dream of the end of the world - random ramblings [...]

8/8/2019 Dream of the End of the World - Random Ramblings [...]

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dream-of-the-end-of-the-world-random-ramblings- 1/7

Random Ramblings […]: Day Seven

I open my eyes and discover that I’m laying face down in an empty and very wet

alleyway. I pull myself up, first onto my elbows, and then push into a crouch with the

palms of my hands feeling the sting of grit and dirt stabbing into the skin. The entireeffort of returning myself into an upright position produces an echoing series of cracking

and popping noise as this same grit crunches below my Nike tennis shoes which look a

lot more torn and ratted than I remember them being. I notice the stink of mold and

garbage before I catch sight of a mini-fridge, grayed from filth and setting on an angle

against the brick wall as though dropped there from a window several stories above.

The door is slightly ajar and it’s humming despite not appearing to even have an



electrical cord. The light inside flickers off and on; a moth and a handful of pin-sized

insects fly around it being tricked by the constant flicker.

After a brief moment of crouching in the alley, I finally stretch out my bones and

muscles into a full standing position complete with more cracking noises, although not

all of them coming from the crunching grit in the alley. My body is sore in places I didn’teven know could be sore, and I feel famished. I look down at my stomach and discover

that it has shrunk at least another couple inches. My jeans are so dirty I can’t even

decide what shade of blue they originally were. I don’t recognize the shirt I’m wearing at

first, and then my brain starts piecing together the remains of the screen-printed

lettering that appears to be peeling off either due to extreme age or from a constant

scraping against the front of my torso; the second seeming more likely as I feel a

splintery sting across my entire chest. My brain quickly finishes cracking the code on my

shirt and turns it into thought: “Alumni.” A small strip of smaller lettering is scrawled

below it: “Th niversit ledo.” I’m wearing my Toledo alumni shirt, now in tatters.

The smell of mold increases as the mini-fridge hums louder; a fan blowing stale

air throughout the alleyway. The thickening air stirs up moisture from small puddles of

slime along the ground making it so hard to breath that I feel as though I’m being force-

fed a bathtub full of water that has already been bathed in repeatedly for several weeks.

A sudden flash of light flies down the alley at the sound of a loud, mechanical

click. I experience a brief moment of blindness as the clicking completes its echoing

cycle and returns to its source. The moment my eyes finish readjusting to the darkness

of the alley, another clicking and flash of light are sent out. I squint my eyes and attempt

to focus a good 10 feet in front of me, past the mini-fridge, where the alley opens onto asecluded street. I can briefly make out the silhouette of a human figure, and as my eyes

adjust again, I notice that he’s a black man. He appears to be around my age. Before I

can make out any more details, he lifts a camera to his face and sends off another

echoing click and a blinding flash.

At first I think he’s taking pictures of me, but as if on cue with that thought, my

ears pick up a sound of rushing water just behind me. I glance over my left shoulder and

discover a stream of rainwater splashing out of a broken gutter along the roof of a

building enclosing the alley. The stream is bouncing off the bottom step of a fire escape

before falling to the pavement below. A waterfall. The camera clicks again causinganother moment of blindness. In that blindness my ears pick up another sound, albeit

very faint and in the distance. It sounds like marching.

My eyesight returns to normal, and I discover that the man has vanished. I

shuffle to the end of the alley, the mold smell becoming stronger around the mini-fridge,

and collapse into the street. Once again I’m pulling myself up just as I had in the alley,



pain shooting through my body as I do so. I’m standing again. For the first time, I notice

the sky… it’s gray. Black smoke seems to be swirling across the rooftops of the

buildings lining the street so softly that I originally thought it to be low clouds or fog, but

the color is all wrong. I smell dust and stagnation. Everything is silent except the

marching sound that is getting louder.

Looking toward the end of the street, I notice a patch of grass surrounded by

more streets which would lead me to believe it’s a town square of some sort. I take a

deep breath attempting to draw in some strength and begin moving toward it. To my left

on the opposite sidewalk I see a line of silent people waiting to enter a vacant and

rundown building. A crude cardboard sign that reads “Soup” is duct-taped to the left of

the open door. As I look closer, I notice that a large amount of these people are wearing

designer clothing. Some of the men are wearing suits from Ralph Lauren, and there’s a

Calvin Klein jacket. A lot of them are wearing shirts that say Aeropostle, I notice

American Eagle emblems on some of the jean pockets. Despite these labels, the

owners of such fine clothing look dirty and homeless which is reflected in the now-

tattered condition of the jeans, shirts, and suits that had once cost them considerably

more than comparable clothing from Wal-mart or Burlington Coat Factory. A young man

wearing an Abercrombie t-shirt in which the “A” has been scraped off notices me

walking toward the town square and stares at me. His eyes burn right into my soul and

whisper, “You’ll end up exactly like me.”

