[ WP ] One day , everyone has numbers floating above their heads . However , these numbers are completely arbitrary and do n't represent anything . Describe the effects this would have on society .

It seemed that no matter how deep of a sleep I was able to manage, the cold steel was always there. As the world slipped away into the fragile unconsciousness that had become sleep, blackness consuming everything until there was nothing, there always remained that cold reverberating steel that my jowls were now perched up against. You know when you see a bright flash through closed eyes and it leaves behind the white imprint, an outline for several seconds? The steel was the white imprint, no matter where the antique shotgun rested, it stood out in the back of my head, a piercing reminder of what has happened, of what I've done. 
 
 I've lost track of the days since what is now known as the'Countdown' began. Four years felt right, but there was just no way to know; the entire infrastructure of the US went out of service within three weeks of the Countdown, one of the best infrastructure systems in the world, and all it took was 3 weeks of dumbasses not showing up to work for it to all go to shit. If you were to meet a group of survivors, that lets say for examples sake, were n't trying to kill you, and you asked them how the countdown began, you were likely to get an entirely different story from each. The truth is, nobody knows how it started or why, and frankly, it did n't matter. All I know is, my countdown had started on a Tuesday. 
 
 Three weeks ago I killed a man. I know it was with the antique gun that had become an extension of my own wasting body that had done it, but there's no memory of it. Like in a college lecture when you're paying attention and then all of a sudden you've got the thousand yard stare and realize you've been staring at an uninteresting spot on the wall for the past 5 minutes and are onto an entirely new topic now, the last 5 minutes seeming to have just disappeared. This time the uninteresting spot on the wall was instead the back of a mans head exploding out, painting the wall behind him in the closest thing we have left to graffiti. Maybe I'll be the next Banksy. I ca n't remember it though, I ca n't remember killing a man, but I can remember that Tuesday. 
 
 I woke up to my Mother lighting shaking my shoulder. There's only a couple different series of events that could lead to the confusion that enveloped me in that moment. I had been dreaming the dream that every guy has had, the dream that every guy had. I was in the school cafeteria, surrounded by beautiful Asian pregnant women in kimonos. Two of them were feeding me grapes as I impossibly reclined in the torture devices known as a cafeteria bench, one of the women walking over to me, her hands slowly moving up the giant bump in her belly, making their way towards the cinch at the top. I was perhaps moments away from her untying the knot, and me maybe getting a better glimpse at my mother issues to be, when the world shook, the cafeteria was gone and instead was replaced by the frightened face of my mother. She had obviously been crying. The makeup on her face had already ran and dried in black streaks down her cheeks. She had made no effort to clean them up, or hide them. My first thought was I hope she did n't notice my erection. 
 
 In the next few minutes she conveyed to me, abbreviated by gasps for air as she melodramatically wept, trying to turn whatever it was she was trying to tell me about into something about her, that there had been a brutal murder down the street. The Wilkson's. Jeremy Wilkson was my best friend since middle school. I had had dinner at his house not three nights earlier. His parents invited me over as often as they could, as it was no secret about my home situation; my Mother the neurotic, father the alcoholic, and then me, Mick. I always referred to the Wilkinson's as a'real family.' The real white picket fence type. Ate dinner every night together, volunteered at the soup kitchen on Saturdays, church on Sundays, game night on Mondays, and mass murder on Tuesdays. I was told that there was yelling coming from the Wilkinson's backyard, which for a family with 4 kids is n't terribly unheard of, but I guess it must have been bad this time because one of the neighbors called the police. It was within the next several minutes, in just the amount of time it took for the police cruiser to respond, that Jeremy had grabbed the antique shotgun hanging on the mantle, somehow loaded it, and systematically rearranged the insides of each of his family members and finally himself. I was n't surprised to find myself feeling jealous, Jeremy always did know how to make an exit, and just like now, it was usually while leaving me behind. My mother did n't know it at this time, but I would later find out through the seemingly infinite amount of news reports touching on the incident, that Jeremy had been having what they called a break down. Each report had minor details changed up to try and convince whoever was watching that their info was different from all the other stations. They all had one thing in common though, Jeremy was outside waving his hands in the air and pointing at each of his family members, Screaming that time was running out, that his family was stealing his time. Moments later he would steal theirs. 
 
 My father used to tell me that you can never be the best at something. I'd come home from losing a tee ball game, and in those brief hours of sobriety between work and when the beer was finally chilled, my Father would sit me down on the bed of his truck. The very truck that I would be riding in 4 years later with an antique shotgun being used as a pillow. I imagined a Tempurpedic logo on the side of the barrels. He would look at me and in as close to caring as he could sound he would tell me `` Mick, there's roughly 8 billion in the world. Do you know what that means? That means that you could be better than the entire other team, all 15 of them, Hell you could be better than anyone in this this entire state, and you'd still have 8 billion other people to compete against. It'd just be impossible to be first out of 8 billion ya know kid? You just have to do the best you can, otherwise you'll never meet your own standards. If there's one thing I've learned over the last couple years, it's that there's nothing worse than letting yourself down.'' He almost sounded like he meant it. But he was wrong. You can be the first, just ask Jeremy. 
 
 Any confusion about what Jeremy had been screaming about was cleared up within the next couple of days, as each person would wake up to find a neon green number just floating above everybody's heads. Nobody had any clue what they were. 
 
 I say fuck Darwin and any other theories on how we had evolved and became the dominant species on earth. I'll tell you how it really happened. We got bored. Humans are unique in that when we get bored, shit often follows. This can be seen everyday on the internet, you take enough people, put them in front of all the information available to man and nothing else to do. Eventually they'll put together that the kid who just murdered his family, screaming about time running out, and what looks to be an alarm clock appearing above everyone's heads happening a couple days later might just be connected. I hope society survives and the history books accurately report this part, because I think it is the truest, most meaningful testament to mans both greatest strength and weakness. The only people to figure out that Jeremy had been the first to see the clocks above everyone's heads were two online users going back and forth in the comment section of a video titled `` My first day of college.'' As the video played out a rather graphic scene of a young college girl meeting her new 12 black male roommates, the two users went back and forth making the connection, and with each click of submit they drew civilization one step closer to its last day. 
 
 

