When reading all of the 2012 books, I decided to do more than just review them and critique their utter lack of basis in reality.  I also thought I’d write some short stories about what would happen if they were actually true.  I assumed that they were utterly correct.  I wrote many fictional scenarios for many of the 2012 books.  Each one starts identically, but when the end of the world actually happens, the stories diverge drastically.  The following story is based on my previous post.  Please be aware, this is all fiction.  The end of the world didn’t happen, and it won’t happen like this, hopefully.  Enjoy.

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If It Were True

There is an element of fact in what Gregg Braden tells us – that the magnetic poles do shift.  The rest of his argument is pure speculation based on nothing but fearmongering and credulous, magical thinking, and an utter misunderstanding of how fuckin’ magnets work.  So, what if he’s right about it all?  Here’s how the dawn of December 21, 2012 might look to a group of friends in Des Moines, Iowa.

The snowy streets of Des Moines on a cold, blowing December night would not be the first place you’d think to look for a party.  Well, it’s your decision whether or not to look, but you’d find a party, nonetheless.  Drake University was in the midst of finals for its first semester, and a group of friends were gathering at their favorite pub on a Thursday evening to let loose after finishing their tests.  The night sky was clear save for a few high, wispy clouds, and the wind-blown snow shushed against the large window panes

Kate and Nina already had a head-start on the festivities.  The half-full moon was a few hours away from breaching the horizon, signaling the beginning of a new day.  The Court wasn’t packed, but they stayed open late during Finals Week. Most of the other students were waiting for Friday night after the very last exam, or they were too young to be served the pints of ale and lager that The Court was known for.  The wait staff had posterboard signs hanging on their bodies with “The End is Nigh” or “Repent”  written on them.  It was the evening before what some people claimed was the end of the world as we know it.  The Ancient Mayan Calendar was going to run out, and the last day was Friday, December 21, 2012.

Kate sloshed the last of her first pint of the night around the bottom of her glass.  “Did Phil say if he was gonna make it tonight?” she asked.

“Can’t say.  He’s probably spending another night with Liz.  I swear, those two are welded together,” said Nina.

At that moment, the pub door swung open, allowing a gust of wind and snow to swing the paper decorations and flicker the candles set at each table.  Doug slipped in with the wind, while his roommate Sam followed, looking extra-bulky from lugging his backpack full of schoolwork with him.  Doug scanned the room and spotted Kate and Nina sitting in the far corner booth.  As he approached, a waiter with the sign, “Abandon All Hope” was taking their order.

Nina looked up and smiled at Doug and Sam.  “And two more porters for these gentlemen,” she said to the waiter.

“I don’t know how you talked me into coming,” said Sam, “I’ve got my Thermodynamics final tomorrow at noon.”  He shuffled his body into the booth, not knowing where to put his bag.

“You’ve been studying for that for a week,” said Kate.  “You’re not going to learn any more.  Besides, if you take it easy the night before a test, you have a better chance of recalling important bits of knowledge.  I read that somewhere.”

“Really?” said Sam.  The others nodded, showing they knew this was a proven, indisputable fact.  “That makes me feel a bit better.”  Sam’s shoulders relaxed, and he maneuvered to pull off his parka.

Their pints arrived just in time for Phil and Liz to cram themselves into the last remaining places at their corner booth.  More pints arrived, and the table was all smiles.  Everyone was looking forward to the winter break; peaceful days of not having to wake up at 8 AM for an early morning class, or Kate and Nina’s trip back home to their hometown in Wyoming to hang out with their High School friends.

As the clock crept closer to midnight, Liz brought up the End of the World and how it was going to happen tomorrow.

“I might prefer that to my Thermo test,” said Sam.

“No, I’m serious,” said Liz.  “There’s a lot of people out there who think tomorrow will be the end of the world.”

“But you’re not one of them, are you?” said Phil.  “Those people are crazy.  I’ve known you for a year already.  You’re not crazy.”

“Don’t worry about it, Liz.  Phil will protect you from…,” said Doug.  “What is it that’s supposed to happen anyway?  Isn’t it the Mayans or Aztecs that said that time would run out?”

“It’s the Mayans.”  Liz took a swig of her stout, and ended up with a foamy mustache.  “Their calendar ends tomorrow.  They must have known something was coming, and that it would be coming today.”

Phil wiped off her mustache.  “Or maybe they figured having a calendar go 500 years into the future was plenty good.  At some point you can stop making calendars.  You’ll have enough time to make another one in the future.”

Each of them around the table discussed whatever they knew about 2012; the beer making each of them ever more lucid and eloquent.  All the while, the clock approached midnight.

