I’m just picturing these two men, terrified as their world erupts around them. They’ve got no time to say goodbye to their friends and family, nor could they even find them amidst all the chaos. It was an ordinary day moments ago. Merchants, teachers, children, artists, writers, beggars, noblemen, farmers — people these men might’ve known and recognized — have dropped everything and they’re now screaming and running through the streets. The sun is blocked by an immense cloud of ash, like some creature that’s escaped from Hades to bring doom to the world. Everything is dark.

And these two men. All they can do is look helplessly at each other. They both know they’re going to die, and that they will be the last to see each other alive. No words pass between them, and instinctively they reach out to each other. This is it. The air is unbreathable and they can’t see anything anymore. They can only feel each other, and so they squeeze tighter, desperately holding onto the only piece of humanity they have.

One of the men is determined to say some final words to his companion before they turn to stone and lay there in a silent embrace forever. He takes in a final lungful of that hellish air, and through his coughing and spluttering he manages to say two vital words: “no homo.”