The End of the World

Alright. I’m going insane. Now I’m really going insane. Earlier this morning, I’ve had doubts whether the neighbor’s house was yellow or blue yesterday, but now I know better. Right before my eyes… damn it – right before my damn own eyes, the color is changing! Just like that. Not because the sun is shining or a shadow is falling. No. Simply from one moment to the next. Bam. Now it’s green. I’m going insane.

It’s been like this for days. In the morning, I look in the mirror, and if I’m lucky, my reflection hasn’t changed. Sometimes I wake up with a beard that seemingly grew overnight, sometimes I’m bald. Today, at least, I look like yesterday. Hey, lucky me. If I only knew who me is…

I’ll go to my garage soon, get into my family van, and drive to work. Like every morning. I’ll place my briefcase on my desk, take out some papers that I’ll put back in the evening, and drive home in my family van. And day for day I hope that my house still looks the same as it did that morning before I left.

I feed the dog from a bowl that suddenly appears on the kitchen counter. He barks twice, eats, and I don’t see him again until the next evening. I eat whatever’s in the fridge. Sometimes there’s food, sometimes there isn’t. I don’t know where it comes from. Must be because I’m going insane. I mean, is this what it’s like? I’ve never been insane before. But this must be it.

The only constant in my life is mowing the lawn. Every day. Even in winter. Then I shovel the snow first, and mow anyway. Insane? Yep, for sure.

My fear grows daily as I watch our city transform. Nobody believes me when I tell them. No wonder. I wouldn’t believe someone who claims their neighbor vanished while watering his plants. Just like that. And his house! Gone. And before I could finish rubbing my eyes, there was a new house and a new neighbor. He had a dog that looked exactly like mine, and I wondered briefly if it was mine.

Before going to bed, the mirror tells me I have short brown hair and wear hideously ugly glasses. And a mustache! Don’t ask me where that came from – it wasn’t there this morning.

Time goes by. I’ve started accepting this insanity. I mean, what else can I do? In a city where I watch the surroundings change daily, anything seems possible. Skyscrapers? Sure, why not. No skyscrapers? Fine too. Green house next door with a brown dog? Or a yellow house with a black cat? Everything goes!

Everything.

Insanity is going strong. I feed whatever pet I have today from a bowl that suddenly appears on the kitchen counter. Sometimes it’s a cat, sometimes a rabbit, and today it was a horse - yes, a horse in my kitchen, eating from a tiny bowl. I can’t even remember what I originally had. Did I name it? The memories slip through my fingers like water. It - whatever it is - meows or chirps or neighs twice, eats, and I don’t see it again until the next evening, when it might be something completely different. Hey, even a goldfish wouldn’t surprise me anymore.

And boy, the bookshelf in my study bothers me more and more each day. Something’s off about it, I can’t quite put my finger on what’s wrong. The books are there, I can see their spines, but... when I reach for one, my hand meets only flat surface. It’s like someone painted a perfect image of a bookshelf. All the titles are there, the different heights and colors of the books, even the slight wear on the edges - but it’s completely flat, just a 2D image on my wall.

Sometimes I catch myself staring at it, trying to remember if it was always like this. Was it ever a real bookshelf? Did I once pull actual books from those shelves? The longer I look, the more artificial it seems. Once, I thought I saw the whole thing glitch, the books briefly turning into colored rectangles before snapping back to their detailed appearance. But that must be the insanity talking... right?

Don’t ask me about the windows in my house. They, and I mean all of them, show me blue sky and white, puffy clouds. Always. Day or night, summer or winter. Like someone copy-pasted the same image into every frame. Even the clouds don’t move - they’re frozen in that perfect, stock-photo arrangement. The basement windows? Same blue sky. The bathroom facing the brick wall of my neighbor’s house? Cheerful clouds. Hello insanity, feel at home in my 2D crazy mind.

I tried cleaning them once, thinking maybe that would help. But like my painted bookshelf, my hand met only flat surface. They’re not even glass - just... pictures of windows … somehow. Pictures of the same sky, over and over. I’ve started covering them with curtains, but then I catch glimpses of those eternal clouds sneaking through the gaps, mocking me with their perfect, unchanging puffiness.

To be honest, I don’t even remember my own name. I try not to think about it as it should be normal to know who I am – but please, is there anything still normal in my insane world? And my photos on the walls don’t help at all. They must be family photos - why else would they be there? But when I try to look at them closely, the faces blur into meaningless smudges. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of what might be a smile, or the color of someone’s dress, but the moment I focus, the details slip away. The frames are sharp and clear, almost artificially so, but the images inside... it’s like they’re refusing to be seen properly. Well then… so it shall be…

I’ve started watching my neighbors more closely - not that it helps with my sanity. They move in patterns, you see. Mrs. Johnson-or-maybe-Anderson from number 42 (or another number, I made this one up) leaves her house at exactly 8:15 every morning, walks exactly twelve steps, waves, but to no one in particular, then turns precisely 90 degrees before continuing. When she disappeared last week (just vanished, right in mid-wave), her replacement - Mrs. Something-or-other - picked up the exact same pattern. Different face, same mechanical movements. Creepy!

Here they come, the Baker-or-Smith kids. I’ll show you a trick, I can predict what they will do! Let me try... SHOUTING, SCREAMING, YELLING: 'YAY–LET’S PLAY BALL!', LAUGHING, GIGGLING, HAHAHA, aaaand all over again: SHOUTING, SCREAMING, YELLING: 'YAY–LET’S PLAY BALL!'... I mean, I just know it. I could set my watch by their sound loop, if time still meant anything here. Insanity-Level: intense!

