Cusp Of Midway
Midway through the millennium, or about to be. Just on the cusp of midway, as it were. They got so excited. All the little things of the world shaking with anticipation of the impending partial apocalypse. Half an apocalypse for half a millennium, they all said.
It was cute, all this anticipation.
They wrote songs about it. They baked breads in the shapes of all sorts. The songs were not very catchy, the bread quickly staled. Held cocktail parties in the honor of their truncated Armageddon. Brunches in celebration. But the eggs were all overly baked and the martinis watered down. But they celebrated, all the cute little things. Parades and carnivals exactly how you would imagine the little things of the world might carouse and parade.
For a time.
Then they wondered if half of the world would disappear,
or the whole world would half-disappear.
If along some invisible fault the world would bisect, be chomped down the middle and left like the moon on the nights when it's really good to know how to screw. Or conversely if it might fade away to a fraction of its original consistency. All the little things in the world would be at once turned semi-translucent and semi-opaque. Half their old weight, half their old structure. A world composed only of a thick fog, populated by tiny pieces of fog and their poorly built fog-automobiles.
They wondered which it would be: a quick dissolution of half the things around them, or a slow fade down to a shade of themselves. They argued back and forth. As the months evaporated, their parades became demonstrations and slogans were written. The slogans were not very clever. Parties became benefits. The Benefits raised armies. And disagreeable wars broke out among all the little things of the world. Wars over what would happen once the new age came. Once the cusp was surmounted.
These wars killed half the things in the world, exactly equal amounts from each faction.
The matter was considered settled.
