What to do in case of an apocalypse

Chapter 1

Joe was a pretty normal person, he did normal things, like wear coats in winter and eat ice cream in summer. his complexion was also pretty normal, with a normal sized nose and common brown eyes. He was abnormally normal, it weirded people out. He never got scared or angry or exited or even sad. He just kind of...existed.

However he lived in a very weird world, for example, just two minutes ago it was announced that the planet would be hit by an asteroid killing one hundred percent of life on earth. This would take place in just six months. Well six months three days and a couple of hours, it was hard to estimate the exact time as the meteor was flying at speeds that couldn't be applied to the metric system. Even so Joe sat there, thinking, not really moving. There could have been many things running through his head, from whether to greive or not, or whether he should make the most of it and start sacking shops. But of all these things, the most likely thought going through his head was probably a shit joke about how a meteor is more effective than most toilet cleaners at getting rid of bacteria.

He looked around his flat, it was a reasonable size with an open plan kitchen, a bedroom and a decent TV. Like him, it was pretty normal, it's walls were a greyish cyan colour and contained a few shelves with books and old family photos. He owned a single bed that creaked when you got near it with a small, slightly wonky, wood varnished bedside table that was too short for his bed. This caused him much mental pain due to the contents of this table. It was pencils. The contents of his table was pencils, lots of pencils. The reason this pained him was because pencils have a tendency to roll due to their cylindrical manor. This combined with the slight 'wonk' of the table meant that the slightest disturbance to the table caused a pencil landslide.

This large number of pencils was not because he liked pencils, or he used pencils alot in his line of work. The reason he had so many pencils was because, for some strange reason, every day he ended up being given a pencil. He didn't try to get one, he just ended the day with a pencil in his pocket. And so every night he would come home and place his new found pencil on his wonky table, and every morning he would knock it off. over and over this would happen, because this was just one of the strange wonders of this world.

You see, this world wasn't weird because of superheroes or great beasts or magic. It was weird because everything that happened seemed incredibly unlikely. For example Adams pencil problem, somehow every day someone, unknowing of his mass of pencils, would give him a pencil. Another example of this abnormal activity was Alice.

Alice was abnormal, and therefore normal. she did unique things and had her own set of unique skills, she fit in. So you can imagine her reaction to the world ending was pretty normal. She cried, she cried alot. She had turned twenty three only four weeks ago and had now spent five hours sobbing under her duvet. She finally lifted up the cover and wiped her eyes. It was getting dark and her roommates hadn't returned. It wasn't surprising, based off the current situation, they were probably looting or drinking heavily. The fridge hummed, the light buzzed, the sound of abusive neighbours could be heard far above. She heavily slumped down, careful not to spill her recently concocted drink. It wasn't quite a cocktail, it was more of a coffee with a  sizeable hint of Ouzo*, not the most fancy drink but it'd clear out your sinuses in an instant. She sipped it slowly and winced at the strange taste.

*Ouzo: a Mediterranean highly alchaholic drink.

Her job was as a part time chef, she liked cooking but wasn't really into eating the food, which made being a chef the perfect job for her. The resteraunt she worked in was a 24/7 pub which had always had a sign saying 'were open till the end of time' hung above the bar. Ironically the bar closed within twenty minutes of the apocalyptic announcement. so in reality Alice didn't have a part time job due to her place of work having been burnt down an hour after closing caused by mass hysteria. As Joe wouldve put it ( him being a regular of the pub for four years) "that's not very epic"

So Alice sat and drank and wept and drank some more, the normal thing to do. finally, she decided to call her mother so that she could hear her before all communication went down for good. Her mother, Jannice had moved to Spain after she had left home meaning it would be impossible to reach her physically before the end of the human race. They talked for a bit about the news, Jan comforted her talking about being with her dad and everything was ok. They both knew it wasn't but continued nonetheless. Then finally they said their goodbyes and hung up. It was sad but nice, harsh but warm. Alice sat in silence for a while, saying nothing, just staring before slowly dozing off into a deep dreamless sleep.