did i survive the rapture?

Last week, I talked to a coworker and discovered she believes in the rapture. I chuckled at first, casting the idea of a rapture aside as an unreasonable conspiracy — that is, until today.

Only a week after our conversation, I walked out of my apartment complex’s glass doors to find the usually crowded streets of midtown Nashville completely deserted. I made my way to my favorite bagel shop, expecting the usual line spilling out the door. Instead, I found…no one. 

That’s when the panic hit me. What if the rapture had happened? Or worse, what if it had taken my trusted bagel guy? The guy who always manages to know what cream cheese I want to try before I do? 

I breathed a sigh of relief when he appeared from the kitchen, his Yankees hat firmly in place. I always wear my Yankees hat to the bagel shop because he compliments it, and I’m not sure he would recognize me without it. Then I let myself think, could that be how we survived the rapture? 

I let my bagel cure me of my senseless anxieties and headed to the restaurant where I work. But when I got there, it was empty. There were four servers and three customers; I was the only one with a table for an entire hour. They sent me home after two hours, a freedom that turned my rapture suspicions into a real investigation. 

By the time I stepped outside again, the sky was already dark. I Googled it and learned some people believe the rapture will be a secret, only known to a few. Was I wandering through a post-apocalyptic Nashville and didn’t even realize it? I went to the grocery store, partly to see if shoppers had vanished and partly to capitalize on the potential rapture-induced efficiency. And while I can’t say for sure if the rapture has happened, I can say this: I’ve never had a faster grocery trip in my life.