By 7th-Grader Penny Andreas

Wednesdays, Blog students respond to creative prompts. Sometimes, as in Penny’s case here, the creative response morphs into a full-fledged blog post. This particular prompt was borrowed from Poets&Writers: The Time Is Now: “Page as Canvas,” Fiction Prompt.

   Noah Baumbach’s film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise, Sam Esmail’s forthcoming film adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind, HBO’s miniseries adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven—novels with apocalyptic themes are appearing on screen more and more. Whether through satire or stark realism, this suspenseful setting allows writers to explore profound themes of survival, friendship, trust, hope, and resiliency. 

Poets&Writers

Our bloggers’ assignment: Inspired by apocalypse novels, imagine the end of a modern civilization. What follows is Penny’s response in verse.

---

The last string. 

The end of a modern civilization

The shortening of population

The stop of an endless creation

The ruins of a unhinged foundation

But the beginning of devastation 

The start of agonizing situation

The rise of a falling nation

The awakening of isolation

The abrupt stop of our rotation

The question of never ending hibernation

Something of no explanation

Something without any information

Something beyond imagination

The ending of our generation

The beginning of separation. 

The endless echoes of screaming

About what’s beyond our dreaming

Nothing’s real, as it seems

That it’s all been some scheme

Whether it was life or death, 

And endless stream

Of life taking away the giving of what was meant to gleam.

But now all we see,

Is the decay that now lies at our feet. 

The years of endless heat

The cracks below the concrete

The things that were incomplete, 

The wrinkles and folds,

Permanent on our sheets. 

But now forget about the things 

That devastation may bring

But as we lie here in silence, 

We hear the earth breathe

Only for a few seconds….

Before we pull the last string.