Tranquility reigns—for the first and only time—on the day the world is to end, and dawn rises to see a world solemn amid annihilation. It was tacit; a mere nodding of the head was all you needed to know that you weren’t alone. We all had our theories, but we kept them to ourselves, for it was to be a day of celebration, a ubiquitous day in celebration of the greatness of man. A smile became an act of defiance in the face of an eternity of desire; laughter was a war cry before surrender. In Jerusalem, they spoke of loss with nothing but cognizance of what was to come. Regimes gently came loose in the same way that a skyscraper in Tokyo sways to the rhythm of an earthquake; Korea was finally a nation that flew under one flag, every street corner a jubilee in both Seoul and Pyongyang. As the day marches on, time grows slower and slower. Yet, we are enthralled in what we can not see but only know, so the festivities are frantic with the lust to live for this moment. In Sydney and Rio de Janeiro, crowds throng the beaches; those who hate sand say they have come to feel abrasion within their palms, rubbed raw. At twilight, an immense meeting of people congregate at Central Park to choose to lose themselves before they have no choice, magnificent fireworks ablaze in the dull gray New York sky, and just then—

nothing.