Unexplainable Knowledge

I’ve not heard anyone admit this, but I’m fairly certain that if mentioned, anyone can agree that the possibility of “the end of the world” has become a common subject.

It’s heard of in speeches made by climate change activists. It’s written in bold letters on cardboard signs presented by religious fanatics and conspiracy theorists. It’s a theme in fictional books and movies about the zombie apocalypse or alien invasions.

But in this case, humanity was doomed of extinction when my alarm rang.

As I woke to the overly dramatic wailing sound that my alarm made, I noticed that my room was filled with the brightness of noon. I found this odd. I was fairly certain that I didn’t set the alarm any later than 6 am.

As I turned towards the alarm to turn it off, my hand stopped mid motion when I noticed something.

You expect to see numbers when you look into the screen of an alarm. Sure, you see the abbreviation for the day of the week on the side, but you don’t expect to see the words “SEVEN DAYS” taking up the entire thing in digital text.

I hesitated for a few seconds before finally slapping the button that turned off the alarm. Seven days? Till what? What was going to happen in seven days that my alarm clock had to show me that it was going to happen within that period of time?

I shrugged. I would ignore it for now. I went downstairs and turned on the TV in the living room. The news came on.

I could see the image of a forest fire filling the screen. The anchorwoman reporting the story was announcing how many miles the fire had stretched.

I changed the channel. No unpleasant thoughts today.

“. . . the individuals suspected of the shooting are yet to have been identified. We’ll keep you posted on the. . .”

I changed the channel.

“. . . the plane was said to have crashed in Richdale park, causing about thirteen million dollars in damages. . .”

I switched off the TV.

“SEVEN DAYS.” The image of the words popped up in my head. For some reason, the feeling of dread kicked in. I knew something was going to happen. I could not find any logical reason as to why I knew, or if I knew for sure, but my gut was telling me all the same.

I decided to go outside and maybe go out for a walk. All of this was starting to be too much, and I needed to clear my head before my entire day was shot.

I didn’t even make it past my front door before something else came to my attention.

It wasn’t just the fact that the bright afternoon, which I had cursed silently as I woke, was starting to fade too quickly as I saw everything turn grey from gathering clouds. It was the closed-in feeling of how the clouds pulled together. It felt as if the world had been separated from the sky and caged by the sudden weather.

“SEVEN DAYS”, my thoughts echoed. They were starting to feel like someone else’s rather than my own. Almost as if the thoughts were being enforced on my mind.

I crossed the yard over to the sidewalk and started down the street.

“. . . SEVEN DAYS. . . SEVEN DAYS. . . SEVEN DAYS. . .”

I looked over my shoulder. Nobody followed me. Reassuring as it was, it wasn’t enough to keep me from picking up my walking pace.

“. . . SEVEN DAYS. . . SEVEN DAYS. . .”

I started sprinting down the sidewalk, taking brief glances behind. What sick joke was this? Was I suffering from some kind of mental illnes?

My body slammed into someone else’s and I fell backwards onto the ground. I looked up to see an elderly man looking down at in confusion. He was wearing a dirty trench coat and trousers that appeared to be too large on him. “What you running from?” He asked.

“I-I don know,” I stammered as I struggled to my feet.

He shrugged and glanced over to his right. “Boy, that crash did a doozie to the park.” He said.

I brought my attention over to whatever he was looking at and my jaw dropped. It was the crashed plane that had been mentioned earlier in the news. Firemen were on the scene putting out the fires left behind from the wreck as passengers were being evacuated.

“R. . . Richdale park?” I said.

The old man quirked an eyebrow.

“This doesn’t make any sense,“ I said, “I don’t remember this park being in this neighborhood.”

“Really?” Said the old man. “Learn something new every day, I suppose.”

I grasped the top of my head with my hands. “None of this is right,” I said. I knew deep down that something bad was going to happen.

“Careful, kiddo, you’ll give yourself a heart attack,” Said the man, “it’s bad enough I have to worry about stuff like that.”

I ignored the man. I saw the clouds in the sky drawing closer. The closed-in feeling was increasing.

“Kid, you need to sit down or something.”

“How can I sit down!” I snapped. “Everything is falling apart around us and no one gives a secon thought about it. We need to get somewhere safe! Get to an underground shelter! Something!”

“Woah, woah,” said the man, “back up. You make it sound as if the whole world’s about to end.”

“It very well might be,“ I said. In fact, I was most certain that was the case.

“Where you getting this from?”

I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it. I didn’t have any clue as to how I had drawn to that conclusion. Then I said, “there’s a voice in my head. It keeps saying the words 'Seven Days'.”

It sounded really stupid when those words came out, but the man slowly nodded as if he didn’t pay my stupidity any mind. “So,” he said slowly, “is the world supposed to end in seven days?”

“I dunno,” I said, “maybe.”

“Huh,” he said, and looked out towards the park again. “You say you don’t remember this park being here?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Ah,” he said, “besides there being a voice in your head, has anyone told that something bad enough is going to happen that’ll wipe out all of humanity?

I replied again, “No.”

The man’s face broke into a grin. “It all makes sense,” he said.

“How so?” I said, confused.

“You’ll see,” he said. And walked away.

I was going to call out to him when I heard someone screaming, “Everybody run! Get out!”

I looked over to the plane wreck where people were scattered, running for cover. Then the plane exploded.

The fire leapt out toward me. I closed my eyes as I was ready to accept the warm embrace of flame.

Then came the wailing sound of my alarm clock.

My upper body sprung up in my bed. Breathing heavily, I looked over to my clock, which was showing me that time was 6 am.

Sighing heavily with relief, I flopped backwards into the comfort of my pillow as my clock continued to wail loudly as it always did.