The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

by Franny Choi

Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in. I want an excuse to change my life.

I don’t have a brain for anything that’s happening on-screen. I don’t have a brain for the men yelling over each other, I’ve done an amazing job, their cheeks flushed and flaking. I’ve done an amazing job. I have two degrees and couldn’t have saved anyone, couldn’t have saved a dog. I have a million ideas.

Each morning, on her way to make a living, my mother passes that business, now closed, where— I’ve tried not to think of it— a man killed three Korean mothers just like mine. Her voice echoes, heavy, into the tunnel between us: What am I supposed to do? Be afraid?

When disaster comes, some of us will stand on the rooftop to address the ghosts. Some of us will hold the line. Some will look for the shards, run our tongues along the floor.

Today, I woke up on still-stolen land, then scrolled through the latest debris of people attempting godliness in a hundred wrong ways.