The day the world was supposed to end was a Friday, but nothing had happened by nine p.m. that night, so I sat at home watching tv, trying to run out the clock. Every once in awhile I’d look out the window to see if the sky had turned red, or if there was some giant gaping abyss where my backyard once was. Y’know some real crazy s*** like that, but there wasn’t. It was raining though. “Real wrath of God type stuff.” I laughed by myself.
Around 10 o’clock I got a call from this kid down the road. His name is Buck Randle, and it's important for me to tell you before we get into the thick of this thing, that Buck Randle is a crazy person. You see he’s a bit of a druggie and a bit of a partier, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him outside of school when he wasn’t tweakin’ on something or other.
So I think you understand what he wanted to do that night, I mean let's not be delusional here. I drove over to his house because no one was around to tell me not to. I wouldn’t have listened to anyone anyway. People are dumb and quick to judge when they see you hangin’ around a guy like Buck Randle.
Buck lives in this large colonial house that’s hidden by a long driveway and these thick trees. His parents are never around. I think they’re Wall Street people, but Buck always tells me that his dad’s in the Mob and his mom’s just a trophy wife.
He saw me pull into the driveway, so when I rang the doorbell he was already at the door. He stared me down for a little bit then he took his sunglasses off and put them in front pocket of his red woolen shirt.  “Ike, you sonuvabitch good to see ya. It’s been a while.” It hadn’t been, but I let it slide.
I followed him into his house and down into his basement. The whole place didn’t smell too nice, I kind of expected that though. The basement was a mess, empty pizza boxes, and crushed cans of Natty Ice all over the floor. A girl in a black sleeveless top and spandex was passed out on his couch. Her name was Sally Paradise, I’d known her for a while, she was one of those really hard workin’ girls in school. I never really thought she was as bright as she made people think she was. She probably liked Buck because she liked the shape of his jaw and the way his green eyes looked and she probably overlooked his behavior because of it.
When I saw her I looked over at Buck who let out a bit of a sly smile. “Lightweight.” He said in a quick chuckle. He had lit what appeared to be a thin cigar and was blowing the most perfect smoke rings I’d ever seen. “Hey man you want somethin’, like a coffee or somethin’ like that.”
“A coffee?? It’s the ten o’clock at  night.”
“What can I say Ike, I’m an erratic bastard”
“An erotic bastard? You coming’ onto me?”
“No, erratic. Like unpredictable.”
“Uh-huh.” I said. He passed me the cigar, I breathed in through my mouth so I could french inhale. “You think that cult leader is disappointed.”
“I heard he killed himself.”
“Coward” I said, “If the world is gonna end I wanna be there to see it. I’d sit on a porch with a drink watching as the squares turn into savages and start beating the crap out of each other.” Buck wasn’t paying attention, he was looking over at the couch. Sally had woken up.
“Ughh, what time is it.” She yawned and stretched. Buck was over there in a second making sure she was okay.
“Hey baby it’s alright, you were out like a light for a couple hours there. You okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine. What time is it.”
“It’s late, really late. Too late to go home anyway, but don’t worry. You see that boy over there, his name’s Ike. He’s a bit of a loony but he means well. He’ll protect ya, he’s a good kid and all. Not like me y’know.” He winked at her and grinned. She kind of did this half smile, showing her dimples, but not really showing her teeth. “You want something, like a coffee or something like that.” Buck asked.
“Do you have tea?”
“Tea? Sure baby I’ve got tea. You want tea? How many sugar cubes do you want in your tea?”
“Two.”
“No problem. Ike you want some tea?”
“Sure, one cube.”
“Sounds good.” Buck left, and Sally kinda slumped back into the fetal position on the couch. The cigar was still in my hand, I inhaled franticly. I was a little nervous, a little skeeved out about the whole scene. Buck can be a real sleaze around girls sometimes, especially the real innocent-looking ones.
I grabbed a can of Natty out of a mini fridge and turned a ball game on. The stuff was starting to hit me pretty hard by that point. The whole place felt like it was shaking and my head was growing numb.
