December 21st, 2012, has come and gone, and with it brought the end of the Mayan long count calendar. Much to the surprise of everyone on Earth, we’re all still here (spoiler alert/plot twist).
December 20th was an exciting day at the high school. There were a lot of conversations about what might happen when the clock struck midnight, and what the following day might hold.
Quite a few people reassured each other they were positive that nothing was going to happen. Many debated skipping school to stay home. Some students, I’m sure, went home that night and watched “The Walking Dead,” taking careful survival notes, just in case.
“Poppycock,” I said. I was firm in my stance that nothing would stop me from defiantly continuing to exist and going about my daily business when the sun rose the next day.
As it turned out, a bout of flu diminished that goal slightly by the end of the night, but I scoffed at the universe. “Is that all you’ve got?” I said.
My mother gave me an odd look and asked, “Who are you talking to?”
That night, as I started to fall asleep, a terrible storm brewed outside. Not a metaphorical storm: a literal, windy, rainy storm. It was really really scary, and I thought I was going to die.
Morning came. No dreams that I could remember, which made me kind of sad for a minute. Then I remembered I was supposed to be dead. “Better check out the window, just in case,” I thought.
I pulled up the blinds, and saw what I initially thought was a wall of volcanic ash rushing towards me, hell-bent on bringing my destruction, but they were quickly determined to just be rain clouds.
The rest of the day consisted of a lot of not dying. The atmosphere didn’t catch fire from a supersized sun flare, the Yellowstone supervolcano didn’t erupt, there were no mega tsunamis in any major cities, and the tectonic plates didn’t force everyone to move to Madagascar.
All in all, December 21st was a normal day. A calendar ended, and a new one began. I’m curious why the same people who thought that the world was ending don’t think that the world will end every New Year’s Day.
