Yesterday didn’t feel like a good day for the world to end.
It didn’t feel like a day to go completely wild 100 miles per heartbeat. I
wasn’t either sad or moved or ecstatic. I was actually kind of numb. So no,
yesterday couldn’t be a day for the world to end. Sweat flourished out of my
pores, some drops thicker than others, neither fear nor anxiety. It was just a
plain hot and humid day, and kind of ordinary, too. It was a day I went house
hunting, and you can’t go house hunting on the day the world will end. It was late afternoon under a golden sunlight, central time, when I asked
myself if I’d go to heaven or if I’d go to hell. After two seconds I realized
that either place is just too harsh for me and purgatory may be too close to
real life. So no, because of that I knew that yesterday couldn’t be the day for
the end of us. It was my niece’s 15th birthday, and you can’t deny a girl the
pleasures of celebrating her rites of passage. Yesterday couldn’t be the end of
times because I wanted to eat bread with olive oil and goat cheese and salami
and red wine. It was delicious, and yet there was so little poetry. Yesterday was
certainly not a day for the world to end. The city was exactly the same, no
more ups and no more downs than the normal city self, and no doomsday prophets
prophesying chaos. I saw a man getting handcuffed in Midtown, a mother feeding
a baby, pigeons eating hamburger leftovers, people looking for trouble telling
us to park our car away from their houses, a man flirting with my Mexican
dress. And that other man, the one with a lion tattooed on his neck packing my groceries, didn't look like he was ready to let go of this realm. I got
a manicure and painted my nails bright red. I listened to samba in the morning.
I watched TV. And no, absolutely not: yesterday was not a day for goodbyes. I
didn’t call my friends, I didn’t hug my family, I didn’t tell people I love
them, I didn’t throw the finest party to celebrate the
end of the world swimming in a champagne pool, I didn’t kiss the
neighbor, I didn’t try tantra, I didn’t flap my wings, I didn’t allow myself to be completely out of control. It was a day for little socialization, for physical rest, modest
rationalization and contained emotions. And I was in bed by 9pm.
Yesterday was just another ordinary Saturday and only two
things ended that day: the deadline of yet another false prophet and the person I was on that very day.
===xxx===
Post originally written on May 22, 2011, a day after a U.S. preacher warned that the end of the world would occur on May 21, 2011. This post has been modified from its original version.
Ae, Juli! Quero mais! :*
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