In 2020 the world ended. It was not a whimper, nor a bang. It was October and I woke up with a headache. I sat up in bed and the muscles in my back pulled tight. My legs, my arms, my neck. Everything hurt. My Covid test was negative, but my head kept spinning. The back pain only got worse. Some days walking to the grocery store around the corner was too much. Months passed. I managed to set up a Christmas tree, but come January I couldn’t scrape together the energy to take it back down. Canceled plans mocked me in blue ink on my calendar. I woke up in October, every bone in my body hurt and to this day, it hasn’t stopped yet. The world ended for the second time that year, but this new apocalypse was just for me.
For doctor Robert Neville, the world ends in 2009. A vaccine meant to cure cancer mutates and infects most of the population with a murderous virus. Everyone infected turns into a zombie-like creature. As the world descends into chaos, Neville, who works as a virologist for the US army, insists on staying in New York City. He lets his wife and daughter evacuate and retreats into a makeshift lab in his basement to try and find a cure. When the audience meets him, three years later, he is the last known survivor in his private apocalypse.
Neville’s sense of time has come to revolve entirely around the sunrise and sunset, indicated by the beeping of his watch. The numbers of hours and minutes mean nothing to him anymore, but time is of the essence. There’s only so many usable hours in the day, because he needs to be home before the sun goes down. After dark the zombies come out of their hiding place to torment him.
He takes every precaution, booby traps around the perimeter of his house, over the counter painkillers, bleach on the front steps, a brand new cane, armored doors and windows, but nothing stops the sound of zombies howling.
He sleeps –I sleep, curled up in a ball, waiting for morning.
Can you even call it insomnia at that point? Does it even matter? After the end of the world, these words have lost the meaning they once held.
“It’s Not the End of the World”, a publication of essays about disability and the post-apocalypse, will be published in July 2025.
The work explores an antagonistic relationship between bodies and their surroundings —wherever it may arise.
After the end of time, the rules no longer apply. Neville rushes through desolate Manhattan streets. No need to stop at a red light, stick to the speed limit or even to the parts of the street that used to be designated as ‘road’. Dark alleyways become potential threats. Buildings that used to be familiar are now off limits. Traffic rules and laws are replaced with an unwritten, embodied knowledge of the city.
Meanwhile, my bike gathers dust in the garage after exhaustion and muscle weakness set new standards for my life. As I become fully dependent on public transport, my relationship to my city changes. The last bus leaves at around midnight, so that’s my cutoff for most parties. I cannot risk ending up in a full train because I cannot stand upright for that long, so I plan my days around rush hours. If friends want to meet up in the dunes, a thirty minute walk from the closest bus stop, I know the backlash I’ll face from my body if I go. Sometimes it’s not worth it.
