Planet Killer

It just wasn’t right. In fact it would never be right again. The sky was blackened even though it was the middle of the day. The bodies of the fallen were lying on the streets in various stages of decay. The smell was unbearable.
.....All around him was death, destruction and utter devastation. The world he knew had disappeared, almost as though it had never really existed. Love, commitment, the small pleasures of family life….these all belonged to a past that was becoming a fading memory.

.....It was all blackness and despair.
.....But what made it even worse was the reality that he was the one who had caused all the misery around him. He was the destroyer. He was the cancer that doomed the planet.
.....It wasn’t supposed to be this way. All he ever wanted was to live a decent life, to fit in, to be a good American. Just like everyone else.
.....Those lying on the ground rotting were really the lucky ones. They didn’t have to see the fruits of the evil that he had released from the dark nether regions. He did.
.....He really couldn’t escape from the reality of the situation, no matter how hard he tried. Even if he put a bullet into his head, he would still be haunted forever—haunted by the realization that this tragedy could have turned out differently if he had just thought things through a bit more.
.....“If I had just not gone to McDonald's that day,” he thought to himself, “then none of this would have happened.” But the lure of the Big Mac Value meal ($4.99 including large fries and a soft drink) had gotten the best of him. Not only did he have the value meal, but he felt compelled to top it off with a McFlurry for dessert. “That’s what probably really did the planet in,” he speculated to himself. But in reality, any single part of that meal—the hamburger with the goopy sauce and wilted lettuce, the golden fries that tasted like no natural potatoes he ever tasted before, the supersized soda in the reusable “High School Musical” cup, or the sweet, delicious McFlurry with its irresistible toppings—any of these could have been the culprit.
.....He gorged himself that day until his belly felt ready to explode. It was then the strange sensation hit him all of a sudden and without any warning. He made it to the bathroom just in time and thought that his troubles were behind him. But he was wrong about that—tragically wrong. For out of his bowels that day sprang the hideous creature brought to life by the dark, secret experiments of the McDonald’s Corporation® (please note that neither the McDonalds Corporation nor any of its affiliates bears any responsibility for acts of planetary devastation caused by the consumption of its food products). That creature entered the sewer system and joined up with its fiendish friends who had escaped from the intestines of other value meal fans and linked up together to form

A MONSTROUS AND DIABOLICAL ENTITY

THAT ENDED ALL LIFE ON EARTH

AS WE KNOW IT

...all life, that is, except that of the one man who had caused all this to happen in the first place. A man who ironically appeared to be resistant to the nasty pathogen that turned everyone else on the planet into those stinking heaps of genetically modified protein-like substance that were now rotting in the midday heat.
.....“If only I had thought things through,” he repeated to himself, “if only I had resisted the urge to fill my belly with cheap, unwholesome food, then quite possibly we’d all have been spared this. I suppose I could have had a bean burrito instead. As far as I know, there are no horrible, genetically fabricated monsters lurking in that kind of food.”
.....But it was too late for bean burritos now. Or tofu stirfrys. Or veggy lasagna. Or any heart-healthy, ecologically sustainable fare. He had to have McDonald's and now the entire world was doomed to a slow agonizing death and all human achievements were wiped out in the twinkling of an eye.
.....“Well,” he thought to himself, “if the world had to end anyway, I’m glad that I had the Big Mac and not just a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.”