MICROFICTION

I Couldn’t Find a Date for Christmas

So I plotted to end the world instead

I was tired of twelve pairs of eyes judging me.

My brother’s barely legal influencer girlfriend stared at me like I was the straw responsible for killing turtles, while munching on dehydrated kale.

Looking up from his iPad, my sister’s husband expanded his limited verbiage from “Yes, dear” to asking me if anything was new in my life. My mother snorted, before ending our Christmas dinner planning meeting.

Visions of an empty chair, with an unused place setting, haunted my days. ‘Tis the damn season came on and I briefly contemplated texting my ex.

Last year I paid a colleague to play along. We don’t talk anymore.

My spirits followed the tragic trajectory of fall leaves and when daylight savings rolled around, I was drowning my singlehood sorrows in wine.

Then, somewhere between the crevices of rock bottom, I found my hidden purpose. A Discord group I’d formed for like-minded angsty millennials decided that if we can’t be happy, then others shouldn't be allowed either.

Unlike saving the world, ending it was easy. We simply had to set up the dominos, confute certain events, and dial up the volume of whimpers.

It would astonish you, the amount of truth one can find on the dark corners of the internet. You’d learn how this is actually the worst time of the year. But maybe everyone knows it already. And this is the design, not the flaw.

Everything was going according to plan until the Y2K-themed last party.

Time stopped, music slowed, and masks came off. Certain members of our group happened to get together for a week. Or maybe until Valentine’s Day.

Well, there’s always next year.