In Which the World Ended

Written in response to: Start your story with the line ‘Back in my day…’... view prompt

4 comments

Adventure Funny Science Fiction

Author's note: this is the result of a conversation me and my mom had last night. And I was stalling instead of doing algebra so I thought I'd write this and publish it. Sorry for no dialogue I was bored :P


Back in my day, the world ended. 


Or, to put it more plainly, mostly disappeared. 


Excluding the human population of course, it was all gone. Houses, parks, dogs, cats, zoos, aquariums, grocery stores, amusement parks, banks, the White House; disappeared in a blink of an eye, in a fraction of a second. 


Those who were on the ground were mainly unharmed, save for the mental trauma that would commence a few moments later. But any who resided in the second, third, fourth, fifth (and so on) floors of buildings were suspended in midair for a split second, then came crashing to the ground, most of them breaking their necks or spines and tragically dying without knowing what on earth had happened to them. People who were swimming in pools were buried alive, for the water and tiles around it had disappeared and filled with dirt, as it was before the pool was ever made. The few fellows that were skydiving came down to the ground quite baffled, for they were sure there had been a city here last time they checked. And as for those poor souls flying in airplanes… well, there isn’t much to say for them. 


If you were watching this happening on a television, or reading it as a book, the human’s reactions would probably be quite amusing. Most people stared around in utter fear and bewilderment, dropping whatever they were holding and not moving for quite a long time. A few with low blood pressure fainted. And plenty of ill-tempered people (such as ones who were in the middle of eating an especially tasty omelet before it vanished) started stomping their feet and uttering such terrible cuss words that nearby parents had to momentarily forget the problem at hand and cover the ears of their children. 


But a few laughed in joy, which was the most nonsense reaction of them all; mainly it was because they were so tired of the boring world they were living in that they welcomed any change at all, even if said change was the entire world disappearing and leaving nothing but jungles and desert. 


It so happened that one of the Laughers was an old man by the name of Malcolm Hunt. He was a scientist, and unfortunately found the natural world positively boring. For years he had been trying to find something new, anything new at all, and so when one morning in Seattle his coffee and house disappeared in front of his very eyes, he was positively beaming with delight at being presented with the new opportunity to research something. 


And then there were the Cussers. Oh yes, plenty of those. One of the most frightful ones was a woman called Rhonda Blat, who even before the world disappeared cussed an awful lot. She was sour and had a terrible temper, and it became even more terrible after her TV vanished while she was watching her favorite episode of her favorite show, resulting in her tearing off her shoe in a fit of rage and throwing it at where the TV should have been. 


And of course we can’t forget about our poor Fainters. The first person who had fainted was a thin frail boy who his friends called Spider, but his real name was Bob Smith. He hated that name, for Bob sounded like a title for someone plump and pleasant and who gave good advice, whilst he was thin and spindly and dark, quite like a spider—though instead of climbing up a tree in the jungle that suddenly replaced his hometown, he fell unconscious from the shock of it. 


And the last and most common of them all: the Freezers. These people froze the moment the damage was done, feet rooted to the spot. If the Book of World Records hadn’t disappeared into oblivion with the rest of everyone’s things, then Quartz Zucker would have broken the world record for “Staying in one spot for the longest after the world disappeared.” She was in her backyard when it happened, painting her toenails bright red, when she suddenly felt the loss of pavement underneath her. After standing up and realizing her house was gone, she dropped the nail polish on her feet, leaving a streak of red that looked a lot like blood, and stared openmouthed at the field before her, staying there for three hours straight before finally coming to her senses and looking for her mother. 


And so there you have it. That is exactly what happened when the world ended, and those are four descriptions of completely random people. Of course this could be turned into a book, and I think it very well might be, but I am in quite a depressing mood and thought I would write about how the world ended. And I am also babbling a lot to reach the 1000 word limit. Hmm de da, la de doo. I hope you comment and like! Oh, dear, it's only 825 words. SIGH.


I'm just going to, like, spam. Yeah. You can go ahead and skip this part. While I list fruits (and vegetables when needed) in alphabetical order.


APPLE

BANANA

CANTALOPE

DURIAN

EGGPLANT

FETTUCINE

GRAPEFRUIT

HARVEST

I NEED FOOD

JAM

KANGAROO

LIME

MOP

NOT SURE WHAT TO PUT HERE

OCTOPUS

PEAS

QUIGLEY QUAGMIRE

ROPE

SWEET

TRUCK

UMMMMMMM

VERY NICE ELF

WIDE

XYLAPHONE

YOO HOO

ZIP!


What the heck. It still doesn't reach the word limit. SIGH.


Hi my name is Svara Carmel Narasiah. I'm 14 years old. My best friend is Ana Govindasamy. Go look at her stories. I have three guinea pigs. I like to dream about chocolate croissants. I hope this is enough words. I hope this story doesn't get removed or anything because of the nonsense underneath it. Also hi. And bye. HEH! OMG IT'S ONLY 966 WORDS AHHHHHHHH.


This looks a lot like my diary not gonna lie. HI ANA I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS! OR MAYBE NOTE! CAN I PUBLISH THIS YET? LEMME TRY-


It needed one more word. There. Now I am over the word limit. ADIOS!

November 15, 2021 02:26

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4 comments

Claudia Morgan
06:33 Nov 15, 2021

No you cannot publish it yet. But thanks for the mention.

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Keya J.
17:06 Nov 28, 2021

I could see this as a longer piece, a good plot to start with. 1000 words can surely give an ache, but anyway you pulled it off well. :)

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Svara Narasiah
03:21 Dec 01, 2021

Thank you :)

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Dhwani Jain
12:34 Nov 15, 2021

Hello all! https://wp.me/pd3y1A-fD Please check out my latest post, THE VIRUS, YOU AND ME, a podcast. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did writing it! Dhwani Jain Dream DJ {https://djdhwanijain.wordpress.com/}

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