Y2K As Imagined by a Gen Z

“You do know the world’s about to end, right?” Steph says, her eyes wild and wide, as I flip through the most recent fashion magazine.

I scoff, cocking an eyebrow. I meet my little half-sister’s blue gaze and watch as she pulls her unruly, coiled black hair back into a ponytail. There’s one stray piece that hangs down over her left eye like always. “Oh, please. Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff.”

”Evie,” she says, sitting next to me on the couch, “maybe the world ending is an exaggeration. But…” She huffs. “We don’t know what will happen. We don’t know if the sun is planning on exploding; we don’t know if the computers are planning on exploding. We don’t know if we are planning on exploding!”

I blink at her. “Oh, yes. Of course there must be an explosion at twelve in the morning on New Year’s. What else would happen?”

She furrows her brows. “I don’t care if you’re a skeptic! All the newspapers are talking about it! All the people at school are talking about it! Even James seems nervous. Do you know how bad it has to be for James to be nervous?”

James is this huge football boy who everyone in her ninth-grade class adores. I roll my eyes. “Yeah. It’s gotta be at least a cockroach.”

”Ugh!” She jumps to her feet, her hot pink jacket making an awful swishing sound at the quick movement. I wince. “Well, if you’re just gonna be this way, then I’ll do all the preparing.”

I shrug and open my newspaper again. “Go ahead, Steph.”

Part of me listens as she rummages through the house, surely wrecking everything trying to find supplies. All I’m thinking is that, if the world is ending, what are tools gonna do to help us? I mean, if it were a zombie apocalypse, maybe, but the big explosion that Steph is thinking of seems to be fairly unavoidable. If it actually happens, well, there won’t be much we can do about it.

The more I consider it, though, the more possibilities I think of. The main concern is the computers, right? What if we were to lose incredibly important governmental or medical data? What if there was a newer cure for a fatal illness like cancer or something that was only on the computers? I fidget with the pages of the magazine. Surely, no one would only put something online, right? They’d have paper copies too…

…Right?

What about planes in the air if all computers malfunction? Don’t they have computer-powered control panels? What about cars, and trains, and ships? And if it happens to computers, it might as well happen to the rest of the technology that’s been invented: light bulbs, ovens, microwaves, air conditioners…

”Steph, I’m going out to the store!” I call to my sister as I swiftly place down my magazine and stand.

I hear her laugh. “Okay, Evie! Be back before twelve.”

“Very funny,” I reply. Then I walk outside and hop on my bike—what if the car breaks down while I’m out?—and pedal my way to the convenience store. 

When I’m there, I buy flashlights and enough batteries to last a lifetime. I also purchase a book on basic survival without artificial heat, some candles, and a bunch of common plastic necessities.

The lady at the front grins when she looks at the items. “Are you wary of Y2K?” she asks as she begins scanning.

I wince as I look at the technological scanner. “It isn’t really me,” I lie. “My sister has gotten us all worked up about it.”

“Well, I certainly hope that the rumors don’t become true,” she says, frowning. “I have too many New Year’s resolutions for this.”

I laugh. “Good luck on making them come true, if we survive this.”

I bike home after I’ve paid—$176.48.

Steph grins as she analyzes my haul. “Not a skeptic anymore, huh?”

I roll my eyes. “Just getting some stuff to comfort my baby sister.”

“Not a baby.”

“Sure you’re not.”

She glares at me and responds with only a huff.

——————

Later, we sit, staring at the clock. Her arms are wrapped around one of mine as she shakes nervously. I’m trying my best to refrain from doing the same.

It’s 11:58.

“I love you, Evie,” Steph says abruptly, a tremor in her voice.

I look at her, holding back a smile. It’s so rare that she says that to me that I almost let myself forget the circumstances. I almost let myself forget that we may be facing the end of the world. I almost let myself pretend, for a moment, that it’s a normal night, and we’re just two sisters waiting for twelve.

It’s 11:59.

”I love you too, Steph,” I tell her. I’m shocked at how steady my voice is.

Steph clings to me, burying her face in my arm. I rest my chin on her head and my free hand on her ponytail, gently running it through her bushy hair.

Then it’s 12:00, Saturday, January 1st, 2000.

I brace myself, waiting for the lights to turn off, since I’ll need to get a flashlight as soon as possible. For a fleeting moment, I wonder if I’m bracing myself for something more fatal. I press my face into Steph’s hair.

The clock clicks again. It’s 12:01.

Slowly, Steph and I pull away from each other. I think I may look more confused than her.

“We’re alive,” my flabbergasted sister says.

“The lights are on,” I say, bewildered.

She’s silent for a moment. Then she says, “I wasn’t scared.”

I scoff and cross my arms. “Of course not. I wasn’t either.”

We sit there in awkward silence for a few moments, each of us contemplating our gullibility. We both fell for that ideology so quickly. Could it be that we’re just desperate for something to be afraid of?

I shrug it off.

“Happy 2000,” is what my sister says to break the silence.

I chuckle, and suddenly, I’m not nervous at all. “Happy 2000.”