The dinner after the end of the world was a quiet one. 

It was a tentative swell, a pause in time 

A near inaudible question of is this real? 

Did we do it? 

Have we, as a scrawny and complicated and beautiful and messy humanity, Earned our right to live another day? 

It’s as if the world is still holding its breath 

Scared to shatter the silence 

The peace, the resolve 

That seems to permeate the still air. 

Dust has settled, but remnants still linger in the atmosphere. The rubble has been cleared, but the scars in the earth remain. Humans are moving forward once more 

Like clockwork 

Never pausing or hesitating or truly faltering 

And yet the memory stains their minds. 

The sky broke open, the ground was torn apart 

The world seemed to pixelate and converge on itself 

Balancing on the edge 

Of blinking out of existence. 

Simply 

Easily 

In a moment or flash 

Like a TV screen being turned off. 

Incomprehensible horrors 

Blood streaked bodies and desperate heaving breaths 

And the only traces of it remain 

In the rigidness of their bodies 

And the restrained smiles on their faces. 

For the first time in eighteen years 

The neighborhood flocks together. 

A well-off suburban neighborhood street 

Never had much reason to gather together 

Absorbed in their own messy drama and their own whirlwind lives Lacking conflict but also lacking companionship 

Trust 

Empathy. 

But the dinner after the end of the world 

Was a potluck. 

Dishes from various cultures, 

of diverse and blended backgrounds 

Of hundreds of ingredients

that shared the same base and compotes 

that made up of us all 

Passed to each other, with small nods 

And relieved ‘glad you made it. 

A hermit crab comes out of its shell. 

A coral reef system comes alive 

somewhere in the rising acidic pacific southwest. 

An office worker learns how much the neighbor next door missed her presence.

A hardware store owner remembers the favourite candy 

of a girl he helped along the road 

Just over a year ago. 

A boy takes a leap 

A girl takes a mouthful 

Children learn to start picking up pace in their once frantic steps once more

Having frozen up when the world they knew started crumbling around them.

And people begin taking chances 

Once more. 

Glistening bottles brought out 

And the fractured, golden orange sky of the sunset is toasted

Held together by an invisible scotch tape 

Cracked to its very core 

But healing. 

Lights begin to glow from fireflies 

tentatively peeking their heads out from the darkness 

And scented candles someone bought in bulk for 19.76. 

Someone beams. 

A neighbor hugs another. 

And someone dares to laugh.