An End to All Things Countdown:

2 DAYS

 

Time is going fast.

In light of the 2012 Mayan Prophecy, it turns out that we have but a short time to prepare for the end. Procrastination is not recommended. That is why each week leading up to our collective doom we will post short excerpts from stories in Jared Yates Sexton’s collection, An End to All Things, that give clues as to how to survive the Apocalypse–or at least how to make it a little more comfortable.

WHAT TO DO: 

“Here were all these people in a hurry with their lists and I was taking my time and really soaking it in. I picked things off the shelves and just read the ingredients. Then I’d put them back down and move on to the next box or can and do it all over again. Everyone was in such a rush that they kept pushing past and saying nasty things under their breath.”

 —from the short story “The Right Men for the Job”

“There’s a belt around his shoulders. Always a hood. Haven’t ever seen a face and never care to. There are two guards on either side and I tell them to fill the buckets. I straddle him and the table like I do my darling wife and, leaning down, I say, This had to happen. There are so few of you and so many of us. I am sorry you are weak.”

                  A signal and the first of the buckets hits his face.

                  That is an ocean, I say.

—from the short story “It is Wide and It is Deep”

Translation: While everyone else will run around raiding stores and haphazardly filling their pockets, you have to stay calm. Take time to read the fine print, to find what items will last the longest. You may find yourself amid burning buildings and people crying hysterically in churches and abandoned McDonald’s play places; you will be the one to slap the crazy out of them. You have to be able to get the information you need, by any means necessary. Feel free to practice interrogation methods now and often, and with people you don’t know.