Here’s how it happened:

     Gray sunlight opened on a poor couple walking on the beach,

     and rather than hands they grew roses from their arms,

          tightly intertwined and carefully woven around each other

               so as not to harm the other with their thorns.

 

A noise from the waters startled them—

     A shrill cry that raced over the sea and punctured the waves with tall,

                Soprano vibrations.

               

                Like a child was reaching out too them.

 

And what happened next,

     The couple staring at the sunset with the faceless voice,

          yearning to comfort it,

          aching to embrace this mournful thing

               that was surely to devastated to show itself.

 

This, they said, was The End of the World; hollow shouts ripping through the surface of the earth,

     A plague darker than Death clouding the skies.

 

     In the end, they thought about the irony of it all—

          They had thought the skies would be infected red with dust and smoke

          They had thought that the ground would crumble from beneath them

          They had thought that The End of the World would be a slow thing to come about.

 

They never thought it would be so painful. So heartbreaking. So raw.

    

     Like the bullet shot from a riffle long aimed at the heart of a lion,

          The End of the World happened in the blink of an eye.