{"id":1230,"date":"2011-03-29T23:00:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T03:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=1230"},"modified":"2011-03-30T11:59:27","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T15:59:27","slug":"trapped-in-the-bathroom-at-the-end-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=1230","title":{"rendered":"Trapped in the Bathroom at the End of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Henry Sane
\n
<\/br>
\nThe world ended one night as I was sitting on the toilet. \u00a0At the time, I remember I was peacefully reading Amerika<\/em> by Franz Kafka, having just finished the very last word of the second-to-last chapter. \u00a0Chapter six, I think. \u00a0Maybe seven.<\/p>\n

And then the world ended.<\/p>\n

Naturally, being that it was the end of the world, it was one of those times when you remember everything about the moment\u2014what you were doing, who you were with, what was in the air, and so on. \u00a0Like where you were when you heard a beloved celebrity was shot, or what color tie your father was wearing when he came out of the closet. \u00a0Sensory recognition. \u00a0You can\u2019t forget these kinds of moments, short of suffering amnesia or some other memory-blanking trauma. \u00a0And you can\u2019t forget the details either. \u00a0Me, I was half-naked, sitting on my toilet, reading Kafka when the world ended. \u00a0I could hear the monotonous buzz of the overhead air vent and the trickling of water from my faulty sink faucet. \u00a0I tasted nothing, felt nothing particularly memorable in the line of the physical or the emotional. \u00a0The lingering stench of shit was perhaps the most unforgettable. \u00a0All in all, everything, internally and externally, was very peaceful. \u00a0Both before and after the world ended, very peaceful.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I should clarify\u2014the world didn\u2019t properly end<\/em>, as one might expect of such a thing. \u00a0After all, I<\/em> still existed. \u00a0As did my bathroom. \u00a0And the Earth was obviously still there. \u00a0There was no explosion, or implosion, or redirection or derailment of our orbit around the Sun. \u00a0No noticeable increase or decrease in temperature or breathable air. \u00a0No chaos, no hideous mutations, no cannibalism. \u00a0There was just me. And my bathroom. \u00a0And an empty void that encompassed everything else.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d just finished the very last word of Amerika<\/em>\u2019s second-to-last chapter when the violent rattling began. \u00a0Something like an earthquake, but far more jarring and profound. \u00a0Much quicker also. \u00a0And whereas an earthquake is like a ten-second upheaval of mountainous wobbling, during which certainty is abruptly discarded like yesterday\u2019s garbage, this was like having your mind separated from body and time, sucked through a black hole, and instantly replaced. \u00a0And also unlike an earthquake, you knew from the very moment of the tumultuous onset exactly what was happening. \u00a0But in that fraction-of-a-second moment of intensity, you also realize it\u2019s already come and gone.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t ask me how\u2014but I knew without a doubt I\u2019d just survived the end of the world.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d already begun dealing with it\u2014emotionally speaking\u2014before my mind had returned to my body.<\/p>\n

The internal conversation went smoothly enough:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the end of the world<\/em>, said one side.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right<\/em>, replied the other. \u00a0So?<\/em><\/p>\n

So what?<\/em><\/p>\n

So what will you do?<\/em><\/p>\n

What will I do? \u00a0Huh? \u00a0What are you getting at?<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the end of the world\u2026 Surely you\u2019ve got a plan, yes?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes. \u00a0But it\u2019s the end of the world, and we both know that.<\/em><\/p>\n

Right.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Pause)<\/p>\n

So at the end of the world, you throw out your plans and start over.<\/em><\/p>\n

Right.<\/em><\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the use in formulating a plan now?<\/em><\/p>\n

But you said you already had a plan\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, I did. \u00a0My plan is to forget about plans. \u00a0How can we possibly be expected to formulate a proper plan at a time like this, beyond the plan of non-planning, of course? \u00a0We haven\u2019t even reconnected yet! \u00a0Once everything internally gets back into place, we\u2019ll sort out the external accordingly. \u00a0Sound?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sound.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then I chimed in:<\/p>\n

The end of the world is a plan all in itself, forced upon us all. \u00a0There\u2019s no use fighting one Godzilla of a plan with one little BB gun of a plan. \u00a0We\u2019ll scope out the end of the world, pretend it\u2019s a blueprint for the future of mankind and go from there.<\/em><\/p>\n

