The Worst Moment of My Life Was When I Had to Negate the Apocalypse

It’s okay if you think I’m crazy. I know I’m right, I have the proof, but I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone. <br><br>No, my life is one of quiet desperation, of cuddling my cat, and forcing myself to laugh when the kids at school make polite conversation with me. I’m not like you – a person with hopes and dreams. I’m the man who saved the world, and now, I have to live in it. <br><br>Some of you might have heard my story before, from a Trevor Lockhart or a Chris Pratt. Or maybe you read it in a book, written by an Andy Weir. I guess what I’m saying is this is how it really happened.<br><br>It started in the 1950’s with my recruitment into a secret government agency. The kind that had acronyms you couldn’t pronounce, operating under the guise of the USDA – just like the bad guy’s in *Stranger Things*. You know, the ones who do all that weird government science shit? Yeah, I was one of them. <br><br>I was straight out of college, a physics whiz, and being courted by some of the best firms in the country. But I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went, until one day, I received a typographically correct, perfectly creased letter in the mail. I had been selected. I was impressive, and they informed me of my ability, my calling, to help the government save the world. Sounded pretty cool, right? <br><br>When I showed up to the address on the letter, I met a Secretary of State named Maloney who oversaw the entire operation. He explained to me that a meteor was careening towards Earth with the intention of ending our feeble existence. It was expected to hit in 1958.<br><br>I, along with 53 other recruits, was going to help create a device to either destroy it or blow it off course. We were based in New Mexico, as we had already began to burrow into the mountains, creating an underground base of operations. <br><br>The next four years of my life were grueling and rewarding yet lonely. My family died in a house fire – or so I was told. I was allowed one phone call with my girlfriend, telling her I had changed my mind about us, and that she needed to move on. I couldn’t even go to my friends’ funerals. I was already dead. <br><br>In 1958, we were still a year away from completing the device that would save us all. Fifty-three of the brightest minds in the country, and it still wasn’t enough. On December 31st, we huddled in the control room, waiting for the inevitable. We drank, cried, and laughed together. The most harrowing moment came when one of my colleagues, a quiet man named Dr. Epstein informed us that his father had been in the gas chambers at Auschwitz almost twenty years prior. He broke down and wept. <br><br>When the clock struck midnight, we braced ourselves for impact, but it never came. <br><br>Confused, we rushed out to the view ports, only to see the stars twinkling in the sky. There was no impact. No destruction. No holocaust. No apocalypse. <br><br>Over the next few days, we were able to confirm that the meteor had veered off course roughly three weeks prior, narrowly avoiding our solar system entirely. I remember the feeling as the weight was lifted from my shoulders; I was going to live. I was going to go home. To my girlfriend, my father, my friends, my family…. I began to cry. <br><br>And then, Secretary Maloney told us that the agency never really intended to let us go home. We had seen too much, knew too much, and it would be too difficult to gaslight fifty-four brilliant people. We were too big of a risk. We were society’s burden, and it would be better if we just… disappeared. <br><br>The next morning, we awoke to discover we couldn’t exit the base. The guards informed us that Maloney had “succumbed to his injuries” – a shotgun blast to the mouth tends to do that to a man. <br><br>We were, however, gifted with a large screen television and a VHS player. Over the next several months, almost two-hundred tapes arrived in the mail. There were movies, educational programming, news footage, and all sorts of other media to keep us occupied. <br><br>One tape, in particular, was of my girlfriend, now married with two children. Her husband held a cake up to the camera and blew out the candles. It hurt like a punch to the gut. <br><br>We never knew what happened to the world above. If the government had informed anyone about our presence down here, if it was common knowledge that we, the saviors of humanity, were locked away like zoo animals, or if we had simply been erased from history. But we didn’t care – we didn’t have a reason to. <br><br>That was until the television went dark, and never turned back on. <br><br>Then, one day, an older man in a custodian’s uniform walked into the base. It had been years since we had seen another soul besides ourselves. I would guess that it had been ten, fifteen years, but I can’t be certain. <br><br>He told us about a new world. About something called the internet – a system in which all of humanity’s information was readily available at the touch of your fingers, sort of like the Dewey Decimal System, but for your home computer. <br><br>The man explained that we were no longer held captive. That the government had forgotten about us, or didn’t care, or both, because they had something called the atomic bomb, and they thought that they didn’t need us anymore. <br><br>We informed him that the bomb wasn’t new, that it had been used almost twenty years prior, and he just sort of chuckled. He asked if we had ever heard of 9/11, and we told him of course – George W. Bush Sr. won the election a couple years back, because of his promise to never forget the day the terrorists attacked the twin towers. <br><br>The custodian sort of sat with that information for a while. He looked defeated, like he was the one who had been locked in this hole, and not us. <br><br>I asked him how long it had been since the meteor was supposed to have hit. He paused, “The year is 2015, sir.” <br><br>Two generations. I lost two entire generations because I saved the world. <br><br>I asked the custodian how my family was, and he graciously offered to take me to them. I was met with a pleasant surprise – my father was still alive. <br><br>When we pulled into the driveway of the family estate, I was overcome with emotion. I trembled, and tears streamed down my face. I kept trying to say something, but all that would come out was gibberish. I saw a man in the window. He looked just like my dad, but older – much older. A man was standing next to him. A man that looked like he could be my son. <br><br>The pleasant surprise quickly dissipated as I turned to the custodian and asked who that was. “That, sir, is your grandson.” <br><br>I’ve lived in this world for five years now, and it’s been plenty long enough for me to realize that this isn’t my home. I’ve been given my father’s old house out in the suburbs. My “family” comes to visit me once a week. They bring food, and graciously answer my questions about the past, even though they never really answer any of them. I have an iPhone, but I don’t know how to use it. I go to therapy every week, because I’m a “burden” to my family. <br><br>I have lived through two apocalypses, and I survived them both. But I would give anything for my life to end the way it should have.