Finishing Up
There’s no one left in the office.
Not surprising, really. When the world is ending, most people aren’t thinking about the end-of-the-quarter paperwork.
Most people.
I… OK, look, I’m not crazy, all right?
There’s no reason to go home, there’s no one there waiting.
If I go outside I’m in the middle of a screaming mob, all staring up at the descending acid mist and watching it get closer and closer. I can hear them outside, now, but with all the windows closed it’s not too bad. I can still concentrate.
When it started and everyone saw on the news there was no defense and no escape, I heard what people were saying as they ran out. Some wanted to get to their families and loved ones, which was understandable. Some wanted to go get wasted, or get laid, or commit some crime they’d always wanted to do. Not really my style, and why would I want to make my last hours socially awkward?
It’s just… It’s… OK, say there is an afterlife, right?
Any afterlife. I’m not religious so I don’t have a particular one in mind, could be heaven, could be Valhalla, could be hell, could be some mediocre middle ground, like a community college afterlife you go to when you haven’t got the grades or the spiritual credit score for the good places. But say I’m going to have some sort of ongoing conscious presence, somewhere, after I die.
Do I want to spend eternity feeling guilty that I didn’t finish the 4th quarter P&L statement?
I know no one else cares. I’m not an idiot. The company will be gone. The world will be gone. I can hear the stone walls and metal pipes of the floors above me dissolving away now, and let me tell you that’s a damn creepy sound, like the building is hissing. Nothing will be left, after.
But I’ll know. I’ll know I left it unfinished. It would haunt me, and there’s nothing sadder than a ghost condemned to float over the oily puddles of an empty planet forever because he didn’t get his paperwork filed. I’d be the Boring Angel, brooding for endless centuries, wondering if I would have balanced.
I’m almost done. One last column to tally and double-check, and then I hit enter to send it to no one, and then I sit back and wait.
You find your peace where you can.