That sounds like a plan<\/em>, replied the first side.<\/p>\n

So it does<\/em>, agreed the other.<\/p>\n

Instinctively, I knew it was the end of the world. \u00a0I didn\u2019t learn it from the voices and they didn\u2019t learn it from me; we all just figured it out at the same time. \u00a0I knew it before the cave-in of the bathroom door, the landing point of some weighty debris. \u00a0I knew it before that faint hint of sulfur hit the air. \u00a0And I knew it before the air returned to the familiar smell of shit.<\/p>\n

Without the need to test it, I was sure I was trapped\u2014trapped in the bathroom at the end of the world. \u00a0I could have easily cleaned up and tried to shuffle through the tiny crack between the large debris and the doorframe; but the debris was so massive and so obviously cumbersome that even the thought of moving it was completely pointless.<\/p>\n

So there I sat. \u00a0On my toilet at the end of the world. \u00a0No one, no thing, existed beyond the walls surrounding. \u00a0And I was sure of it. \u00a0Still, I wanted to remain positive. \u00a0Instead of thinking about what I knew there wasn\u2019t<\/em>, I tried to think of what perhaps there was<\/em>, if anything, left beyond my bathroom walls. \u00a0But it was useless. \u00a0I just couldn\u2019t conjure the thought. \u00a0Maybe in that split second, when the world ended, I formed a mental block, whereby some fragment of my subconscious refused to pass hopeful information through the necessary channels to reach my conscious mind. \u00a0Actually, my way of thinking was rather odd in this respect. \u00a0Assorted words and phrases came frequently to mind, as they normally might after any tragic occurrence, but no pictures or meaning came attached to them. \u00a0Words like fire<\/em>, death<\/em>, misery<\/em>, desolation<\/em>, obliteration<\/em>, re-population<\/em>, fear<\/em>, rubble<\/em>, bodies<\/em>, loss<\/em>, nothingness<\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n

It all just bounced right off as if I\u2019d reverted to infancy. \u00a0The words could have just as easily been hamburger<\/em>, astronomy<\/em>, condom<\/em> and Pileated Woodpecker<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After about thirty minutes of very calm acceptance\u2014it was almost meditation, minus the specific intent<\/em> to find calmness\u2014I decided to continue reading Kafka. \u00a0I never knew before I began the final chapter that Kafka had never properly finished the novel. \u00a0The final chapter comes out of nowhere, after leaving a mostly unresolved second-to-last chapter, and essentially the story finishes nowhere. \u00a0All in all though, an enjoyable read. \u00a0I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who\u2019s just survived the end of the world.<\/p>\n

With nothing better to do, I decided to start reading Amerika<\/em> again from the beginning, optimistic that this time it would turn out better. \u00a0Maybe in my first read-through, I thought, I\u2019d approached it in the wrong frame of mind. \u00a0I don\u2019t usually read novels twice. \u00a0Too many on the \u201cto read\u201d pile. \u00a0But I wanted to catch something new that would unite this novel\u2019s broken pieces. \u00a0I just can\u2019t stand a story that ends like that.<\/p>\n

So there I sat, on my toilet, trapped in the bathroom at the end of the world, opening Amerika<\/em> for one more read-through.<\/p>\n

Chapter one.
\n
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nHENRY SANE<\/strong> is a 26-year old enthusiast of literature. He reads it, writes it and, at Columbus State University, studies it. He plans to earn his degree in English Literature in the Fall of 2011. His favorite activities include cemetery war dances, hopscotch, and bumping into random people so as to fulfill the void for human contact. On occasion, he reports the uncanny ability to eat an entire bag of pretzels. His writing varies in style, ranging from the frightening to the absurd, from the grotesque to the whimsical, and from the readable to sheer wiping material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Henry Sane The world ended one night as I was sitting on the toilet. \u00a0At the time, I remember I was peacefully reading Amerika by Franz Kafka, having just finished the very last word of the second-to-last chapter. \u00a0Chapter … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1228,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1230","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-jQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1230\/revisions\/1271"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}