I was
convinced, at a young age,
that I
would be witness
to the
end of the world.
I was six when I first received this revelation.
There
would be gigantic boulders
falling
from the sky
and
green plastic soldiers
would
wage war with the world.
The picture was clear as television.
Platoons of toy armies marching,
jumping over trenches.
Commanding
tanks and infantry
would
battle atop of cities and towns. Each soldier
cold
as the plastic
that
forged them.
Thousands
of meteorites, searing scars on a sky hazed from the exhaust of battle,
illuminating
explosions
splashing upon the earth.
Telling
my grandmother, attempting to explain
the
seriousness of these visions
always
ended with her assurance that God
would
never allow that to happen.
She was optimistically confident
in the idea of a supreme protector.
As I got
older the fears
of
destructive boulders from the sky
and war
mongering toy soldiers
changed
to the idea of nuclear holocaust.
The ominous mushroom cloud irradiating
the
heavens, the annihilating flash of seared shadows
onto
the sides of buildings.
The air burning.
Explaining this
to my grandmother only led to the
reassurance
that God loved his children to much
too allow something like that to
happen.
In time
that was all replaced
with the
idea of mass desertification,
smog
scarred skies, and oil wasted oceans.
Beached
whales whose carcasses have
to be
treated like hazardous material
because
of the biomedical waste
infesting
their bodies.
The world’s destruction
was
no longer
some unseen force or
a maniacal power struggle for dominance,
but our own selfish desires
and
greed engorging the planet.
The arrogance that we
could have it all,
never
having to think of
repercussions.
By this
time my grandmother had passed on
and
somewhere on the horizon,
where
the icons of civilization
meet the
precipice,
unimaginable
consequences,
all so
unpredictable,
linger
upon the voices of assurance
that it
will all be alright.
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