Dressing for the End of the World

Written by: Asha Worley

What do you wear for the end of the world? Is it a sweater? A T-shirt? The cute jeans I just got or the sweatpants I slept in last night?

           What do you wear?

                              What do you wear?

                                              What do you fucking wear?

The question spins around my head like a loose top, bumping into the corners of my empty mind. It's Wednesday morning, the Wednesday morning after the Tuesday night. I woke up in the same world I fell asleep in, even after hoping and praying that the hours before had been a sort of deranged fever dream. Instead, it’s 8 a.m.. My hair is unwashed, my eyes are puffy, and my stupid phone is pinging a constant stream of texts and news updates, reminding me of things I already know. It’s a bomb I ignore, a distant promise of an explosion in my face that might take an eye or an arm with it. Whatever. Let the phone ring. Let the bomb tick away. It’s all background noise, anyway. It doesn’t matter.

             Fuck.

                      What do you wear?

It’s a lot to ask of someone heavy with a strange grief. Honestly, a lot to ask of anyone at 8 a.m.. Do I stay in my sweats? Curl into my bed? Pull the covers over my head like a scared child? Skip my classes? Sleep the day away? Arise only for the Dunkin’ I promised myself I would stop buying? Do I fall into my mourning headfirst, a great pool of election results and polls?

I could—oh, I so easily could. I could hide from the world. Let the weight of it all press me down and feel it. Cover myself with every blanket, every ounce of bedding I can get my hands on. I ache to become some sort of turtle and recede back into myself for safety. Instead, I find myself standing, unsure if it’s bravery or stubbornness or just pure inertia that keeps me there. I briefly wonder if I’ve handed myself over to some great power, one that makes me stand and jump about like a marionette.

            But no.

There is no being from above pulling my strings, no other entity to entrust the wheel. There is only me standing in an empty room, unsure of why. And then, as if responding to some distant primitive call, I begin to move. My jeans are around my waist, T-shirt over my chest. Today I leave the house. Today I go to class. It doesn’t matter what oversized hoodie I pick up from my floor or what pair of socks cover my feet. It doesn’t matter what you wear to the end of the world as long as you show up.