I finally reach the town square where the sound of marching now echoes loudly

among all the buildings. To the right, a homeless shelter closes its doors as it has filled

to capacity for the night leaving at least a hundred more people in the streets to fend for

the warmer spots in the park. As I gaze into the crowd, I swear I see my mother, father,

and Kerie. I begin walking in that direction until a shiver suddenly runs through me. I

look at the buildings surrounding the town square, each one empty and dismal against

the gray sky which is deepening into nighttime. A rush of understanding explodes within

me as I immediately recognize my surroundings. I’m on Market Street in Canton. Most

of the buildings now look burned out, but in front of me still stands the Ophelia, a historic

ghost hotel that has been empty since the mafia left in the 1970s. Gazing back at the

homeless shelter, I now notice the shadows of lettering that once hung on the glass

doors spelling out “Quizno’s.” All the restaurants, shops, and businesses have been

converted to shelters and soup kitchens. The fountains that use to run through thegardens of the town square are now dry and cracked.

I’m witnessing the end of the world.

I’m now standing in the city of a country weak from debt, ripped apart by those

we’ve made stronger. We’ve been thrown into poverty, famine, and war. We’ve been

raped of all the things we’ve taken for granted. No more franchise restaurants and



grande skinny vanilla lattes. No more Hollywood movies, or pencil sketches completed

by graphic design students in Pennsylvania. No more books and no more newspapers

aside from the Wall Street Journal now completely under control by the American

Government. All forms of art have vanished; no more self expression. I begin shivering

as somewhere in the distance I can hear the sound of a trumpet blowing. The sky

darkens further; the grays are now a deep blood-red casting shadows across Market

Street so thick that I can barely see anything beyond the town square in which I stand.

The marching becomes louder.

And then there’s warmth. About 50 feet to my right, Market Street meets

Tuscarawas Street, a piece of the Old Lincoln Highway that crosses the entire country.

From this intersection, I see light approaching. The light is a soft glow that flickers as

though being cast off from a large fire. As the light becomes brighter, hundreds of

people begin spilling onto Market Street. The light is coming from wooden torches

clutched in their right hands and held above their heads. The marching begins to

surround me, and glancing over my shoulder, I notice hundreds more people marching

strongly into the street from intersections directly behind me. I slowly turn in a circle;

they’re coming from every cross-street. The hundreds are becoming thousands, and

they’re all marching toward me carrying torches, right arms held high, to light up Market

Street.

As the light fills the town square, I can finally make out the details of the

marchers. All of them are sickly thin, dirt and grime cover their faces and arms, and

though some wear jeans, others shorts or skirts, they’re all wearing the exact same t-

shirt. It’s a plain white cotton t-shirt with the words “I am God.” crudely ironed-on across

their chests.

Some of them begin calling my name as they continue marching toward me,

filling the entire street and closing in fast. I step back and bump into a giant statue of

William McKinley. I hoist myself up onto the pedestal on which the statue stands, and

with my back facing the statue, I wrap my arms behind me around the president’s legs

to prevent me from falling. I hear the chiming of a clock-tower, although I can’t place the

direction in which it came from. It’s 10:00. The marching stops as I now stand in the

center of a sea of “I am God.” t-shirts. Thousands of faces stare up at me with an

expression of hope as I look out across the crowd from the pedestal that I am now

sharing with William McKinley. I caused this. I made those shirts. I organized this crowd.

These are my followers, my children. I am God.

They wait for me to react. Everything is silent. The town square shimmers in the

light of thousands of torches.

“Now what do I do?” I ask myself.



Create.

“I don’t understand.”

Look at how ugly the world has become. Beauty only exists if you can see it.

The silence is broken slightly by a few muffled sighs. The hopeful expressions of

my on-lookers slowly begin fading into disappointment and sadness as I fail to react. I

must do something.

Cue the music.

My foot starts tapping. It’s slow at first, and then a percussion beat starts playing

in my head. I begin tapping my foot in time with the beat. I start swaying back and forth

a little. Music begins popping in to mingle with the percussion. It’s Blink 182, “I Miss

You.” I love this song! I close my eyes, my lips turning up into a peaceful smile. I begin

singing along out loud.

“Hello, there. The angel from my nightmare, the shadow in the background of the

morgue…”

Thousands of people stare at me in confusion. I continue singing, projecting my

voice even louder,

“The unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley we can live like Jack and Sally

if we want where you can always find me. We’ll have Halloween on Christmas, and in

the night we’ll wish this never ends, we’ll wish this never ends.”

The silk stands of violins rise through the air to mingle with the melody. The

crowd suddenly gasps, all eyes turn toward the empty face of the abandoned Ophelia.

Orchestras of violins, violas, and chellos crowd the rusted iron balconies, each one lit up

by giant warm spotlights that don’t appear to have a source. They’re there because I

see them there. And because I see them, so do my followers.

