Kyu Kyu Thein
When the world ended, it ended with no warning. There was no tornado siren on a Tuesday afternoon, there was no panic coming from the busy streets of downtown, and there was no news station reporting on developing stories.
You would expect the world to end with a boom! or a bang! or even a whoosh! But the world would only end like that in the imagination of children. Maybe you think the world will end when the electricity goes out or when the internet goes down. Maybe the world ends when there’s no more food in the supermarkets and the economy collapses.
For me, I thought the world would end when the last orange had been plucked from its tree, peeled to perfection, and eaten by a very lucky person. At least, that’s what my grandma thought. When I was still small enough to fit into her lap, she would peel every orange with care and give the other half to me. “To eat an orange is to share.” she would always say, “And you share it with a very special person in your life.” It’s been years since she went back to her home country and I still remember her words every time I hold an orange in my hands.
I remember where I was when the world ended. I was walking on the sidewalk. I said ‘hi’ to the nice man outside of the barber shop with one hand waving and the other hand holding a bag of oranges that the lady who owned a grocery store gave to me for free. The wind was brisk and the leaves were falling in an array of red, orange, and brown. My hair was kept behind my ears so as to not blow into my face and my scarf was wrapped all around my neck. I could hear the faint sound of jazz playing from a restaurant as I thought about what my mother was going to make for dinner.
Ironically, it was a perfect day. It could’ve been the best day of my life.
I came home and set the oranges on the kitchen counter. The citrus smell on my hands followed me to the living room, where I saw my mother holding the home phone.
Her shoulders seemed tense from the back and she was clutching a napkin. As she turned to face me, the tears from her eyes curved the contours of her cheek. Her mouth is slightly open but she is not saying anything. She just looks at me as the person on the other phone speaks in a language that I could only partially understand.
And as she struggles to find the words to say to me, I thought to myself, “This is how the world ends. In the middle of my living room, with oranges on the counter and their scent lingering in the air.”