The Extinction of Materiality

Today was yet another day filled with the monotony that is life. Awakening to the everlasting cawing of the crows outside his house, Wyatt arose from his elongated slumber to the stabbing light reflecting inwards from his window, immediately going over to shut the blinds, avoiding contact with the outside world at all costs, due to the distinct lack of anything it had given him throughout his depressing monologue of life for 24 years. Expecting nothing but despondency, he began his daily doomscrolling through the news, upon performing this ritual; he acknowledged how unfortunately egregious reality could be, as the top headline stated the impending demise of humanity, as we know it, in one simplistic caption, “Armageddon Already?” With additional reading of the news, Wyatt concluded that alike the dinosaurs, humanity was taking its last steps before eradication; once again alike the dinosaurs, a meteor was zeroing towards the planet, with a sorrowful expected survivor count of approximately ‘diddly-squat’ according to the writer of the news article ‘Pete Partridge’ who alike many others was evidently giving up on humanity after hearing the news, as roughly 16 hours remained before the extinction of the human race…

Millions of thoughts flew throughout Wyatt’s mindscape, admittedly the first one being that of the no longer necessity of going to work, for Wyatt’s job consisted of a mentality depriving office job, constantly draining his willpower as he worked day after day, night after night in the greyscale building he worked at, all in order to live in the depressing world that would forever drain him for all humanity he had remaining in his fragment of a body. Despite the ongoing apathy of his life, he no longer required to cling to this, as in circa 15 hours and 53 minutes, his life as well as the other 7 billion or so others on this terrene were about to be reduced to mere atoms, by none other than ‘The Harmony Comet’ dubbed by the internet in a short 20 minutes after the news, ironically of course as this guaranteed the end of life as we know it.

For the first time that day, Friday the 13^th of July 2031 (of course the world is ending on Friday the 13^th, go figure), Wyatt peered out his window to realise the fact that the previous stabbing light from his window was that of the autumnal flames erupting from his neighbor’s house, the next house, as well as the downstairs of his house, much to Wyatt’s dismay. Without a moment to think, Wyatt leaped from his bedroom, out of the window and onto the bedraggled pavement due to Britain’s incredible weather pattern. With his limbs in shambles, and his mind in bangarang, he watched as riots struck the town, as apparently news spreads fast when it means an abrupt end to civilization. In immense awe at how long it took the community to erupt into hullabaloo, he sauntered along the pavement, as cries of pain and agony could be heard omnidirectional, however Wyatt did not take part nor pleasure with the rioting, for he had a place to be and an individual to see.

After watching arsonists flee in glee as the world slowly began to resemble that of a hellish dimension, Wyatt realised how inhumane humanity had truly become, ever since people stopped trying to fix problems, and instead just tried to outlive them, leading to yet another global depression, supported via the economic downfall of the west. Nevertheless, Wyatt cared not for the conflict of humanity; throughout the past as well as the present in this now fragment of a planet due to the almost instantaneous actions of humans showing their true intentions for global decimation. 7 and a half hours remained, 7 and a half hours before the Harmony Comet came and ‘cleansed’ the earth of all of its inhabitants, however 7 hours and 30 minutes was enough for Wyatt to travel to the misbegotten attempt of a house that his old friend, Mason currently resides in. 8 years had passed since they drifted apart, neither of them truly knew why they became so distant, possibly due to the fact that over the years they simply began to realise that neither of them were alike the other, with little to no common interests, (besides that of an immense hatred of school of course). Besides all of this, Wyatt still wished to see his old friend in the last day that this emerald earth had to offer for mankind.

Only a single mile remained in Wyatt’s conquest for companionship, however only 23 minutes were left upon the ‘doomsday clock’, and upon craning his visage heavenwards, an autumnal spherical inferno resided in the sky, edging closer and closer to the polluted atmosphere of the planet. Upon realisation of the limiting factor that was time, Wyatt began to run towards his goal of the misshapen establishment only Mason deemed worthy of being called a ‘house’. Despite the somewhat distinct lack of hope currently in Wyatt’s heart due to yet another unfortunate realisation, this time consisting of that of the armada of arsonists staring daggers at him just 10 meters northbound of where Wyatt currently stood, resembling that of a deer caught in the headlights, before hastily dashing to his left towards an isolated alleyway, gloomy and lacking any sense of colour, yet it remained Wyatt’s only option, for the arsonists were encroaching upon him with carmine replacing the white in their eyes. One foot after the other, Wyatt bounded to his left, only to be halted by a terrifying giant of a man, hazel beard and sapphire eyes, yet an unknown sense of familiarity flowed through Wyatt’s veins. “Wyatt?” The man spoke with a disturbingly high-pitched voice despite his evident masculinity, yet the man holding him up by his neck suddenly bared a close resemblance to that of a teddy bear for the man was not a man, but Mason…

As the two men exchanged words about the unfortunate circumstances that they had to meet up in, a sudden echo of cries was heard across the horizon spreading all the way to where the men currently stood, expecting the decimation of the planet they stood on, the men closed their eyes, expecting the tenebrosity of the afterlife to embrace them into a new realm. The sound of silence struck the planet as the worst possibly thing that could have happened in that situation happened. “It missed…” Wyatt spoke the worst two words that could have been spoken in that situation. As the world devolved into pandemonium after a frantic 16 hours, the Harmony Comet had flown past the earth, mocking it and all of the people standing on it, as a lonesome tear strode down Wyatt’s cheek as well as all of the other people on the planet, now residing at a rather pitiful 2 billion due to the mass genocide as well as arson that had occurred. A sudden feeling of guilt then washed over everyone, for the world was long beyond the point of rehabilitation, and the real doomsday was that of humanity itself.