The END From My Front Porch

 I sit on the porch swing, rocking back and forth, back and forth, ever so slowly, as I watch the world die.

You, the notebook in my lap, are the closest thing I have to a friend right now. Unfortunately, friend, you are blind. So I will tell you what I see, and together we will analyse it. 

Smoke plumes up from a dozen different sources between me and the horizon. From factory smokestacks, from burning books, from car wrecks... they all mean the same thing. Doom, as a rotten branch falls from a dead tree a few streets down. Doom, as my nose analyzes the scent of death- both animal and human. Doom, as the smog, smoke and clouds mill above me until I can't differentiate.

In the dystopia books and movies that my big sister loved before, the sequence of events that lead to the 'end' were always clear. A vial in a lab breaks; a virus infects humans; zombies take over; humanity fights back; they fail, everyone dies.

But when it really happened, it came from a million different origins, and the talking heads on TV had three theories for every cause. Some blamed 'big business'. Some blamed the government. Some blamed God. Some were adamant that they blamed no one, but they said it so loudly, one couldn't help think they blamed someone, but they weren't telling.

I recall long nights as my parents tried to explain to me what had happened. The pictures. The reports. I didn't understand most of the words, but the blood, the gunshots... that I understood.

I'm going to try to write down what happened. I'll go slow, one sentence at a time, trying to sort it out.

The economy collapsed, for reasons that no one but the most educated could even begin to guess. The trees humans have been cutting since near the dawn of time seemed to withdraw their services in disgust. Nothing would grow, nothing could live, no matter what magic the scientists tried. 

And as if this pile of problems was not enough, that's when the Undead plague started. At first the news sites were unwilling to say 'zombie', but in those last few broadcasts before they all went off the air- there, they admitted that they weren't 'victims', or 'events', but zombies. 

The zombies killed people, of course, but the bigger problem, from where I sit, seems to be humans' reaction to the crisis. 

People stopped having babies. 'Not worth bringing a child into this world. Just another potential zombie,' my parents friends said once. The population plummeted faster than since the black plague, then even faster than that.

Charities got less money than ever, when they needed it most. Everyone just wanted to hole their money away, squirrels in winter, waiting for a spring we all secretly knew would never come.

Somewhere nearby, my friend, in a surely dead tree, a lone bird sings. None join him- there are few birds left to continue the chorus.

In fiction, countries band together in the face of danger, bringing temporary world peace. At the very least, people come together, forming family-like bands. But in reality, people hid away in bunkers, and nations continued to fight over the same petty things, as if ignorant of the pain and harm they were causing.

People grew afraid, and they thought if they simplified their lives, like they imagined they would've been in the past, they might return the world to it's historic states. They cut off internet, electricity, plumbing. They burned books.

It didn't help.

A quote came to mind, a quote from some long forgotten author.

The world will end not with a bang, but a whimper.

Maybe I got the wording wrong. I don't know where I heard it. But it sticks in my mind.

I repeat it in my head, setting it in time to the rusty swing's chain's creak.

Forward. Not with a bang... Backwards. With a whimper.

I whisper it. My mind clings to the thought, one final thing in this world that makes sense, that is logical.

Everyone left for the city. The government said they'd be safe there. My parents forbid us to go. I'd watched as everyone I'd ever known packed up and left.

Tears fall down my cheeks. I repeat the quote again.

No bang. With a whimper.

They're dead. The gangs came, and I hid. I didn't warn them. I should have. I should have.

My short legs dangle off the porch swing as I fall still.

I force my mind to be blank. I swing again.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

I look over the broken porch railing, down into the cul-de-sac, watching the smoke rise and curl.

And together, you and I, we listen to the world whimper.