“The world will end in 33 days.”
Newspapers screamed the doomsday predictions from every streetcorner in the city. Television reporters bemoaned the foretold destruction. Somewhere in a small apartment in the northern part of the city, a young woman sat, patiently drafting lengths of wool into long strips. She wasn’t ignorant of the prophesy. In fact, she’d seen omens like this already, well before it became mainstream media’s current obsession.
She really didn’t see what all the fuss was about, though. Death didn’t frighten her. It wasn’t that she welcomed it; no, it hadn’t been in her plans to die before she got to travel to all those places on her bucket list, or to learn to bellydance, or see a sunrise in Africa. It was just that she’d always felt there was something more, something greater than this existence. She believed that when she died, she’d at least get to find out what that something else might be.
Thirty-three days until destruction. Thirty-three days until whatever the great catastrophe is that will decimate the entire planet. Thirty-three days to either mourn the time she would not have, or live the time she would. The woman in that small apartment overlooking the riverbank chose the latter.
I don’t often write prose, I think because sitting down and writing a story in its entirety is daunting to me, but for some reason this wanted to be a story rather than a poem. Thanks to Trifextra Week 223 for the inspiration.
my words are alive 