The Taylor–What's–their–face kids across the street... their feet don’t quite touch the ground when they run. Their chunky brown shoes hover about an inch above the sidewalk, and sometimes they... clip through things. Yes, that’s the word my insane brain supplies - they just pass through fences or mailboxes like they’re not even there. Yesterday, I watched Mr. Peterson-or-maybe-some-fancy-name merge halfway into his car door before popping into the driver’s seat.

Mailman arrives. NICE WEATHER TODAY, 'N’T IT, I’VE GOT MAIL FOR YOU, SEE YOU! Even if there’s a damn tornado blazing through today’s skyscrapers in the background. Hell, even during that one time when it was raining fish - and I mean actual damn fish falling from the sky. NICE WEATHER TODAY, 'N’T IT? Damn right, buddy. Damn right.

The worst part? The mail he 'delivers' is always the same damn envelope. I don’t even try to open it anymore – because it isn’t even possible. It’s just as flat as my bookshelf and those blasted windows with their eternally cheerful crappy clouds. Sometimes he even glitches through my front door before he can finish his loop. NICE WEATHER TOD--- and he’s gone.

One major thing hit me during one of my daily lawn mowing sessions - there are no shadows. The sun is bright (too bright, maybe, with that slightly artificial quality), but nothing casts a shadow. Not the houses, not the trees, not even me. I stare at my feet, where there should be... something. A darkness, a silhouette, any kind of shade. But there’s nothing.

How long has it been like this? I try to remember when I last saw a shadow, but my memories are as flat as my painted bookshelf. The sun moves across the sky (in perfect increments, I now notice, like a timer ticking down), but the world remains shadowless, each object lit with the same unchanging intensity. Even at sunset, everything just grows dimmer uniformly, like someone’s slowly turning down a master brightness control.

Sometimes, when I stare too long at the horizon, I see it - a small circular thing, spinning endlessly. I mean, it shouldn’t be there, but … yep, there it is, just... hanging in the sky. When I blink, it’s gone. Must be insanity. Definitely insanity. Told you so.

But – believe it or not - it’s getting worse. Yesterday, while watching Mrs. Whatever-her-name-is during her morning routine, everything just... froze. Mid-wave, her arm suspended in the air. The Taylor-or-Baker kids stopped mid-run, one foot hovering above the ground. Even the birds hung motionless in the sky like plastic decorations. And there it was again - that spinning circle, right in the center of my vision. Then everything jerked back to life. Mrs. Name-I-can’t-remember continued her wave as if nothing had happened, her feet still hovering slightly above the shadowless ground.

I try to move along and take this insane life as it is. I mean, there are no choices. Not one damn choice. My dog is now a parrot, my family van has become a Porsche, but I still mow the lawn. Every day. You won’t believe me what pet I fed today, and please don’t ask me to describe the horrifying two roars from that bloody T-Rex... Fate is resourceful... I'll give it that.

And now, as I am mowing the lawn, I sense something… off. And as I look up I see the city’s fancy buildings... disappearing. Just like that. It’s as if a giant eraser is approaching from afar, they’re simply... gone. It’s getting closer, and I get a bad feeling. This doesn’t look good. Like a massive tsunami wave, wiping everything away. Everything grows pale, blurs, then dissolves as if someone’s holding a vacuum cleaner to reality, sucking out life itself. Gone. And it’s silent. I don't hear a damn thing, except someone’s dog is barking in the distance, and suddenly I remember Fido. I miss you, ol' buddy. I clutch the lawnmower’s handle as if it could protect me. But everything’s dissolving, it’s reached the neighbor’s house (pink/green checkered) and is sucking it away. Everything’s dissolving now. My neighbors with their perfect patterns, my house with its fake windows, those damn clouds that never move. The lawnmower in my hands feels like the last real thing... and even that’s starting to pixelate at the edges. Oh … no … no no no... Dear insanity, take everything you want - my name, my memories, the fake bookshelf - but not my lawnmower! The only constant in my utterly insane life! But … the world around me becomes pixelated, then the pixels vanish and everything is just... white... and then... my lawnmower – please, not my lawnmower... it’s disappearing. Now I KNOW this is the end of the world. I am more than confused and I don’t know whether to let go of the handle that is still there... but then it dissolves and my han–––––––––––––––––––

***

„Dude, you didn’t just delete my game, did you?“ Gary called out in horror. „Did you?“

His brother grinned. „Yeah, I did. Your simulation was boring as hell. Bro, seriously? Colorful houses and lawnmowers? Total kitsch.“

Gary shoved Frankie rudely off his chair and hammered at the keyboard, his hands shaking with rage. „You damn idiot! Do you know how many hours I spent on this? Every single house, every damn detail!“ He frantically searched through backup files for any version of „CITYLIFE - The Ultimate Simulation.“

„Forget it,“ Frankie said, rubbing his elbow where he’d hit the floor. „I deleted everything.“

„Months of work! The weather patterns, the neighbor routines, those fancy pets, everything! And you just... you just...“ Gary’s voice cracked.

„City?“ Frankie laughed, already recovering his attitude. „That thing was dead boring. Here, I’ve got a racing simulator. Wanna play?“