Wow, we did it. Today marks the 1,000th day in a row we have reported on the strange, mysterious, and weird world we live in. Never thinking that we would reach this goal, we wanted to celebrate by doing a couple of things. First, we are going to explore the ways in which our team of writers would like to spend their last day on Earth with the world ending around them. Some will be prophetic, others will definitely come true, and some will make you reflect on the thin line between life and death we all balance on every day. This is the angle we shoot for.


Second, following this post we will be taking a hiatus to charge our batteries, work on creative projects, and plan for the future. However, don’t think that this is the end, it’s only the end if you think the story is about us. But trust us, we will be back when the world needs us most, which the way things are going, will likely be in January. And please continue to submit stories, we will be stockpiling them for when we come back.


Now, without further ado, the people who make this thing work, the Eritas Daily writing staff.


Maggie. Honestly I’d just want to spend it with the people I love. Just being together. Preferably, I would want it to be Christmas morning, and for none of us to know it was the last day so we could just enjoy it. We get up and make biscuits and give each other presents and then everything blows up during a post-lunch nap and we all die in our sleep. Is that grim? That feels like it toes the line between hopeful and really, really grim.


My funny answer is diving in Loch Ness to look for Nessie.


Stephanie. It comes as little surprise that the end of the world draws near. (I mean, you guys could see the four hoursemen and think it’s a reboot of True Grit. Look around you.) And by the end of the world, I mean the end of YOUR world. Vampires live forever. To celebrate the dying whimper of your species’ short, but action-packed reign, Irma Vep is going all out. After a long night of terrorizing capitalists, crooked priests, sorority girls and dance moms, I’ll sit back with a smorgasbord of vampiric delicacies: souls on ice with a dash of hate for kick, a bottle of blood I’ve been saving since the fall of the Greeks, and the Hope diamond, which I nicked from the Smithsonian just for the occasion.


Andy. My alarm went off at 6am just like every other day – but as my eyes opened, I knew it wasn’t just any other day, it was my final day on this earth. I walked downstairs and kissed each of my five kids on their forehead and asked them if they had their bags packed. I kissed my beautiful wife and our eyes said everything there was to say. I walked to my office, coffee in hand, and opened my laptop and pressed play on a Spotify soundtrack I’d created just for the day to get my mind right. I smiled and relished what was about to happen and the years of preparation that had led to this moment. I then typed in a 13 digit code and watched as the wall behind my desk began to retract. My wife and our children all equipped with matching backpacks and tracksuits walked in to the beats of our home stereo pumping out tunes. I took her hand and grabbed my go-bag and said, “Who’s ready for an adventure?” We walked across the metal bridge from my office and entered the passenger capsule of our family’s greatest group project, the family rocketship. As each of us taking a quick look back at the world we were leaving behind, we took our seats and waved goodbye before beginning the countdown: 10, 9, 8, 7…


Caroline. My ideal way to spend the end of the world includes a heist. Not a normal heist, a fun heist. Many won’t believe it’s the last day on earth due to poor news coverage on Fox News. As the sky turns from a peaceful blue to a blood shot red, (well more of a pantone coral than red), many won’t be aware of what is happening. Some will believe the spotlights the government has been passing as the “sun” for all these years has finally burned out. Others will believe believe Mercury is in retrograde again. The heist begins early afternoon. I’ll have a map of all my loved ones homes. Home after home, I’ll steal a useless article from the home (spatula, key hooks, Bibles). Almost like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but not green and nothing like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. After collecting these articles a bonfire is set up in the park. There is no need to start the fire, the sky will be shooting sulfuric acid on the grass. One by one, we reveal the articles I stole from the houses of friends and family. Sharing stories centered around those objects, we realize the stories aren’t about the objects. Instead, the stories star the people who interacted with them. This shows that even the most insignificant things in our life point us back to each other, the most significant things in our life. Later on someone has brought a Cards Against Humanities deck (never a wrong time to make your family uncomfortable). As the Cards Against Humanities game heats up, so does the earth. The aliens, scoping out their new home, notice the bonfire and stop by to check it out. Intrigued by the card game, the aliens ask to be dealt in.  Quickly, the aliens are confused by all the abortion jokes and start to feel a little insecure. They quickly steal the game and run back to their UFO. I am content with the miracle of life, love, and never having to explain what a MILF is to my mother in a game of Cards Against Humanities.


