how do you say goodbye if the end of the world is just like switching off the lights?

Everyday, life is one day less, and with all the calamities and drought and disease outbreaks in this country, the end of the world seems to be looming.

I like the End-of-the-World poems of my colleague, Reagan Maiquez, who wrote with musicality and suspense in every line, in such a way that you hold your breath and await how this Lover in his poem, desperate for another persona’s love, will deal with the End.

I also like Luis Katigbak’s short story in his 2000 book, Happy Endings, where the apocalypse was given a strange way of coming: like a switch turned off. Anti-climactic, right?

I also like the Bible’s last Book. Creepy symbol-loaded bit. I think, that sort of stuff is happening now, only that, there’s no end to it. That’s the horrifying part, endless end.

Now, I’m not going crazy about this endoftheworldsh!t, but thoughts of it entertain me, especially when I’m stuck in traffic jams in Edsa or Laguna, or when a friend and I are watching the evening news.

What if the End of the World finds me sitting in the bus with strangers around? Waaa. So undramatic!

I want it to be like this:

I’m sipping coffee at 8am alone in our house, wind playing with our long curtains as usual, mama gardening right outside the window where I can watch her, papa feeding his roosters outside another window where I see him, then the house will change into the house Papa bought (and sold) more than a decade ago, and I will be young again as I run close to the sun.