Apocalypse

The body was found by the maid. She arrived with the week’s shopping ready to do a deep-clean. The house stood an acres of forested land and was a monument to minimalism. Its angular, white body perched on steel legs. From a distance it resembled a spacecraft that landed for a quick visit but was not there to stay. Inside, sleek, floating shelves protruded at odd angles, bare of photos, books, or personal touches. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls and polished tiles turned the space into a labyrinth of reflections. Had there been a crime, it would have been the perfect crime scene. Surfaces wiped clean, no clues left behind as to who had been there and why.

 

The maid entered th ehouse using her key card, stocked the fridge. She never spoke with the owner. He had hired her through an agency and all communication between employer and employee was via text messages. Whether the man had a family or children somewhere, or what he did for a living, the maid did not know.

 

She was already finished with the kitchen, the living room, and was going to attend to the master bedroom. The hallway leading to the bedroom was dark, narrow, and there was a collection of masks displayed on the walls. Some were smooth and pale, featureless except for hollow eyes that seemed to stare right through her. Others were carved with grotesque expressions, twisted smiles, frozen screams, eyes wide in silent horror. She took a deep breath and squinted her eyes to obscure her vision. The masks unsettled her, and she did not dare stare at them.

 

She knocked on the door before entering, just in case. There was no response. She pushed the door slowly and held it open with her foot. She reached for her phone to turn the volume up. Some audiobooks were low in quality, but contained useful information, nevertheless.

 

The apocalypse is not only destruction but revelation. It is the moment when the disguises of our age fall away, when the lies of empires, the illusions of progress, and the comforts of ignorance are stripped bare. The end, then, is not simply the falling of the world, but the terrible clarity of finally seeing it…

 

She slid her phone in her backpocket and raised her head. She froze.The audio continued to play.

 

What humanity fears most is not the fire or the darkness, but the moment when nothing remains concealed and every soul must stand within the full, unshielded truth…

 

She stared at the man lying face down on the hardwood floor. His body was locked in a low crawl: one arm reaching, one elbow braced, chest to the ground, a knee drawn forward and the other leg stretched back, motion arrested in mid-advance.

 

“Sir…are you ok? Sir?”

 

He did not respond. She nudged him with her foot. He did not stir. She shuddered and took a step back. The blood in her ears was thudding. Part of her wanted to run, but something made her stay.  She still had the headphones on, and the words of the audiobook reached her again, crawling back into her awareness.

 

Each person is a mystery to everyone else. Even the people we live with, love, or see every day carry secret lives we may never glimpse.

 

In the following weeks, the tabloids ran sensational pieces about the man. They speculated endlessly about the cause of his death, fabricated theories about the man’s life, how he came about his wealth, his alleged affairs, habits, beliefs, quirks, and perversions until the public got tired and bored and moved on to the next big thing.

 

The maid received a text message from her agency informing her that her services will no longer be required. She found employment at another agency, continued to pay her bills, and raised her children. Over the years, she gained access to the homes of several people but never got to know any of them.

 

Her children had grown and left home, and she had retired into quiet solitude. One afternoon, her landlord, eager to collect the overdue rent, entered her tiny apartment and found her motionless, pale, rigid, frozen in her armchair. The faint voice of an audiobook floated through the room.

 

Just as God remains veiled, so too are we veiled from one another. Every person carries a private world tucked behind their eyes, a life of thoughts, fears, and desires that no one else can fully enter. We are strangers even to those closest to us, moving through each other’s presence like shadows, glimpsing only the surfaces while the depths remain locked away.