Ike came back with the tea…
He saw me with the cigar and said, “Jesus Ike you’ve been smoking that thing this entire time? You better be careful. You'll lose your goddamn mind.” I chuckled, but I didn’t give him the cigar back. He walked over to Sally and shook her, “Hey baby wake up. I got you your tea.”
“Thanks.”
Sally sat up on the couch and faced us. We started talking about some quasi-intelligent topic for a little while. I don’t remember it real well. Then Buck urged us to get up and sit outside, so we did.
“Watch the world go bye.” He said. It was a bit of a crumby night if I’m being honest, It was cloudy out, and you couldn’t see the stars real well. But I had drank all my tea and there was no going back. So, I didn’t really care that I couldn’t see the stars. As far as I was concerned that wasn’t part of the agenda anyway.
For a while Buck stare blankly into the sky then he’d say something stupid like, “Man, it’s crazy how the world is round.” or “Man, it’s crazy how we see things. You think the colors I see are different than the ones you guys see?” Then Sally would let out a very heartfelt, “Yeah.” As if she found some sort of philosophical value in the trite ramblings of this drunken teenager. In reality she probably wasn’t close to being coherent enough to truly recognize how boring and meaningless that night was. God knows I wasn’t, so I nodded and applauded Buck for his insight.
After about an hour and a half of staring at the sky on a spring night, we decided to head in.
Something wasn’t quite right when we walked back inside. The walls were different, more colorful, vibrant and radiant. There was music playing. I guess I didn’t notice it earlier, but I noticed it now. It was very loud. Every note felt different and unique yet complete and consistent with my mindset and the song itself. It was as if every note had a story to tell. Every lyric was poetic, deep and insightful.
Then in the middle of my musical delirium I began to float, probably not really. I began to fly, away from anything I guess, reality maybe.  Everything started to have this weird jangled correlation. Like some demented surreal poem that pulls it all together at the end. For the moment I thought it was a nightmare or a dream or maybe it was all real, maybe I was awake. I couldn’t tell.
It was clear that the world was ending. The earth was cracking, and the sky was falling. The panic was setting in. When I looked up, Buck and Sally had left the room, and then there was no room, just a endless plane. I stood up, but I stumbled and fell deep into the freshly formed abyss in my head...
I woke up in a stupor in the early hours of the next morning.  I yawned and stretched then walked over to Buck who was passed out face down on the floor.
“Buck….Buck….Hey Buck wake up….”
“Whaaa?….What’s going on? Who are you? Where are we?”
“Buck what the hell's wrong with you, it's me Ike, and this is your house. What are you mental???.”
“Don’t speak too loud it’s early.”
“I was just whispering.”
“You were quietly shouting.” Buck took another thinly wrapped cigar out of his shirt pocket and lit it in front of me. “Ahh man that was rough, you okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine.” I looked around, still a little confused as to what happened, “Hey uhh… where’s Sally.”
“Sally?? Who the hell is Sally??”
“Sally Paradise? The girl you had over last night.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah!?! Where is she!?!?!”
“Oh s***! Where is Sally?” Buck said, taking a hit from the cigar.
“Lemme get that.”
“Of course.” He passed me cigar, then I passed it back and this went on for a little while ‘til we were both nice and giggly.
“Should we go look for her.” I asked
Buck laughed, “I mean I guess so. Haha that’s kinda nuts.”
“Haha yeah, pretty nuts.”
Without standing up, Buck yelled out “SALLY!!....SALLY!!! WHERE ARE YOU!?!?!”
I did it too, “SALLY!!! SALLY!!!” I yelled.
“SALLY YOU MANIAC WHERE THE HELL ARE YA!!!!”
“SALLY!!!”
“SALLY!!!! HERE GIRL!!!”
“She’s not a dog you moron! HAHAHA!!!”
“HAHAHAHA!!” 
That last one really got Buck, I had him dying, and then he had me dying. We were laughing like hyenas, barely able to keep it together. Of course what we hadn’t realised at the time was that Sally Paradise had driven home around four in the morning and had wrapped her Jeep around a tree.