The end of the world

RAYMUND FERNANDEZ

All this discussion about truth, facts and fake news, show us how truly tenuous the line of reality really is for us: As when I woke up the other day to news that the world was in the course of ending that day. The news, allegedly BBC news stream, was telling me that Nato forces shot down a Russian spy plane flying into Latvian airspace while Nato was doing war exercises in the Baltic. Russia’s response was swift. Missiles were launched and two Nato naval vessels were sunk. Nato launched missiles as well and two Russian ships were destroyed. What occurs after that is textbook narrative of how the world ends.

Russia fires a nuclear bomb against the Nato naval forces and then begins a land-based invasion into territories once falling under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR. Three nuclear detonations occur in Poland. Missiles are on their way to London and other English cities. A nuclear bomb detonates in California. The American president calls for dialogue…

I am almost late for my 9:00 a.m. class. I am wondering what to do. I wake my children up to inform them and my household staff to watch the news. The world is ending this morning, November 20, 2017. How can the world be ending on such an ordinary-sounding date? The 22nd might have sounded better. My son’s reaction sounded more correct. He was planning to go today to his old school to follow up the release of his Transcript of Records, TOR. He might as well go anyway. What else could he do? Which thought moved me to go to school as well as if on an ordinary day. If the world was ending, what of it? Go through life until the end comes to my doorstep or three feet in front of me. What else can I do?

I leave. But not without loading up my Facebook page with notifications. I do not have mobile Wi-Fi. I am stopped at the traffic lights in the corner of V. Rama. I have sisters in California, Illinois and North Carolina. I prayed for their safety. And prayed as well that the news was wrong. But how can news be wrong? I open up my Facebook account to see if there are notifications of this news of World War III. Nothing. And then I began wondering. When I get to school, I open my Facebook page again. Still nothing. And that’s when I knew for sure I had been fake-newsed. For if the world should end, it would certainly land on Facebook page first. I see it finally. But not before embarrassing myself still further by texting my wife: “Do you have cable news in the office? I suggest you tune to BBC and load up your car with gas as soon as possible.”

Thankfully, I had run out of load and this text was never received.

Later on in the day, as I got home, my only beloved daughter calls me stupid. And I couldn’t help feeling how right she was. I did feel stupid. And yet, I walked off from this event with some thoughts about the power of media and fake news. And my own vulnerabilities. My daughter’s advice: Before believing anything coming out of YouTube, internet or the social media, check twice, check three times. Believe in nothing for sure without checking. Fine advice from a millennial born into the age of computers and social media: The wisdom of youth, the gullibility of the aged. The world turned on its head.

And yet by day’s end, I came out of this with a stronger belief in prayers and miracles. I really did. And this fine thought which entered my head as I was lying in my bed readying myself for sleep and entering into my own dreams in many way more realistic than this real world: Fine day, huh? I wake up. The world was ending. And now I go to bed feeling this ironically and happily stupid. Whew! That was one exciting day. By all means, the adventure of life. I, Stupid!