The Essay I created based from "The Road."

Doomsday is Coming?


Let me give you a little back round about me. I am very picky when it comes to reading books. Some people might frown down on me because I don’t read a certain number of books in a given year. I don’t like reading books that have small print. I hate the new fantasy books, like the ever so popular Harry Potter’s, or The Lord of the Rings. I prefer factual books, and I now love to read books about the end of times. Why, you might ask. That’s just who I am. I could remember my father trying to force me to read when I was in grade school. I believed that reading was boring and should only done for getting good grades. But recently after reading a certain book, that all changed.

Just recently the Spring 2008 semester was about to started. I picked my classes and bought my books. One book amongst the vast majority, was a medium size all black book. The title was “The Road”. At first glance I didn’t think that much of the book. I originally thought it would be just another book someone else thought was interesting and thought it should be apart of the curriculum. Then one day I came home from work. I was fried from working on the computer all night, and the last thing I thought of doing was reading for fun.

I went down to my basement, where I live in my parents house, and glanced at my

pile of school books. I felt a sudden chill of dread. The dread of the up coming semester and the reality that I would have to read all those books. For some reason that night I went to investigate my dread. The first, and only, book I picked up was called “The Road” by Cormac MacCarthy. At that very moment is when it started. I opened the first page and started to read. That night I experienced something that has never happened to me in all my twenty six years; the book grabbed me and did not let go.

I began to read “The Road” and I could not put it down. For three days, every chance I had, my eyes were fixed to this book. I was fascinated by the subject matter and the plot. It was mainly about two people trying to survive after a great cataclysmic event. The two people were, a little boy and his father. They never mention their names, or say what happened to the earth. Their only will and purpose to survive; is the belief that if they travel south to the sea everything will be okay. Along the way they scrounge for basic sustenance, and try to escape the cannibalistic gangs that roam the very road they are traveling. In a world completely covered in ash, they are at times the only living souls.

After reading this book, I wondered why this happened to me. I never got so attached to a book in my life. I later came to realize that it was not a renewed love of reading that captivated me. It’s the idea of the end of mankind or society as we know it. I am not a sick person, at least I think I’m not. I wonder, like anyone, if in my lifetime I will experience something as fantastic as the end of times. Since the day we are old

enough to remember, we are always reminded that everything living has an end. Television programs always remind us that someday we could be in the bulls eye of a giant meteor or asteroid that could end life on earth as we know it. I mean look at the Dinosaurs. They flourished for millions of years and one day a large rock from outer space decided to knock on their door and made them extinct. This could happen to us.


I also started rent movies with such titles as, “The Day After Tomorrow,” “28 Days Later,” then “28 Weeks Later,” “I Am Legend,” “Armageddon,” and “Independence Day.” All these movies dealt with the end of mankind in one way or another. I regard these movies now, as some of my favorites. These movies strike my fancy because I am curious. It makes me think of what I would do if I ever faced a situation like that. I find myself asking, would I just give up or would I fight to survive like the two people in “The Road?”

The book also made me think back to September 11th 2001, when the World Trade Center towers were attacked. I remember thinking the end of the world has begun. I remember going online and buying gas masks for me and my family and stock pilling food and water in my basement, just in case. I also looked back on the year 2000 and the Y2K bug. I remembered people stock pilling gas, and all other products to help them survive the end. Now after reading “The Road” I now believe that you can not prepare for the end. The characters in the book didn’t. They were just lucky. They lived off the frightened peoples stock piles of food that were long dead.

The Road made me addicted to watching a programs on the History Channel about the second coming and the Mayan calendar, and Nostradamus. I found it fascinating that the Mayan calendar stops at December 21st 2012. They say our galaxy will be in a certain alignment with the sun. They say this shift will broaden our view of the galaxy with two astronomic events that will only happen every 26,000 years. Experts and theorists say this is when the end of times will be among us. Like The Road, I was again captivated by the program and the subject matter. I started to think is this a sign. I finish reading a book about the end of man, and now I have a date to go along with it.

I am starting to believe that The Road has started to make me a little paranoid. I went years with out really thinking of the end of times, and now after reading “The Road”, I can’t get it out of my head. I started having dreams about the book. Dreams about me being the older man from the book trying to survive and get south to the sea. I also had a dream of Hitler in WWII, beating America and getting their hands on the Atomic Bomb. After that dream I realized this book has made me obsessed on the subject of the end of time. Now I read and watch anything about the end of mankind.

This book affected me so many ways. This books opened my eyes to other books and made me realize that not all books, the professors pick, are boring and educational. I now look for any book that deals with the end of times. I watch any program I can find about the subject. I find myself no longer paranoid, but almost anxious and kind of excited to see what happens in 2012. Will it be like the Y2K, when the time comes

nothing happens or will it be the real deal? Who knows, but after reading “The Road” I now feel like if it happens there’s nothing we can do about it. To this day it still makes me wonder if Doomsday is coming.

By: Adam Underwood