okay, so maybe apocalypse is too strong of a word. I googoo’d it and I don’t mean it Biblically, I mean it like a zombie apocalypse, or like that M Night Shyamalan movie The Happening where a phenomenon occurs that threatens the survival of humanity. so in that case, who would you be? 

I know one person who said they’d just want to die early on, so they don’t have to deal with the fallout and the struggle to survive. because, according to this person, what would be the point of trying to make it in the after times? I can see what they mean. if the grid goes down and there’s no air conditioning and there’s no internet then why carry on living. that said, boring. also, in a way we are living in an after time. I know many many (many) of us want to forget that we went through a prolonged global end time – dealt with uncertainty, fear, isolation, grief, death, illness that went away and sometimes stayed for a long time – but we did do that. we are in an end time, though a forgotten one. 

that said, if you could control the situation a little, at least in your imagination, who would you want to be? what character, what role would you want to play? one of protectors fighting against the threat? a crafty bandit terrorizing the countryside and looting all that traversed your territory? the scientist? a soothsayer? a farmer? a cowboy?

me, I want to be a retired warrior, living down an out-of-the-way, nearly forgotten country road. I’ve concluded a life of combat to live quietly with my animals and plants and books. I sometimes wake up from dreams in a hot sweat, but I can quiet that part of myself when I float in the cool pond nearby or put my feet in the flowing stream on my periodic hunts for winter meat. I would be skilled and storied but only use my skills to protect and provide for myself and my farm, and my stories a guide for my decisions in the present. and maybe. maybe one day a band of adventurers, brave ones, stumble onto my land and I can invite them to pitch their tents outside my home and rest, share supplies and necessary wisdom with them before they continue on. maybe they would ask me to join them and maybe I would consider it. does the old sage, the crone, have value outside of their homestead? 

so yep. that’s who I’d be. in the apocalypse. but maybe that’s who I want to be now. skilled, wise, self-sufficient, able to give but not defined by it, centered in nature. 

okay now it’s your turn. who would you be?