Writing exercise: It's five minutes before a massive meteor is set to directly impact the Earth. There are plenty of theories on what will happen, but they all share one grim thing in common: the near-certainty that humanity will be extinguished. Write from the perspective of someone waiting during those final five minutes.
Writing exercise writer's note: I left this for a few months, having struggled to come up with a better ending than just stopping abruptly. I also wanted to make it better fit the parameters of the exercise (spoiler: the exercise goes on after the meteor hits). Instead, I've decided to post it as is because the pursuit of perfection is noble but also dumb when I could be pursuing another imperfect writing project. I reserve the right to come back to this some day. Enjoy!
I’m looking at the battery indicator on my MacBook. It estimates I have just over four hours of juice left. That should be enough. More than enough, really.
I’m sitting on a large, weather-smoothed boulder, legs dangling off the edge, the MacBook precariously balanced on my lap. One wrong shift and off it goes, bouncing down a rocky hill to its inevitable destruction. It would cost a thousand bucks to replace but I’m not concerned. Laptops are about to become a relic of the past.
Three days ago an amateur astronomer in Hawaii spotted an asteroid ten kilometers wide.
The boulder I’m sitting on is in a park on the coast, near Vancouver. I look out at English Bay, the water is sparkling and calm, and then look up, trying to imagine the asteroid against the soft blue of the mid-summer sky. I can’t. I can’t wrap my head around a chunk of rock ten kilometers wide, not one hanging up there impossibly in the sky.
Big asteroids blasting the Earth are pretty rare. The last one this size came down 66 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs.
This one was sneaky—if you can imagine a ten kilometer rock being sneaky—in that it came toward us from the sun. It wasn’t until its trajectory curved out and beyond the blinding light of our solar furnace that anyone knew it existed.
I saw the amateur astronomer in Hawaii interviewed twice. The first was on discovery day. He was gleeful, practically bouncing off the walls, unable to contain his excitement. Amateurs don’t make a lot of these discoveries. The second interview was this morning. He was ashen and never looked directly at his interviewer or the camera. He appeared to have lost weight, though I wasn’t sure how he could lose enough for it to be noticeable in just three days.
A sneaky asteroid—that is, one arriving largely unseen because the sun has obscured its path—is not necessarily a bad thing. But in this case it is. Its path is predicted to intersect with our mostly lovely planet with a 99% degree of certainty.
In about five minutes, if estimates are right.
There are ideas on how to deal with these kinds of celestial threats, but that’s all they are–ideas, theories on paper. We have nothing prepared.
The first day was one of confusion, but a growing sense of panic was palpable by nightfall. The second day was confirmation of the worst from many sources. Political leaders made awkward speeches calling for calm, offering reassurances that were naked lies. Then they disappeared. The end of Day Two spun off into bedlam.
People didn’t exactly riot here, but there was a lot of looting. Police initially attempted to keep order but quickly retreated. Then everyone retreated. The city streets filled up as people attempted to get out. The few remaining looters were swept away by crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Violence was inevitable. I managed to pick my way through back yards and alleys to escape unscathed. I came here, to this park, for the end. And for the view.
Fires dot the skyline. When I turn my head to the east I count nine columns of smoke over the downtown core. There are more beyond that. I appreciate the irony that the destruction began before a single speck of meteor dust entered the atmosphere.
The likely point of impact—also with that reassuring 99% degree of certainty—is the Pacific Ocean, which I am looking at. A breeze is picking up, but it’s just a breeze, gentle and refreshing, carrying the cool tang of sea air. While exact angle and speed of impact are yet to be determined—or maybe I missed the report amid the chaos—it’s reckoned that Ol’ Snuffy (my name) is going to leave a dent in the planet roughly 200 kilometers from where I’m sitting. It’s not Ground Zero but it’s close, relatively speaking. I looked up the effects on the internet—also about to become a relic of the past—not because I’m ghoulish but because I like going into situations with my eyes open. You know—give it to me straight, doc, how bad is it?
The good news is I won’t be vaporized.
That’s actually not good news because vaporization would be swift and painless.
I can see it in the sky now. Even this far away, there are streaks descending. They said it would break apart and once again those brainy scientists were right. I suddenly gasp and realize I’ve been holding my breath. My brain is trying to process a lot of things right now. If those internet sites are right, I could be dead and gone in fifteen minutes. Or I might survive. If I do I will find myself living in a world transformed into an unrecognizable hellish landscape. That could be interesting.
