In Which Everybody Dreams of the End

The Appeal of the Apocalypse

by SHAHIRAH MAJUMDAR

"The lives of ordinary people with petty problems who now have a big problem."

- Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange

Everybody loves a good disaster. Everybody loves a little brush with death. One glimpse into the deep abyss and all the petty stupid stuff becomes yesterday's news. Colors look brighter. Air tastes cleaner. For a minute, we forget ourselves and are freshly hopped up on the dearest of highs: oh the sheer sweet joy of being alive.

Crave danger but lack a death wish? Not to worry, I've got you covered. You and I can get hopped up on disaster porn. We can dream of swamps of fire, we can contemplate the sunspots on the sun. We can surrender to wind and water and meet an angel on the run. We can watch a faster ocean sweep a vaster Himalayan sky. We can get our kicks on the apocalypse. Every time a volcano pops, I get a little closer to Zen. Every time the ice cap crumbles, I feel a little cleansed. Let's purge our souls as godheads roll and score it all to some slinky 70s soul.

With 2012 around the corner, Hollywood's throwing an eschatological feast. They've got the end of the world on a platter, the head of a prophet, the sign of the beast. How might God want to destroy us? Let the multiplex count the ways. If not legions of angels bent on destruction, then toxic and whispering trees. Aliens are always good for a villain, and meteors play well in the cheap seats. There are nanites and neutrinos to make it believable, and a nuclear holocaust to make it teachable - it only takes one little red button, you understand, to turn all of this into a wasteland. Don't panic, this isn't a horror show; when the dust settles, we've been promised a hero.

It won't be long until the moment's upon us. The stars are bursting with signs - and, the signs? They're aligned! The twilight of the idols is at hand. But who shall be saved when we're all so depraved? Time to start thinking about redemption. Time to address the sins we confess and take some swift stock of each other. We've got pacts with the devil, gays in the temple and sin cities swimming with single mothers. Rome is alive. Babylon's well. Sodom and Gomorrah are dear brothers. The East's lost our trust; the West's busted up and is needlessly feeding stray animals. Such is the state of these civilized lands; something inside of us yearns for a cataclysm. To raze it all and start us fresh. To ease the burden of human consciousness. Return us to nature. Let the floods wash us clean. Disasters, says Jesus, are just God's way of housekeeping.

We live lives of enduring sameness, trying our best to keep the unexpected at bay. We dream of lives of meaning and wonder in which impossible is nothing and love saves the day. Day winds into evening. Evenings grow thin. But how strange the change a disaster brings - oh how beautiful is catharsis! Don't you feel renewed when the President tells you that it's up to you to handle the crisis? We may be human and small, overwhelmed by it all, but, suddenly our lives swell with purpose. Here's a chance, don't you see, to live as we dreamed: our last moments on earth shall be selfless.

Let me be taken by a ring of fire. Let my release feel like an act of God. Let my name loom large in the titles. Let my face be traced in the stars. Come, let's pick up the slack before we slow fade to black - we're long overdue for a hero.

But, for now, the traffic comes and goes. The old man dares to make a speech. I dream of a coming Atlantis and the mermaids singing, each to each.

Shahirah Majumdar is a contributor to This Recording. She last wrote in these pages about F. Scott Fitzgerald.