did God give us wisdom, only to cast us off for it?”

“You know, I’ve wondered that myself for a long time,” Death says, opening a second can. You take another yourself. “Now, just so we’re clear, my answer isn’t His answer, but I honestly think you people got it all wrong,” he says “I don’t think he cast you off as punishment for gaining wisdom. I think he gave you wisdom because he had to cast you off. Because you couldn’t make any choices in the Garden, and without choice, there can’t be meaning.”

A silent moment once again passes between you “All right” you say “Your turn. Ask your question” “Well, it’s not too far off yours” He says “Humans get to choose. How they act, what they think, what matters, what doesn’t. You choose what means, well, anything. And I’ve always wondered - Right here, right now, at the end, when the world has burned and nothing is left but its ashes - what still does?" 

You look at the city around you. All those dreams, those desires, the pain and wisdom and idiocy, chaos and law and entropy and love and hate all mixed in this once thriving, moving, living nexus of humanity. Now silent.

You finish the last beer.

“Nothing.

Nothing at all”