I was awakened by a pounding on the door. Still fastening my robe, I blinked and squinted against the bright hallway light that framed the distraught face of my neighbor.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“What?” I blinked again.
“Are you okay?” she asked again, with genuine concern. “You know, the blast?” I shook my head to see if what she said would adhere to anything inside it. It did not. “Are you just now getting up?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “The thing I look forward to most on Saturday is not having anything to look forward to. It is still Saturday, right?”
“Then you don’t know about the blast that happened at 4am? Millions of people are missing! That’s why I came to check on you.” This little factoid was a key that fitted in the same lock that caffeine usually opened. My brain booted up out of sleep mode.
“What? No. I fell asleep last night in front of Netflix and then crawled into bed. Is this war or terrorism or something, like 911? Why are you checking on me? Did this happen here in the Bay Area?”
“Nobody knows exactly.”
“How many people have been killed?”
“That’s just it. No bodies have been found. Nothing got blown up or anything. It’s just that all at once,” she snapped her fingers, “all of these people just disappeared.” I beckoned her to come inside to continue the conversation as I made us a pot of coffee.
“What does the government say?” I asked as I turned on the kettle and threw some dark roast in the French press. My neighbor shrugged.
“They haven’t issued a statement. Some TV stations are off the air. There have been some unconfirmed rumors, but no official statement from the White House.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“That the president and his cabinet have disappeared. Supposedly, the only people left in Washington are a few career bureaucrats who had avoided termination, but nobody knows for sure. Apparently the same thing is happening all over the world. I don’t know. I just came to check on you. Turn on your TV.” I did.
Fox was nothing but white static. I mean, it always was, but this time there wasn’t even a picture. NBC looked half-staffed with frequent interruptions to the broadcast. The same with ABC. CBS seemed to have a few more personnel. For some reason, Stephen Colbert was sitting at the CBS News anchor desk.
“Listen, folks,” he began, “An unexplained phenomenon has just eliminated millions of people across the globe. They have simply vanished in a manner that is completely incompatible with our knowledge of the physical laws of the universe.” He took off his glasses and looked earnestly into the camera. “So, I went searching for answers among the spiritual laws of the universe. It turns out the rapture is, in fact, a cull that renders paradise on Earth by removing all of the unrepentant exploiters. Welcome to paradise!”
Literature in Small Doses 