I count the streaks. There are eight that I can see, slowly fanning apart from each other. One of these glows bright, too bright to look at directly, almost a mini-sun, the core of Ol’ Snuffy making a beeline.
I look at the clock on my laptop. 3:21 p.m. A sequence of descending numbers, like a countdown.
My first kiss. Should I be thinking of that? It’s one of those first meaningful moments, so I suppose it should come to me swiftly and with fond remembrance. But I’m not sure who it was. Suzanne? Peggy? Jennifer? I don’t want to claim I was some kind of scoundrel, but I had a definite “kiss all the girls” phase and it rolled straight into kissing for real, advancing beyond kissing and running away before finding out what happened next.
3:23 p.m. now. The streaks have vanished over the horizon. I hold my breath again.
It was Peggy. I’m sure of it. I had a mad crush on her. Red hair, freckles. She liked to arm wrestle and she could beat me since I had scrawny scarecrow arms. I have no idea where she is now.
Nowhere safe, though. The scientists told us no such place existed.
I experience it first as a vibration that comes up through the boulder, tickling my bottom. The horizon suddenly changes, the fuzzy white sky is suddenly cast in bright colors—orange, red, mixed with muddy browns and blacks. Ejecta. The fact that I can see this from two hundred kilometers away is impressive. I could be terrified but am fascinated instead. How many people will ever see something like this?
The shockwave hits next. I don’t know how long it takes to reach me. It feels like minutes but is probably seconds. I am swept off the boulder. The MacBook blows away as if made of paper. I tumble onto the ground but am fortunate that recent rains have left it soft, almost spongy. I roll up against a cedar and remain there, unable to move for a time. I hear a loud crack, then many loud cracks, like a series of explosions.
For a moment it gets very hot. I wonder if I will be boiled in my own skin.
The shockwave passes.
I slump away from the cedar and realize it is no longer standing. Most of the trees have been snapped and lay flat. I wonder how none came down on me. The boulder has shifted to the left and looks a little wobbly. It must weigh a couple of tons.
My hair is a mess.
I stand up and see blood on my hands. Rivulets of blood run down both arms. My legs threaten to buckle but I manage to stay upright, for the moment, at least.
Apparently it is more than my hair that is a mess.
The ejecta is spreading out now, an ever-expanding mushroom cloud of debris. Acid rain will start falling soon. I’ll need to find some place to hide…for the next six months to a year.
I laugh. I didn’t expect to survive. This kind of sucks.
The rain shouldn’t be a problem if those internet sites were right, though. Something else will come first. I cup a hand to my left ear and listen. The sound is muffled, like it’s caught in a bottle. Did the shockwave shatter my eardrums? I don’t think so because I definitely hear something.
A distant roar. Is it real? I think it is.
The mega-tsunamis promise to be as tall as skyscrapers. They will be impressive sights.
I don’t swim very well.
I stagger over to the boulder—my right leg hurts like hell, there’s probably a broken bone or two shifting around inside—and set a hand against it to steady myself. That’s enough to start the boulder rolling. It lumbers down the hill, picking up speed before plunging over the edge and landing in the water with a satisfying dunk.
I fall over, too weak to stand unaided, and curl up, leaving the right leg extended. I am facing away from the water.
I want to see.
With pain bursting like bombs in my right leg, I shift until I am propped up on my elbows, looking across the bay. I can’t hold the position, though, and collapse onto my back. The sky above is still hazy blue, as if nothing has happened. As if this is all a dream.
My dreams never have this kind of continuity, though. The roaring is louder, much louder. I loll my head to the left. There is a cedar stump still stuck halfway in the ground. I could prop myself up against it. But even though it is nearly close enough to touch if I stretch out a hand, it looks very far away. I don’t think I can do it.
Instead I lay back again, pushing my head against the soft, spongy ground. I close my eyes.
The roar grows until it hurts my ears. I make feeble motions to cover them but give up. I wait for the tsunami to claim me.
It is geography—the earth itself—that saves me. Vancouver Island absorbs most of the energy of the tsunamis, and the waves that make it through the strait are big but not deadly. I feel water come up around me, nearly buoying me, then I settle back onto the ground as it flows by and eventually retreats. There will probably be other waves but my swimming skills aren’t going to be tested.
The sky’s transformation is hastening, though. The threat of a burning rain draws near.