Last Call At The World

by Lucia Chappelle

That infamous atomic “doomsday clock” that always lingered at just a few minutes before midnight throughout my childhood doesn’t really capture the time we’re in now. It’s even later. It’s past midnight. It’s last call.

People are scrambling to get their hands on whatever it was they came out into the night to find. A fleeting sense of security in the arms of a stranger with hypnotic tales to tell. The jolt of excitement from diving into the outrageous. The anonymity of darkness and the lure of enticing, forbidden deeds. People have had one too many – one too many shocks to the system, one too many reality martinis, one too many trips to the bathroom that stinks of barfed anxiety and the stench rising from the political sewer. It’s last call and everybody is poking at their personal escape devices to book a ride home even though they have nowhere left to go. It’s last call and it’s raining outside.

The music that kept the illusion of permanence thumping under foot has stopped, and the hubada-hubada of the abandoned crowd is the only rhythm that remains. You can tell that the voices are full of frustration and longing, no matter how casual they try to sound. They’re all making statements that are really questions: the sun will rise, the coffee will be waiting, the A/C will come on, the TV will predict the weather and it’ll turn out just as they say, the gas station will be open.

Each person wanders out still searching for something – lost keys, stolen wallets, cars parked in forgotten places on unknown blocks – confused and agitated, less than desperate and desperate just the same. It’s last call and the moon is full.

©2022 Lucia Chappelle