The Final Task

Death has a way of crystallising priorities, and deadlines have a way of culling them. So when mankind awoke on October 24th with the inexplicable and unshakeable understanding that the world was going to end, what emerged was the crux of human nature – the immutable essence at people’s cores.

The desirous stopped waiting; storming luxury car dealers and jewellery stores, electronics shops and boutiques, taking with force the material trophies that had for so long been their goal. They stole beautiful things from people who no longer cared about them, and hoisted their trophies in vainglorious fury before a world that no longer watched.

The rational sought answers; churning with passionate eloquence theories of aliens and infection, mass delusion and deceit, a storm of ink and sound moving only those already inclined to listen. They deconstructed and debated, deliberated and declared, as though by understanding the coming doom they could control it, and failed in utter logic to agree.

The delusional maintained their fantasies; praying and prostrating, preaching and promising with smug satisfaction that this had all been part of their plan. They blamed their enemies, non‑believers, secret societies as magical as any myth, or they rejected the entire idea with sneering contempt – as it was inconceivable, obviously, that they, the centre of the universe, could ever possibly die.

All over, people spent their last week acting on what was in their hearts. The familial came together, the dull did what they’d been told, and the hateful took advantage of the lack of consequence to violently rectify a thousand nurtured wrongs. The fearful threw themselves desperately at anyone promising safety; the addicted abandoned any pretence of restraint; and then there were the good, those rare and blessed few, who in the face of annihilation still worked tirelessly to comfort and aid their fellow man.

Jacob was none of these.

From the moment he’d woken up knowing they were all going to die, things had been perfectly clear. He’d gotten up, made his bed, had a quick shower and got dressed into a neat lavender shirt and coffee-coloured chinos, then packed a rucksack and quietly walked out the front door without saying a word to anyone.

Outside of course was chaos, but Jacob took no notice. He left his car in the garage, accurately predicting the roads would be gridlock, and spent a minute or two crouched on the sidewalk ensuring his bicycle tyres were properly pumped while the air around him wailed with honking horns. After ensuring he had everything he’d need, Jacob hopped on his bike and set off.

He rode through the city, ignoring the cursing traffic and distant sirens. He swerved to avoid a patch of glass where someone had thrown a garbage can through a pawnshop window and studiously avoided catching the eyes of the three men now removing a TV. After three blocks he had to dismount because a large, bear-like man was stumbling around slurring while swinging a knife, but before too long a police officer – still obviously possessed of a sense of duty – arrived and shot him, and Jacob felt safe to continue.

His first stop was a row of terrace houses about half an hour’s ride away, but with the madness of civilisation collapsing it took Jacob forty-five. The houses were in a neighbourhood had been on the verge of gentrifying, and two streets over a large block of government housing was on fire. Personally Jacob didn’t blame the arsonists – if he’d have had to live there he probably would’ve burnt it down too – just like he didn’t blame fire brigade who were nowhere to be found. It was a hideously unattractive building, all blocky grey concrete, and they were completely disincentivised.

He chained his bicycle to a streetlamp and walked up the redbrick steps to peer through the front window of the terrace house he’d come to see. Though it was obscured by a white translucent curtain, he could vaguely make out the small lounge and dining room inside – the TV on the cabinet, the chairs toppled on the floor. There was no movement. Jacob chewed on a frown but ultimately wasn’t too disappointed. He’d might’ve guessed this would be a bust.

He unchained his bike and got back on the road, or more literally the sidewalk, as the road was mostly still blocked up with cars and people shouting. His next stop was about an hour and a half away, and apart from getting accosted by a hysterical old woman shouting ‘REPENT!’ to everyone she could get her hands on, the ride was relatively uneventful. Jacob pulled the bike to a stop in an open, tree-lined suburb and left it unchained upon a patch of grass.

The house he approached was a proper house, no measly terrace or apartment. It had a garden, somewhat untended, and a porch, somewhat unpainted, and a wooden latched gate leading to a modest backyard. It was to this Jacob walked. Around back, a well-maintained lawn sat in the middle of a careful garden, and it was there Jacob stopped, looking into the house through a run of glass doors, and considered the fat man passed out inside.

For a minute Jacob did nothing. He knew the man, of course, though he had no desire to disturb him. What he was after wasn’t there, and it was doubtful the man could do anything to change that. And from the looks of the food and ash splayed over the floor around him, it’d be some hours before he came down from his almighty high.

Jacob walked back to his bike and kept riding.

