French Toast

I had only just begun breakfast when the apocalypse started. The plate of steaming hot French toast was on the table. It was ready to be consumed. French toast is my favorite. A plate of six slices slathered in syrup was sitting right in front of me. I had gone through all the trouble of preparing it. I was not prepared to even consider the idea that it would go uneaten.

There was the squeal of tires and the punctuation of a car slamming into a solid object that drew my attention. I was reluctant to check it out; I told myself that someone might be hurt. Then I told myself that there was nothing I was going to do. Then I told myself that I was being a coward. Then I sensibly reasoned the French toast was going to get cold and they would still be in an accident. I sighed, shook my head, and got up. I went to the window to see what had just happened.

There were mobs of people in the street. Not the mobs of curious onlookers that can’t help but gawk at someone else in their misfortune. Those people are annoying. Whole families were fleeing in mass down the block dragging luggage, and, pets and children. They did so in that order of importance. Cars were jockeying their way down the street in both directions. They were trying to avoid those on foot mostly successfully. Their passengers were screaming out the windows to those driving in the opposite direction. Someone was going the wrong way. It was clearly the other.

In the hallway outside the front door of my apartment I heard a stampede thunder by. I eyed the cooling French toast as I passed it. I mentally promised it that it would not be forgotten. Then I threw open the door and slammed it against my apartment wall. I was more irritated than I first realized. And why not? It was French toast. My favorite. And now I had put a dent in the sheet rock that would take a chunk out of my deposit. This was all turning out bad.

“What’s going on?” I asked a woman, her arms filled with laundry, some framed photos, and a bag of beans. I had never taken the time to get to know many of my fellow tenants. This woman was older, probably in her fifties, with dyed brown hair and a yellow sundress with flower patterns.

“It’s the Russians! It’s the goddamned Russians!” She hurried down the hall along with a dozen or so other inhabitants to the complex.

The Russians? I wasn’t even sure what that could mean. Did they drop nukes? Was it a “Red Dawn” scenario where they were parachuting onto American soil? Was I remembering that movie correctly? What a stupid movie. I was sure the Russians weren’t parachuting onto American soil. Maybe it was some sort of viral attack. I suddenly remembered why I didn’t get to know people. They were crazy and had weird priorities. Why a bag a beans? What was that going to do?

I didn’t have cable. I had a television, but it was for streaming services and video games. I grabbed my phone and started looking for news. Reports were varied and completely unclear. There was an invasion by foreign powers both human and extra-terrestrial, viral outbreaks, one report of a giant monster and or zombies. How could it be all of them at once? Unless aliens, in league with foreign powers, unearthed a zombie monster capable of spreading viral infections. That could happen, right? Who was I to tell the apocalypse what it could, or couldn’t, be?

My French toast was now a total bust. It had soaked up all the syrup. It was cold. French toast got cold fast. Some people probably liked old French toast. I was still hungry and it was ruined. Those were my last eggs and now it was just a cold, sticky mess of soggy bread that only somewhat resembled my favorite breakfast meal. I had cereal still, but I was looking forward to French toast. Apocalypse indeed.

I saw no real reason to uproot. I wasn’t going to get anywhere, and by the reports on the internet it was happening everywhere, all at once, to everyone. Since I was not yet suffering from the effects of foreign invaders or zombie monsters, I might as well stay put in one of the few sanctuaries not currently being apocalypsed. That didn’t mean I wasn’t concerned. There was still breakfast.

I wasn’t going to start the apocalypse on an empty stomach.

I kept my phone charging and playing the news while I shoveled spoonfuls of cereal into my mouth. Flakes of fiber and dried, sugared raisins drowning in milk. Streaming services were playing live accounts of the apocalypse from all across the world. I had to give these streamers credit for not allowing something so provincial as the end of the world stop their dedication to their fans. Between every mouthful I would tap the screen of my phone and switch to someone new. In between, I sent out texts to my group chat of friends.

“Are you seeing all this?” I typed.

One streamer, a bubbly young girl, was reporting very serious that it was aliens. She wasn’t where the invasion was happening, but had heard accounts from others in flight that they had landed in Wisconsin somewhere and started using lasers to disintegrate people and steal our cattle. She had a lecherous looking farmer who wasn’t ever staring at the screen, his eyes were transfixed on her chest, recount that there was a great mother ship and the squads of robotic whirlybirds. I assumed he meant drones or something. A young kid with ear gauges and Wisconsin’s share of piercings told her he was abducted and probed, but escaped and “was – like – fleeing.”

“The whole world has gone mad.”

“WTF is going on?”

“We’re in the car heading out of town. This is crazy.”

Another steamer, an athletic man from Italy, reported a sea monster that people were saying engulfed several small coastal towns. He had a heavy accent, but spoke English. They were now all fleeing to higher ground in the mountains. I caught several disapproving glares from locals in the mountains they had fled to. The refugees didn’t seem to care. Nobody reported being from any of the towns that were destroyed, so he reasonably assumed everyone from those destroyed coastal towns was dead. He was suitably somber about their alleged deaths. Was that a tear?

“There is a kraken eating Italy it seems.” I responded in the group text.

As I slurped the last remnants of cereal and milk in protest to my ruined French toast I watched a video of a man in a bunker who said that the liberals had gone too far. He said he was ready. I could tell he was ready by the canned foods and firearms on the walls behind him. If any one of those trans-queer socialists was going to try to appropriate his America, he was ready.

It had only been about an hour, but the world seemed changed. My cellphone went dark, at least the internet. It still functioned. It was at 100%. There was still power. The electricity hadn’t gone yet, that was something. There were less and less people outside. Few groups of fleeing people, fewer cars. Nobody running through the halls of the complex. There were still a handful of other cars in the parking lot of my apartment. Other people had stayed put. They had also chosen to hunker down.

Of course, I had little choice. Half of my body was damaged after I had a stroke. I couldn’t run. My coordination was ruined. I could get around, but it was slow. I wasn’t going anywhere. Running wasn’t going to be my strategy if I was going to survive. I was determined to survive. I didn’t live through a stroke just to be killed by zombies, or foreign invaders, or aliens.

I stood up and made my way over to the garbage. I stared at the plate of French toast in my hand one last time. Maybe in a week I’ll be so hungry I wished I hadn’t thrown it out. Maybe in a week I’ll be dead. Maybe Russians, or Italian krakens, or trans-queer socialists would show up and end me. They weren’t here now though. I mourned it, then I let the soggy, ruined French toast slide into the garbage.

I sighed. So this was life now. An apocalypse.

I better get ready.