Q

What they don’t tell you about the beginning of the end is this:

It looks nothing like you would imagine.

The world rumbles on as it did before. Memes are made and sent, a new TikTok user shoots to fame. Thinking about which bars to visit this weekend, making a mental note to get brussel sprouts from the grocer’s this afternoon. YouTube-ing “How to skateboard”.

In some parts of the world, a teen plays with their cellphone – a model two years outdated – not knowing he will step on an explosive by the end the day.

Somewhere else, a family delights as their child squeals at her first rain.

Not a single nuclear detonation; not the wide sweep of a biological virus – nor a technological one. Just the slow, steady turn of the everyday, until one day you find it inches off orbit.

A dispersion beyond land and borders: many into space, plenty into bits of packaged information. Yet others packed clumsily into earth as the ones before them.

Where will you be?