The musicians pull their bows across strings; the music rises louder to

reverberate across the city. And as I continue singing, some of the members of the

crowd have started singing as well. The music is no longer in my head; it’s in the town

square. It’s surrounding all of us. With the loss of our freedom, the music may havedied, but as long as I can remember it, it still exists. I hit the end of the second verse,

and now we’re at the chorus:

“Don’t waste your time on me; you’re already a voice inside my head.”

The crowd is joining in. I’m now dancing and bobbing my head with the music.



Don’t waste your time on me; you’re already a voice inside my head.

The strings increase in intensity, thousands of people are now singing out:


And now we’re screaming in melody. The doors of the homeless shelter crash

open and hundreds more people wearing “I am God.” t-shirts spill out. More torches are

lit; Market Street is now as bright as a sunny, summer day. We continue our sing-song

chant, screaming till we taste blood in our throats:


No matter what happens, we’re still human. We remember the books, the

movies, the history, the music; it’s all still here inside us. And now, in this time of need,

we’re called upon to rebuild, to be the creators. We sing in defiance; we WILL NOT be

defeated! We WILL NOT back down! Ropes are thrown over buildings that are being seton fire by the torches. Glass windows are being smashed, the crowd still singing out.


Everyone’s dancing and cheering, their shadows from the torches animating the

sides of buildings like early black-and-white cartoons before being crushed by bricks as

the buildings fall under the pull of ropes. I jump from my pedestal, and we’re now

running down Market Street. The weight of thousands of people pulls down buildings; a

sea of bricks is spilling into the crowd. Pillars from the former McKinley Center roll

towards the square. Empty parking decks collapse as more ropes are thrown. Buildings

that were once constructed to withstand earthquakes now crumble under the feathery

ropes, all due to the strength of my followers.

And now we’re on Cleveland Avenue. I dive out of the way as the steeple of St.

Paul’s Catholic Church comes crashing to the ground. Statues of angels ride out to the

street on the resulting river of rubble. Stones are being thrown through the windows of

the Metropolitan Center before a small explosion inside demolishes the building. We’re

destroying Canton. We’re destroying this world that they created and will rebuild a new

one. A sign for “Burger King,” now covered in cobwebs and dirt after being converted

into a soup kitchen, rolls across the street in front of me and smashes into another office

building. The building falls. Looking past it, I discover that enough buildings have been

torn down that I can see several streets past Market; Canton is quickly becoming a giant

field of brick and debris. In the center of all this destruction, the Ophelia still stands; the

orchestras still playing wildly from the balconies as a soundtrack to the end of the world.

I’m running down Tuscarawas Street. More churches fall as I run past. Buildings

that use to be major national banks tumble. The thrift stores vomit merchandise onto the



roadways. I finally make it to the park. I run past benches full of homeless people

moaning for food and shelter. I’m now in the parking lot of the McKinley Monument. My

breathing becomes labored, my legs scream with pain. I make it to the steps of the

monument and begin climbing. Step after step vanishes behind me as I race to the top;

feeling the whole time as though I may collapse from over-exertion. When I reach the

top of the steps, I sharply turn to gaze over my kingdom, to stare across miles of trees

and empty skyline that use to be a city. I can see fires burning among the trees; groups

of my followers holding their torches in their right hands high above their heads. Beyond

Canton, I can see fires burning in other smaller cities that lie around the outskirts. The

entire view is obscured through a window of dirty, ugly haze. It’s beautiful.

My followers are now spilling into the parking lot of the monument. We’ve

reached nearly a hundred thousand; a hundred thousand “I am God.” t-shirts glowing

brightly in the torch-light marching towards the monument. The crowd continues to sing,

each one choosing a different song now. Some people are quoting books. Through the

roar of voices, I single out a quote from Grahm Green, “After all, destruction is a form of

creation.” I study the front of the crowd and discover that this quote is being repeated

over and over by the same young man wearing the tattered Abercrombie shirt I had

seen earlier in line for soup. He now wears an “I am God.” t-shirt.

The crowd reaches the steps of the monument. I hear movie lines, plots from

television shows, descriptions of paintings, hums of classical music. I also now hear a

rumble, and the ground begins to shake. At first I think we must have set off an

earthquake. Then I realize the rumbling is coming from the monument behind me as the

white, sandstone bricks in the dome roof give away and start collapsing into the

structure. In a matter of moments, a monsoon of bricks will come flying from the

monument into the crowd. I close my eyes, tilt my head back, and hold out my arms, my

palms raised towards the sky. The crowd mimics me. There’s an explosion, and then

we’re being stung with bricks.

My eyes bolt open to the familiar sight of my bedroom. I glance at my digital

alarm clock, the numbers flashing red; it’s 3:47am. The 10th grade female choir is

singing to me:

Stay the course, light a star, change the world where ‘ere you are.

The alarm clock flickers.

dream of the end of the world - random ramblings [...]

Documents