Kevin. I’ve never believed in the idea of “so much to do, so little time,” which, now that I write it out, I’m less convinced is a common phrase people use, and maybe just a remark that a handful of movie characters have said to transition dialogue to the next scene. Regardless, when I think of how I’d want to spend my final hours on the cusp of the apocalypse, I’m glad I won’t be a loser, because I won’t have “so much to do,” I’ll only have one. The only thing there’s ever been for me to do: defeat Nazztok the Mighty, General of the Upright Lizard Batallion, who slew my family on the eve of the vernal equinox. I won’t have “so much to do,” because I’ve already done everything else. Guns: loaded. Sword: sharpened. Shield: hardened. Baseball bat: nailed. Pockets: full of Clif bars (for energy). I won’t have “so much to do,” because all my tracking and interrogating informants is complete. He rests nightly atop the Liberty Bell Credit Union tower downtown, only settling into his nest on the top floor once all the elevators are shut down for the night. He thinks this makes him safe. It does not. You cannot cut power to the stairs and you cannot quell the bloodlust of a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it, tearing through wave after wave of upright lizard grunts scrambling to protect their leader. Even though the stairs end at floor 55, the window washer’s scaffold can ascend the remaining eight. And with the furious storm of the void breaking in the sky above me, promising an end to all, I will tear Nazztok asunder, dicing him with sword, thumping him with bat, gatting him with gat, and braining him with shield. Then, I will be able to walk gladly into that maelstrom at The End, knowing that his life was cut shorter than the rest of ours. There is not “so much to do.” There is only this.


Colore. I snap apparate into place at the bar in Tokyo, sit opposite of the barista, to admire the slow intention of craft. An espresso clinks on the counter, which causes me to blink back to my journal. Writing in the earliest hours of a day in a new city stirs me. I wonder what else I need to say. I want to see the Japanese cherry blossoms in their peak, apocalypse permitting, simply because I wanted to see them. Snap again to take myself to New York City, the dream. I walk around until my legs can’t carry me anymore. Hold my hand and walk me to the edge; I want to stand at a high point to see out to this world, either desert or near-infinite ocean by now. From places, I can observe and think. The faces of people I love flash in my mind. I consider last meals. I have never felt strong in my answers. Goodbye-to-decision fatigue. Of course, I’d still want to check my iPhone before I go. I realize, now, it will not serve me.


Ben. There’s a difference between a bucket list and how you’d spend your last day on earth. With a bucket list, the idea is to do everything you haven’t accomplished yet. For me that’s watching The Godfather trilogy so I can stop pretending I’ve seen it. Visiting a few places, like where they filmed the moon landing or the set of the critically panned 2000 film The Grinch. Appearing on a Jumbotron at a major sporting event and waving wildly, pretending I don’t know my wife when the Kiss Cam turns to us. But assuming you don’t know the exact date of your last day on earth (hint: sooner than you think, maybe not as soon as you’d like), the bucket list flies out the window. You don’t ever see the horse head in the bed. You don’t get to impersonate Jim Carrey on the Whoville mountain. The only Jumbotron you appear on is the obit section of the newspaper, if you’re lucky enough to have a living relative who puts down the cash to list your stupid hobbies to strangers. So on my last day on earth, I’m bypassing the regrets and queuing The Grinch. I don’t care if it’s December. It could be summer for all I care. It could be today, bring it on. Don’t get anyone on the phone. If they’re not in the room to watch this piece of film history with me, tough luck. They should have seen this coming. I know every line of this movie and can’t remember their birthdays. In the words of a young and spritely Who, “We’re gonna crash!” I’m ready.


Nathan. In the last few years, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to think about the end of the world. Whether due to the climate changing, the plague, nuclear war, or all of the above and more, I have come to feel a certain peace with knowing that of any generation before me, these fears are most valid. So, when I think about my last day on Earth, there are a lot of ways I think I could spend my time, but the moments where I actually thought to myself ‘The world could end now and I’d be happy’ were when I was with Lene, cutting each other’s hair or playing Wheel of Fortune or just singing to our playlists in the car. On my last day on Earth, I’d want do all of those things again. That sounds pretty perfect to me.


On a more serious note, I would try my best to become the Green Goblin.


Holly, Omar, & Lauren were unable to contribute because they want to keep their last day on Earth a secret and we don’t want to mess with that.


Thank you again for everything so far. We’ve had a blast doing this and hope to continue doing it for the rest of time. However, while it is still 2020, don’t forget to order your Void/Abyss 2020 stickers here.