“Look.  It’s beautiful,” said Kate, pointing out the window.  The six friends turned to look as the moon rose…

Outside the window of The Court, high above the wispy cirrus clouds, the sky exploded in a dazzling, draping river of fluorescent greens and oranges.  Sam stood from the booth and moved to the window, staring at the midnight sky.  The aurora flashed and glowed, flowing overhead, completely upstaging the rising moon.  Sam had never seen the Northern Lights, and neither had any of his friends.  They rose out of their seats to join him at the window.  It was becoming crowded at the window, and Nina nearly had her beer jostled out of her hand.

“Hey,” she yelled, but nobody was listening.  They were all looking up at the beautiful sight.  Unfortunately, that beauty was the herald the end of modern society.  Overhead, airliners had lost their onboard navigational equipment.  Their compasses were reading nonsense, lights were flickering in the cockpit and the cabin.  They wouldn’t get any help from navigational GPS satellites, either.  The massive flux of charged particles had completely fried the circuitry of nearly every satellite in space.  That spelled doom for the people of the Earth.

Every appliance, even those not plugged into the electrical grid, shot sparks out of every electrical orifice.  The electromagnetic flux from the sun was inducing a massive current through every metallic surface.  If only humanity had heeded the warnings from those who prophesied about this day.  Every electronic record, every term paper, every baby’s first step, was being wiped out of existence.

The electrical grid in Des Moines was not immune, either.  The lights went out at The Court, and the skyline went black, but the aurora lit the streets like daylight.  Liz grasped Phil’s hand tightly.  Phil turned to look at her, and he finally believed her and the amazing doom prophecies.  His emotions mirrored the spastic flip-floppiness of the Earth’s magnetic field.  He was initially elated to finally understand and experience a new truth that had been shown to humanity.  His blinders had been removed.  Then the magnetic field made him feel sad, mainly because he saw sparks flying out of everything, including the phone in his hand, which hurt.  Then he was happy again, because it was really pretty to watch sparks fly out of everything.

He went back to the table and picked up two unfinished beers, one for him and one for Liz.  She smiled and they went outside to watch the beauty of it all.  Their friends joined them outside as well, looking up into the sky, smiling and crying and then smiling again.  There were also abrupt change in their immune systems, and they began sneezing, but they didn’t even percieve the sneezes, because of the magnetic field.

The airliners, which were coincidentally directly over Des Moines at that moment, were also shooting sparks everywhere.  To the people on the ground, they looked like comets.  But, unlike comets, they had people inside screaming (but some people on the airplanes, because of the magnetic field change, were relatively mellow).

Elsewhere in the world, several species of birds, mammals, and insects became incredibly confused.  They had no idea which way they should migrate, or even if they should migrate at all.  The flocks of birds and insects flew in every direction, each member following what they thought was the right way to go.  It was utter chaos, and some birds even flew into cliffsides, which the rest of the flock ultimately found amusing.  Some plants were confused, too, and they expressed their confusion by wiggling some of their leaves.  Unfortunately, it was windy, and nobody noticed.

The aircraft began raining down around Des Moines.  Kate and Nina felt no fear.  They just stood side by side, drinking their beer.  They were a bit upset that they’d miss their skiing vacation, but this would be way cooler.  Phil and Liz were also drinking beer.  They held hands as the sky burned and fell around them.  Sam was relieved.  He probably wouldn’t have to take that exam tomorrow after all.  He closed his eyes – feeling, then hearing the crunch of plummeting aircraft.  A hand gripped his.  He opened his eyes, and it was Doug right next to him.  Doug’s face was nervous.  Sam arched an eyebrow.  Doug squeezed his hand.  Sam shrugged and squeezed back.  They both looked up at the sky, drinking their beer.

That was the moment a massive climate catastrophe happened.  Nobody knows for sure how it happened, but 10,000,000 years later, a group of evolved dolphin paleontologists began a dig. They wore above-water wetsuits to protect their skin.  Because of the 2012 catastrophe, all the human nuclear power plants spewed radiation all over the world, and the dolphins mutated.  They didn’t have thumbs, but instead they had something like lobster claws where their flippers should be.  The world had been plunged into a prolonged ice-age, and they were digging into the tundra right over where the ancient human city of Des Moines used to lie.

One of the dolphin paleontologists exclaimed in their terrifying advanced click-squeak language that they had found humans nearly perfectly preserved, their beer still frozen in their mouths.  They were put on display in an underwater dolphin museum.  It’s the job of the janitor to clean off the barnacles every week.

THE END?