Radically Happy

“Our tradition frowns on suicide.
Yet for those of us driving into the wilderness, the most likely outcome is freezing to death when our fuel runs out.
So be it!
After all, that seems vastly preferable to the Horrors that will come as civilization to tear itself apart.
Let us then eat, drink and be merry.”

“For tomorrow we die!”

There’s a smattering of applause at my speech.
Then everyone returns to the — appropriately — monster-themed party we are holding at the H— Retreat Center before we leave.
I’m sure many of the guests are hoping some of the other monsters are real, and will kill us before the night is out.

Nobody knows how the Horrors started.
But nothing can stop it.
Scientists have tried everything.
I even have an extra-dimensional portal inside the gallon water jug where I store purified water for my CPAP.

When we opened the jug, intense cold rushed out.
The room quickly become encased in frost.
I barely managed to shut it before my fingers froze.
It would probably swallow the world in days.

Back then, we thought that a bad thing.
Now?

I feel bad about leaving my dog behind.
But one must harden one’s heart at the end of the world.

What choice do I have?

---

When I awake, I realize I do have a choice.
I can put my dog to sleep, so he dies in my arms as he always wanted.
Rather than lost and alone wondering where I am, and what happened.

If hard decisions must be made, better to embrace my cruelty head-on than to run from it.

Better to kill with my own two hands than leave them feeling abandoned.

And what about the bottle?

The Horrors seems to spread from population centers.
The largest cities were hit first.

Why not take the bottle to the largest, most populous area I can find?
Then open it.

It probably won’t do any good.
I will quickly die from the cold.

But isn’t that what I wanted?
A quick, painless death?

Why not earn it by running toward the fear
Rather than away?