Maw of the Omega

I had a stimulating fireside chat with a psychic over the weekend on the subject of the end of the world, and for the first time, I took an unflinching glimpse into the maw of the Omega.  Much has been prophesied about the manner in which the world will inevitably end, be it through fire or ice or gamma rays from a kamikaze star.  This particular conversation centered around the potential events to take place on December 21, 2012. Currently, the running hypothesis is that the Earth's magnetic poles will switch. At the least, all communications and animal migration patterns may be thrown off. At the most, the planet will stop for a moment, exposing the world to deadly radiation and sending a 1,000 mph blast of wind across the world, melting the mountains. 

Naturally, I went to bed that night uneasy. Do only two years of life stand between today and the end of the world?  If so, what should I be doing to prepare? Strangely enough, the comfort lies in the uncertainty.  Right now, all around us, the forces of the universe conspire to kill us.  If the magnetic forces don't kill us in 2012, the asteroid in 2029, the flooding by 2050, or the supervolcanoes at any given time, stand a pretty good chance.  Basically, we're all screwed eventually.  Now I pose a single question: who is truly surprised?

I give you the stories of three characters: Willy, Milly, and Billy.  At 74, Willy has just decided to retire from his accounting job and rest on his laurels.  His company plans to hold a celebratory dinner to honor him at the end of the month (two weeks away).  At 35, Milly, a successful real estate agent, has finally met the man of her dreams and will marry him in Maui next month.  At 18, Billy will be the first member of his family to go to college in the fall.  All are in a good place right now.  All have worked hard to get where they are.  All are about to discover that the world is going to end in one week.

The newspaper article does not specify when exactly the world will end.  All anyone knows is that a star they're unable to pronounce has gone supernova and will fry the surface of the earth with a gamma burst by the end of the next week.  Naturally, the billions of people respond differently:  

Billy decides to screw college and go wild.  Girls, drugs, smashing whatever he wants...  It's everything he grew up around and everything he's worked to avoid, but now it doesn't matter.  What good is doomed life?

Milly decides to elope with her husband-to-be and invest in a Cold War Era bunker and enough food to last them a couple of months.  It's good to be prepared.

Willy stops answering the phone calls from his associates wanting to change the date of his ceremony.  Every day for the next week, he and his wife share a pitcher of lemonade on the porch, greeting their neighbors and frantic family members.  Why not enjoy it?

At a wild, apocalyptic party, Billy picks a fight with a drunken bruiser, who stabs him three times in the chest.

A car strikes Milly as she runs back to her bunker with a bag full of canned food, killing her instantly.

Willy goes inside to use the bathroom.  His cancerous prostate makes it difficult to pee.

By the end of the week, the streets are deserted.  All news signals are dead.  People have either killed themselves or gone into hiding, but Willy and his wife are still out on the porch with their lemonade.

Another week passes.  People start to emerge from their homes.  Business resumes.  Billy's family mourns the loss of their son.  Milly's fiance grieves for her.  Willy and his wife call their family and friends to check in on them.  Life returns to normal.  Then, out of the blue, the sky turns red as radiation eats away at the atmosphere.  People across the world scramble to get back to their homes.  Willy and his wife are caught in the street.  They embrace each other as the blast of solar radiation fries everything around them.

The moral of this story is that the end of the world, if truly the end of the world, is, in fact, the end of the world.  No amount of preparation will change that, and the approach to that event must be marked by a difficult decision: die epically during or die quietly after.  Strangely, I take comfort in imagining my last seconds watching the awesome spectacle of a 1,000 mph wind blasting the whole world right toward me.  It beats all the crying around a hospital bed anyway.