I’ve always been told that I’m a sick person, like back when I used to picket outside the health food store sporting a bright neon sign that screamed “DOWN WITH THE VEGGIE MONSTER!”. If an accident occurred I would always been among the first there to experience the gore, and if I was lucky I’d even witness some distraught family members at the scene. It’s the small stuff like this along with many other things people know and never want to mention, that gave me the reputation I have today.
I’m not popular, not one wants to date me and I’m all too familiar with the colourful array of dirty looks people can give. It doesn’t phase me though, in fact it suits my lifestyle almost perfectly. My top priorities are arranging for my very successful future as a lawyer, and deciding what to do with all of my ill gained money. With plans like this I can’t waste my time on silly things like drugs, sex, and friends. Why try to attract people who might get in the way of my education? That’s right, my top priority at the moment was school, but one morning changed all of that.
The night before I had had a dream that a huge character resembling Bluto from that old Popeye show was keeping me away from my homework. No matter how hard I struggled I couldn’t get past him, and after awhile I noticed a constant ticking that was about to drive me insane. As the over sized Bluto would drive me farther and farther away from my desk, the louder and even more obnoxious the ticking grew. Suddenly the very thing I’m trying to get to explodes into a gigantic mushroom cloud. The blast travels in my direction, obliterates Bluto, my entire surroundings, and I am left untouched. Absolutely everything is either gone or unrecognizable, but I’m standing firm and have even gained a nice tan. When I woke up the next morning I was confused because that dream actually left me feeling content with not getting to my homework, and may have even improved my opinion of Bluto too.
So I drag myself out into the kitchen for my morning Mini Wheats and clicked on the TV. Normally I watch what ever cartoons my little brother had left on the night before, but this morning I was craving some bad news. I switch the channel and watch as a very tense woman tells me about murder, earthquakes, bad weather, and an elementary school bus that had flipped over. Suddenly there’s a breaking news cast and a short little scientist is looking back at me from the screen. Usually I’d find something like this interesting, but he was discussing a subject I just could not take seriously.

“Yes Joan,” he says. “Procrastination really may lead to the end of the world.”

Now this is just too much, I’ve done my research on end of world theories and this one takes the cake. There’s no aliens, no climate change, not even any religious figures involved to help support his ideas. How exactly does he expect people to believe that a little laziness could lead them to their deaths? This is absolutely worth exploiting, something Facebook is great for.
When the “rapture” or 2012 was coming people flocked to any picture, status, or group that had anything to do with it. No matter how ridiculous the theory was, so long as it’s popular everyone wants to feel included right? So I sit down at my computer, and start on getting the word out there.

“Oh em gee!” I type. “Dare to believe in the next theory of our demise, dare to tempt fate! Earth is over populated anyway, why not release more from their suffering? It’s recently been “proven” that procrastination just may lead to the end of the world as we know it. Think we will survive now like we did through 2012, or will this really be it? Let us test this theory: for every like this receives I will put off one school project or task at work. Comment and fill us in on how you personally, will play a part in sending us all to our doom.”


I never saw this coming, but it was automatically a hit! Within ten minutes I had gotten 22 likes and 6 comments. Someone had even already attached a photo of their contribution that read “ya ill stop that fire, just after this next checkpoint” and it showed them glued to the TV screen while something on the stove was smoking. Since I had received so many likes it was my duty to these people to procrastinate, so for the first time in my life I told that myself that school could wait until tomorrow. At first it was difficult, like a leech constantly tugging at my brain. Many times I had found myself considering giving up on this brigade, but with all the popularity I was getting I couldn’t even do the dishes.

It amazed me how many procrastinators there are. So many lazy, un educated, and un motivated people were out there, more than I had ever imagined, and they all wanted to be part of the latest fad: death by couch potato. It was great, soon I had completely forgotten school or my job. I was pouring all of my time into these people, these devoted fans. People who couldn’t commit their time to anything except for this Facebook group. For the first time ever I started to feel like I was part of something. I had found a group of people like me, people who taunted the end of days. People who were immersing themselves into what they knew to be wrong and laughing at the rest of the world. I was also beginning to feel a kind of freedom. A freedom I had always chased or tried to invite over with trouble, but it never worked. Who knew that all I needed to do to get it was, well, nothing.
And so procrastination ensued, sometimes I would even find myself trying to avoid getting out of bed each morning. Day after day became more and more routine. Sleep in, put off breakfast for Facebook, eat, Facebook, sleep, eat, and put off Facebook just once to watch some TV before more sleep. School was no longer tugging at my brain, work gave up on calling, and my big future plans were now nothing to me. In fact, I was starting to forget why I even began doing this. Ignorance truly is bliss, but that can only go on for so long before something snaps you back to reality.

On one of my exceptionally lazy mornings I had another one of those cravings for some bad news. Once again I flip on the TV and switch it from cartoons to crimes, bad weather, and the most recent kidnapping. It’s all pretty usual, that is, except for the small line of text running below starchy Joan.


“Casualties reach 84 000 and counting, more updates coming up next…”

I don’t know what to think, I’m just starting to get flashbacks from the last time I really paid attention to the news. A tipped school bus, some rain and a bad earthquake, a small man in a white coat. Then I remembered why I stopped going to school, and why no matter how many angry voicemails work left, I never got back to them. My face had just been glued to that computer screen for I don’t even know how long, but the one thing I did know though was that it needed to stop.

It needed to stop because that little man was looking back at me again from that screen, and he was explaining the rapidly increasing death rate.


“Casualties reach 102 370 and counting…”


They’re just dropping dead. There’s no heart attack, no bullet wound, and no signs of choking. All of them had been missing from work, missing from school, or given up for dead before their heads had even hit the ground. These people were lazy hermits, people who let food burn just to get a little farther in a video game. People who eat, breathe, and sleep nothing but what we thought was just another false prediction about the end of the world. People like me.

The little man in the white lab coat says that if your clock stops, it means your heart is about to. I haven’t checked the time in what I assume to be weeks.


“Casualties reach 373 004 and counting, more updates later..”