The world was small, but there were lots of people in it.

Some people’s hats kept the sun out of their eyes.

Other people just stayed in the house.

A nuclear bomb, it was like sitting on a bus heading downtown, morning sometime, and when the bus passed by a building there was a space between that building and the next building, and the sun burst out from that space, big and bright.

Flash.

A big, bright flower one country infatuated with another country gave to that country.

A bunch of nuclear bombs was like delivering a garden, and it was a bunch of buildings and a bunch of big bright suns flashing, flashing.

But none of the buildings fell yet.

It was just all the people on that bus were on their way to work.

Other people drove cars or walked to work jobs that rewarded their efforts with little treat thingies, like cigarette breaks and sick days.

Also, they were allowed to go home and watch television.

There were always lots of things on the television people could watch, like medical mysteries and things about physical deformities, comedy clip shows about children falling on their heads, sitcoms.

Television helped people remember how great and fun life could be, if only they were someone else.

Some people didn’t have to watch television.

They were rich.

They were miserable for all kinds of other reasons.

No one loved them, for one.

But mostly it was because they had nothing to do.

Other people, poor people, regular people, they were miserable because they had to do things no one else would.

After that, television made life seem fun without actually having to alleviate the boredom of it, vicarious boredom regular people weren’t sure was even theirs anymore.

Heroes did things no one else would, but mostly regular people just cleaned toilets and ate lunch after without washing their hands.

Some people, like Joel, had friends and family and got stranded in places far removed from bus routes and mass extinction.

A bunch of nuclear bombs helped cure all the diseases people weren’t immune to yet by killing them so they didn’t have to die of some disease.

Televisions didn’t die much unless people who did things they didn’t want to do couldn’t do those things anymore.

Electricity was expensive and hard to come by if people were on their own, without grids, and sometimes the electric companies which produced and maintained grids went after people if they didn’t give them money for electricity.

Food cost a lot, too.

That was also hard to come by.

Some people had children who liked going down slides or having a mom or a dad push them on a swing.

They ran around laughing with each other.

A bunch of nuclear bombs happened like a pretty garden so children didn’t have to grow up and realize how much fun things like life were before they knew whether or not it even mattered.

It was almost a perk.

A cigarette break.

A sick day.

Telephones rang, and some people answered them.

“Can you believe the world’s blowing up?”

Some people were cooking, and had to reach over a kitchen counter to get to the telephone.

“Yeah, that’s booty.”

Other people had to run through the house from another room hoping the person they might not even want to talk to didn’t hang up before they got to the telephone.

“Why does everything happen to me?”

Some people didn’t have houses.

They didn’t have much to do.

Lots of people envied them.

They were jealous because people who didn’t have houses didn’t have responsibilities, didn’t care, and people who had things to do wanted to live in a world where they didn’t have to do anything but could still eat things and sleep somewhere warm.

First nuclear bombs happen.