We knew the end of the world was coming for a long time, and we did nothing. The meteorologists panicked, the priests preached, the conspiracy theorists dug their heads into the ground. But no, not one person bothered to come up with a solution. Not that I was any better than the lot of them.
 
“A doomsday countdown is being aired in the square. You know, the people who want to die happy? They’re treating it like some kind of New Year, with a ball drop and everything.” Minty announces, her voice surging and dropping with every word. "Like how they do it in New York but we'd have a yoga ball instead." She scrubs away the makeup she wore to work in front of the bathroom mirror, focusing most of her energy on a pimple at the corner of her mouth. It grows defiantly redder the more she scrubs at it.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Try to pop your pimple. You'll scar. Bring the moisturiser here once you're done."

Minty continues scrubbing. "Did you hear a word I said?" she calls out to me. I shift on the couch, my copy of Jane Eyre sliding in my lap, to meet her eyes reflected in the mirror. “The final countdown,” I remark, half sarcastic and half incredulous. “It’s official. The world’s lost its mind.”
 
Minty grins. She’s more comfortable with dying tomorrow than I am. "The world lost it years ago, idiot. But I'm mad too, so I’m going to be right there at the countdown. With Isla,” she says lightly, gaze flickering. Maybe not that comfortable with death yet. “Isla. Your ex. The girl who broke your heart,” I remind her. She lowers the brush and settles on the armchair beside me. The mosturiser slides to me across the coffee table. I almost think she didn’t hear me when she replies weakly, “We still care about each other. It’s our last chance.” Her last resort to dying alone.
 
We stay silent after that.
 
***
 
Isla’s smart enough not to show up at our threshold. Minty wouldn’t have been strong enough to hold me back when I attack Isla for the devastation she put my roommate through. Instead, Minty slips out in the morning, adorning a dozen jangling bangles that should’ve taken her inhumane strength to lug around. She told me earlier that she’d be staying with Isla until… until. The night before, there was no crying, no grieving for foretold death. Instead, we celebrated our shared love for the classic romance books. There was nostalgia, comfortable silence, and the smell of paper. It was perfect.
 
Now, I wander around the house, knocking over the grandma’s collector set of china we’ve had since Minty moved in. Unnervingly realistic-looking toads, newts, and fairy rings encircled the dishes. Minty might’ve found the designs quirky, but they’re downright incongruous to me. I mean, who wants to stare down a salamander while they ate dinner? I knock over the vases and lamps while I’m at it. The wreckage collects under my feet, flecks of porcelain embedding in my heels. I squeeze them into the floor so I cry out, but I doubt it’ll hurt more than dying.
 
We’re about an hour away from doomsday. I hear teenagers yelling, singing, and dancing down the street, rebelling in their weird cross between kid and adult. They always do that, but the raucous noise feels like a palpable, breathing thing. Haughty Mr. Coleman doesn’t chase them away this time. That's probably why they're louder today.

But it's strange, since their chaos is usually drowned by something louder, something more rational. The traffic from the main roads, the lawn movers, hell even the air coolers are louder. But they are subdued today. Movies taught me that armageddon came with red skies and ashy clouds, with homicidal robots that were ten feet tall and the sound of whirring helicopter blades smothering the fleeing population.

They were wrong.

The skies are blue, the birds are in flight. I hear nothing but the teenagers, I feel even less. The smell of lavender is in my nose, not the smell of sulphur. The Earth is blissfully aware of its primal mission; it will live forever after my death, in fragments among the stars. It's probably why everything feels so frustratingly calm today – the Earth is quietly ridding itself of humans. It will finally be medicated. I guess I should be happy about that.

***

I’ve destroyed our apartment to the point where I don’t recognize it anymore, just like I can’t recognize the drifty feeling in me where righteous anger was. I never knew I was angry, only that what I was feeling now was guilty relief, usually the aftermath of anger. I don't act out usually, I swear I don't. But nothing’s worth anger anymore. I might as well break something.
 
***
 
I’m marching outside, in my baggy ACDC t-shirt, shorts, and ratty hair. I march right up to the teenagers. There are five girls, three boys. Two of the guys are dressed in somber dusty black suits, the kind you rent for funerals, pacing with closed eyes. Three girls and the other boy are in casual jeans and shirts, swiping slim paintbrushes against the flat walls. They’re writing their names in blocky red letters like a confession. ADELAIDE, SAMUEL, KAHINA, LISA. Each one's a slap in the face. The remaining couple of girls are dressed in jarring yellow and pink plaid sweaters, sitting cross-legged by the curb with their heads resting against the wall, singing as loud as they can. Like yowling cats.

I wonder where their parents are.
 
I approach the motley group. One of the guys (Samuel, I assume) glances at me briefly. He doesn’t say anything, only hands me his paintbrush. I purse my lips as I scrawl my name onto the wall. It was meager proof, a declaration to myself mostly, that I was here. That I was here on this ground, porcelain in my feet, dust in my hair, spending my doomsday with strangers. Barely even adults yet.
 
“Hey,” Kahina calls, “three seconds left.” This is it. I hum the teenagers’ song under my breath. Three. I want to tilt over, the ground’s shaking so hard. Two. I paint a flower next to my name with a flourish. One.
 
***
 
I liked flowers.