When the Sun Goes Down

By Claire G.

Almost every child in America has lived in a generation is which some whack job pastor or priest, prince or pauper has claimed to know, seemingly without question, that some great and tremendous disaster will occur bringing with it a great and dramatic end to the hell hole known as Earth as well as all of the people who infest her.

They claim that a hurricane will sweep away the atomic bombs and that a tornado will blow way the guns and grenades. In which all our problems are solved by us dying while the righteous and the holy float up to Heaven or where ever we end up when are bodies fail us and we stop being able to control basic functions.

Amongst these people lay three groups: the first being The Believers. These are the people who follow around a lone man (who is almost always claiming to spout the word of his God or to be greater than God and man) like a bitch follows around her male counterpart in the heat. The people who have this allusive thing they call "faith".

They have fear, fear for what is to come tomorrow and, more importantly, what will become of them, but they also have acceptance. They congregate together and wallow in self-pity, fear, and anxiety. But they do it as a whole, as one organism, the spinner of the very predictions that brought all these naïve and ignorant people together in comradeship, as its head. He is the center, the protector, the shepherd.

These people are held together by nothing more than sheer and unbridled terror, but also their sense of superiority, as if Mother Nature cares if you know when the next tornado or hurricane will happen. It still hits just as hard. This is the fate of people who give all that they are, their faith and their hope, into someone, who in the end, cannot protect them.

This is what happens to people that dare to feel whatever it is that makes them feel the need to think "You're going to die and I'm not because I BELIEVE."

Mother Nature cares not who does and doesn't believe, she destroys and creates just the same.

The second groups of people in our wonderful population are The Skeptics. The people who scoff at the works and words of a "god" and defend themselves with science, facts, e=mc2 or what have you.

These are the people who carve out and label special little places for anything and everything, because it all must fit somewhere. These are the people who consider the phrase "I don't know" practically a swear word.

And so, signs scream "welcome to the End of the World parade" and they'll laugh and scoff because how could they know anything, let alone know it before we do. It's not believable, and it's certainly not how things work around here, no sir-ee.

You listen to your god, they'll cat call, and we'll listen and consult with cold, hard facts. You want to listen to some silly work of fiction like The Bible? Hah, great waste of time maybe and while you're doing that me and my fellow Intelligent People will go and read our texts books.

We'll just see who'll turn out on top you freaks. We aren't a cult or a group (like you are).

That's what they shout and scold, but they're wrong. They are just as much of a group as The Believers. They make a point not to bar their windows and not to prepare the storm cellar because that would just prove Them right, right? And it is Us against Them isn't it?

That's right; they're not going to listen to some religious kooks who listen to a giant man in the sky, and their crazy robe wearing leader.

They have facts, they have knowledge. Who needs God when you've got gravity? That's what's going to save them, not faith or anything like it.

The last group is probably the more intelligent of those two groups at least. This last group is made up of people who don't know, don't care, and like it just fine that way. "Let what will be, be," they will say and thank god too, we were all afraid we'd have to pick sides. Oh well, better luck next time is their battle cry.

These will be the people that stomp around and pretend to care when people are watching but as soon as they're alone they prop their feet up, turn up the TV and smile to themselves because they can practically smell the undiluted chaos in the air and hot holy damn does it smell thick and sweet yet slightly bitter. Their lips will turn up in a forlorn smile because all the confusion and unprovoked anger would be really funny if it weren't so sad, demented and slightly depressing.

And so the Bible pushers and Truth screamers scream naked through the streets proclaiming their word and we all just nod politely and keep walking so as to preserve what little dignity the two separate, yet still so similar.

But when the sun goes down and oily, inky blackness silently and swiftly paints over what was once an orphan blue, cloudless sky we all scream, cry, love, and fear. How we react when we're engulfed in flames simply changes and that is what defines us.

A/N: This will eventually turn into a short story but I haven't actually gotten this far yet and only have the introduction done. That would be the lovely piece above this. I would really appreciate someone's opinion of this, I'm not sure if I'm going to use it. Thanks for reading, please review.