The Choice

       In life, there are choices we must all make, unavoidable and always changing. These choices are big and small, but each holding its own weight and having ramifications reaching farther than most would care to follow. The choice to get up and go to work, or to call in sick and take it easy, could go much deeper once you look past the surface. Say you called in to work and your wife came home unannounced with another man; had you went to work that day, you would be blissfully unaware. On the other hand, say you did go to work, and on the way a gas tanker jackknifed and killed you and twenty other people. That's cause and effect for ya, and it can be a pain in the ass. What if you were given a choice so monumental that it affected not only those around you, but every last thing on the planet?

        It was midnight, and I was fresh out of work, when I got the choice that changed everything. I was at a stoplight on the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and 108^th Street, jammin out with the radio, when a black male wearing a skull face bandana and black hoodie shoved a silver Glock in my face, yelling for me to get out of the car.

        I had been mugged before, and this time was the cherry on top of the shit Sunday I had been handed in life. “This guy isn't gonna shoot me if I just drive off,” I said to myself, just before trying to gun it through the red light. I called the wrong bluff and the carjacker shot twice… the first hitting me in the throat, and the second in the side of my head.

       I was killed instantly, and he drove off with my car as I bled out in the street. There was no tunnel with a bright light or any stereotypical after life cliché… just bitter terrifying darkness. Not like a dark room, but a void absent of anything but myself. So dark I couldn't even see my hand an inch in front of me.

        Soon came a man’s voice, not very loud but loud enough, as though it was on the edge of my mind, or barely within earshot. It called my name and recounted the last moment of my life, which I felt was a disgustingly unfair death, because I was a good guy. Had I been a gang-banging punk, it would be more fitting, but I worked hard and never got in anyone’s way. As the voice spoke, dark smoke rolled past my feet, creating a platform, as far as I could see, on which I now stood.

        I was not a churchy person, or God fearing, but by no means an atheist either. I had just never seen enough to believe or disbelieve, and the place I was in had a similar feeling. The man told me to turn around, and a few feet from me there was a round black pedestal with a large red button on top. In the already black void, the pedestal shimmered at the edges to create an outline, but it was the red button that demanded my attention. I questioned the button over and over in my mind, knowing very well that the voice would tell me its purpose.

        “Do you know me child?” The man called out to get my attention.

        “God?” I sheepishly replied.

        “In life, you knew me not. But in death, there is no doubt in you about who I am.”

        I couldn't say a thing as my mind shivered in fear of damnation. My eyes were locked on the button the entire time he spoke.

        “Before you is a choice, both simple and complex, more important than any decision of all your fore fathers. I have grown tired of humanity and their debaucherous, arrogant ways. I see it fit that a man of your age (only 38) and of your belief, neither in God nor against God, should choose the world’s fate. The choice is this… Presses the button, and the entire population of the planet shall be reduced to zero. Those whom were good, equitable people will receive eternal salvation, as will any child under the age of seven. All others will be judged on their actions, for those who were neither good nor bad shall forever reside in limbo. Those who were evil and inequitable will burn in the pits of hell and will not be given a chance at redemption. This choice I give to you.”

        Bringing myself to speak before God was a near impossible task as my voice hid in his presence, so for a while I sat silent, judging all of the people I knew. Sorting my family and friends according to who I thought would be joining me in heaven and who would end up in limbo. As for the evil people of the world, my mind did not think twice about condemning them to hell. “How many people,” I asked myself “would I be denying a chance at redemption?” If God thinks me worthy of judgment, then I must be; so, I continued.

        My thoughts then shifted to my nieces and nephews and their innocents, two of which are teenagers, but pretty good kids from what I hear every few months. One is nine years old and too young to truly offend God, but it was the youngest that I thought of the hardest. Four of them were under the age of seven and guaranteed a place in God’s kingdom, by his own words.

        The world is a much scarier place than when I was a child, and even then it was scary. The planet seems to be convulsing as earthquakes level third world cities, and tsunamis decimate the coast lines. Nature has turned rabid from constant polluting and strip mining, as we steal what we want from a well-oiled machine and give it in return, poisonous clouds and rivers. We use weather modification weapons in secret to kill our enemies, with no thought to what the high density microwaves or scalar waves will do to the ecosystem. We blindly blaze a trail in the name of scientific discovery, rarely finding cures for sickness and disease, but always finding new ways to kill each other. We create new disease and weaken ourselves by pumping all kinds of vaccines and medicine to avoid the common cold. New super flues, impervious to common medicine, have wiped out one tenth of China's population. Children are beginning to sexually experiment by the time they hit fourth grade and are fully active by sixth. The divorce rates are so bad that only six percent of marriages last past ten years, and the number of bastard children dumped on the state is up by fifty six percent. The world is spinning out of control, and I have been tasked with ending the evil for good.

        I held my hand over the button and called out to God.

        “I have chosen, and I chose to end the evil and to save the innocent.” I confidently stated as my hand began to fall.

        As the button clicked, the smoke at my feet became fire that rose around me, consuming my flesh. I had chosen wrong.