APOCALYPSE DAW

Looking out the window the first time I did the dishes in our apartment, I got a strange feeling that the world had ended.

We live in a high-rise, supposedly rare in Paris because of late 70s zoning ordinances, and in the morning everything is quiet. All you could see are the buildings below: bleached, silent, unmoving, dead. It reminded me of that first time Cillian Murphy woke up in 28 Days later, and wondering how they could have fared if they hadn’t left Brendan Gleeson’s apartment. If the zombie apocalypse comes, I could be in the safest place in Paris. Unless zombies can scale walls and open french windows.

from unrealitymag.com

Actually, I’d always been convinced that I had to be ready for some type of armageddon. Growing up in the Philippines in the 80s, I lived in constant fear of hostile political takeovers and civil war. I always carried a big bag to school because I always carried food and clothes in case I had to hole up like in Empire of the Sun. At the risk of sounding even more paranoid, whenever I went inside a room, I’d always give it the once-over to see where I could hide in case soldiers came. In fact when I saw Toy Soldiers (starring teen sensation Sean Astin) I thought, when something like that happens, I’d be ready.

But it wasn’t just zombies or war I was afraid of. I was also scared of...

From trekmovie.com

The Killer Comet / Earth getting sucked into the Sun

I’m lumping these together because they’re both 3rd Grade fears of mine. My mom left me in her office library a lot, and I learned about heavenly bodies and prehistoric religions on the same day. 

Ancient Zoroastrians called the comet Gochihr, and one day it’ll bring down the holy gauntlet of judgement on all mankind. It was the first end of days prophecy, and a vehicle for Bruce Willis to be relevant again.

The earth-getting-pulled-into-the-sun fear I attribute to reading Rod Serling. He wrote a powerful story about cities falling into chaos after hearing that the sun was turning into a red colossus; slowly devouring the solar system, including the earth and everything in it -- only to reveal in a twist that our world was really pushed out of its axis (by the killer comet!) and was actually drifting aimlessly into cold space, with all its inhabitants doomed to freeze to their deaths.

Our sun won’t be a giant in a few billion years, thank goodness, but it would be a sight to behold. There’s a preview of it in one episode of the 9^th Doctor Who series. Gave me the chills. Try watching the whole thing when you have time.

Judgment Day

My fear of the giant comet is also related to reading the Book of Revelations back when I wanted to be a nun (I was 10). Actually, now that I think about it, all my fears of the Apocalypse go back to reading Revelations back when I had no sense of symbolism. I took it all literally. Here's what's supposed to go down:

Imagine your (nicest) family and friends suddenly disappearing, then suddenly beholding the Four Horsemen, the Dragon, the Beast, and the Whore of Babylon all wrecking havoc on humanity; and if you survive the opening of the Seventh Seal (I wont be there because the nuns would be taken first) those who are left will have to battle Satan. Through heavy metal.

A Higher Power and the fear that H.P. Lovecraft could be right

I was schooled in catholic institutions from the age of 6, and they didn’t waste time drilling in stories of The Rapture. But aforementioned battle of good versus evil aside, there’s also the aliens and the robot  that runs Skynet to be afraid of. They want us to die! But there could be a power greater than theirs...

There was an episode of The Twilight Zone that suggested the world as we know it is just a dream, that reality is merely a hallucination, that déjà vu is a glitch in the movie that we think is our life. What if, as proposed by the philosopher Zhuang Zhou (who dreamed he was a butterfly and woke up to wonder whether he was really a butterfly dreaming he was a man) our dreams are reality and our reality is an illusion? With me so far? Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe I’m just dreaming that you exist, that I’m here typing, that this world is even real. And if I woke up, you would cease to exist because you are just in my head… And what if we were all just dreams in the mind of a god; the caprices of our fate simply the product of a dissociated imagination? This could be the hardest apocalypse to accept, because it means everything I’ve done so far, everything I’ve suffered, is pointless because THEY NEVER REALLY HAPPENED.

How will it all end? Perhaps the answer is here.
Image from Barnes & Noble.

Nuclear holocaust / World War

With North Korea still in the biz, this could still be possible. After the Gulf War in the early 90s, the predictions of Nostradamus regained popularity in my neck of the woods – particularly in VHS form, with Orson Welles narrating. At the time I was a kid and I found it frightening, but now I’m not so affected by fearmongering nuns anymore. When my husband tells me the 2012 predictions are true I just try not to laugh. (The wounds from that conversation run deep.) After becoming a writer I became more conscious about how words are put and how suggestions can become “truth” if left to germinate.

Going back though: will a new world war occur? Perhaps, but I think it will be dictated upon by banks and corporations. I used to feel safe from this because there's nothing to gain from dropping an expensive nuclear bomb on Metro Manila. But if you're a fan of nuclear catastrophe movies you know that terrorists, communists and extraterrestrials alike first attack the cities of New York, Washington, London... and Paris. Skidoosh.

From B Movies

Pandemic

Who’s to say H1N1 wasn’t reengineered in a lab by greedy pharmaceutical companies counting on wholesale global paranoia (and the evening news) to sell vaccines? I say the case is there. But there are also illnesses in remote parts of the world that we don’t know of; diseases that could spell disaster for everyone now that everyone travels faster and farther. I just hope it isn’t a disfiguring disease, or one that turns us into zombies.


I reall have to sleep now. Killer tsunami, nature strikes back and more later. Toodles.