Pulling Out (10 lines#4)

 

The cell phone pinged, showing a text message : ‘Time to pull the plug’. 

Not the ‘Alas Babylon’ code phase, now considered passé, if not outright quaint, by the Millennial cohort. 

So not the Collapse of Civilization As You Know It disaster of burning buildings, lawlessness in the streets, and Every Person For Themselves.  

”This is how the world ends, with a whimper, not a bang”, at least that was the stark warning behind those five words on the glowing screen.

Growing up, the family had just rolled their eyes at father’s Doomsday preparations, even though he had laughed about how his own Cold War upbringing had well proven ‘If I’ve got it, I’m sure never to needed it’.

How he had often repeated hat never utilized advice from a writer even a further generation back : ‘The best way to avoid an atomic blast in a city - is to have been well gone from the cities before it ever happens’.

So here it was - announcement of yet another virus strain, ominously named Omega, at least as infectious as the most transmittable earlier versions, and looking to be twice as deadly. 

Looking up through the plexi sheet ‘protection' at the retail sales job at the mall, and thinking of the roommate that still insisted on going to the clubs so many nights.

Watching a gaggle of teens passing, masks pulled down, laughing and sharing a coke, oblivious in the blind armour of youth. 

And knew we had brought this on to ourselves, picking up the backpack and heading out the door for home, and hoped for protective isolation.

 

image found on the internet : New York Times