And so it went. One after the other, day after day, Jacob rode in disconnected silence, stopping one place after the other, never entering, never engaged. All around him, civilisation crumbled – fires spread, gangs looted, people took their own lives. Jacob rode right through it, patient and calm, neither pushing himself onwards nor permitting substantial delay. He simply rode and kept on looking, stopping only to wash, to eat, to rest.

The places he stopped grew ever further distant, drawing apart from each other in a slow outward spiral. A school, a hospital, a farmhouse – disparate places, unconnected save for a single thread running through them, a silent process of elimination. It was a strange way to spend your last week alive, perhaps, but Jacob had never struggled for satisfaction. There was nothing he wasn’t doing that needed to be done and nothing worth doing that he hadn’t done before. Except this.

On the sixth day, he moved beyond the city, riding out along the highway in the cool Autumn breeze. The roads were empty now – all the people gone to their homes, to desperation or to death. It was a beautiful chance to experience the slow softness of the countryside, the subtlety and beauty unremarkably omnipresent in nature. He took regular stops and made sure to rest well, seemingly in no hurry to reach his goal – for it wasn’t a goal, really, just something he wanted to do.

His last stop was a camping ground, and he reached it just after dawn on the seventh day.

Jacob’s bicycle slid slowly to a stop at the end of a long dirt road. There, a hundred feet in front of him stood a boathouse, plain wood cabins and outdoor grills. Trees lulled low and lazy over sparkling water and a soft breeze whispered across the lake. The grass was a wide green cushion beneath his shoes, and somewhere waterbird stirred. All was quiet and empty – save for two familiar cars.

Jacob drew a deep, calm breath, revelling at the cool fresh air between his lungs. He gently placed the bike, his faithful steed, down to rest upon the grass, then with patient calm alighted the steps of the foremost cabin and knocked upon the door.

Sounds came from inside. Confused voices. The latch turned and a young blonde woman appeared wearing a pink nightgown, her hair unbrushed and dishevelled. Her eyes fell on him in shock.

“Jacob?” she whispered.

Jacob nodded, his face mute. “Eliza,” he acknowledged.

“What are you-?”

“Just bear with me,” he said simply, cutting her gently off, “I’ve come a long way.”

The woman fell silent, just staring at him, her mouth open. Jacob closed his eyes and spent a few moments steadying his thoughts. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, looking Eliza directly in the face. Then very calmly, he started to speak.

“You are a bad person,” he said. He lay the words down like cards on a table, without passion or antipathy. “I don’t know if anybody ever told you that; probably not. You’re probably too beautiful. But I just wanted you to know that, before this all ends. You are a piece of shit.”

“I don’t think you mean to be. I don’t think you wake up in the morning and go ‘today I’m going to hurt someone’. You’re not malicious; but in a way, it’d almost be better if you were. At least if that was the case, you’d be being honest about it. But you’re not; you’re just oblivious.”

The woman opened her mouth, but Jacob held up his hand. “I’m sure you’d argue,” he continued, “Because that’s what you do. You excuse and explain and justify so you’re never the wrongdoer, always the victim. And to you, you are, because nothing you do feels wrong – because that’s your guiding light, your feelings. You have this unshakeable belief that whatever you feel is right must be right, and it never once crosses your mind that that is literally the definition of immorality. You are objectively a bad person, but I don’t think you have a single regret in your life.”

“A part of me thinks it’s insecurity. A part of me thinks maybe it’s arrogance, that you’re so self‑important that you immovably believe that if you feel like doing something, it can’t be wrong. A part of me thinks you’re just ignorant, and too stupid to give it any thought.” Eliza started to bristle, but her objections were kneaded into nothingness as Jacob continued to simply talked.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” he said, “I’m not stuck on what you’ve done. I got over it, I moved on. I lived my life – I’m happy. The world’s coming to an end and I don’t regret anything. I don’t need anything, don’t want anything, except this. And this isn’t spite, it’s not revenge – it’s just straightening out the papers.” He paused. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you, and now I have. That’s all.”

“Not that it’ll change anything mind you, because it can’t; by definition it can’t. You’re already thinking of how to dismiss this, how I’m just trying to hurt you, how I’m wrong. You stopped listening the second I said something critical. The truth rolls off you like Teflon. But there it is.”

Jacob paused. “You are a bad person,” he finished, “And you always will be.”

For a few moments, neither one said anything. The two of them stood in silence, outside the calm wood cabin, in the murmuring cold salt wind.

Finally, the woman opened her mouth. “I-”

And then the world ended.