Land of Gods and Heroes

You hear about it on the radio, stuck in traffic on the way to work. You glimpse it written in big, bold type on the stacks of newspapers on the street corners as you dash past, late to school. You hear about it from the man who’s always on the corner of 5th and Greenwood, yelling that the end is near with his wooden sign and trashbag cape. Maybe, if you’re unlucky, you hear about it from the too-chatty boy in front of you in the never-ending Starbucks line. Or maybe you don’t hear about it until it’s too late, days after when you won’t even make the connection between the events that happened then, and the events that are happening now.

If you know, you know this is what happens: A meteor streaks across the night sky for weeks. Everyone sees it coming, burning white on dark blue until it’s so close and so bright you can see it in the day. Maybe you try to make a wish on it, or maybe you mock someone who does, or perhaps you realize wishing on meteors is nothing but nonsensical superstition, but when it’s the size of a quarter in the sky above your city you are well aware that is is not good luck at all.

But it is happening, and there is quite simply, nothing anyone can do to stop it. Superman will not fly up and punch it into pieces, there will be no plan to divert its course with magnets, not enough muscle to pick the earth up and push it somewhere else.

Fortunately --not necessarily for you, though definitely for the human race and at least three other species of earth-dwelling creatures including a rare but ecologically important species of boll-weevil -- it lands right in the middle of your city’s large, centrally located park. It crushes three trees, scares a flock of ducks, and two elderly bicyclists. It also completely destroys a large, unsightly piece of modern art made by a not-very well-liked local artist.

It sits there smoking in the grass, and it’s cordoned off with yellow police tape and surrounded by legions of police and scientists and one crying artist and the man from 5th and Greenwood, who seems notably calmer now that the end has actually come.

First, there is silence. Then there is the awed murmuring of a voyeuristic crowd. About two hours and twenty minutes later, it has lost all novelty, and the city bounces back fast.

By noon the morning of the meteor collision you’re back on your way to work, or school, or the Starbucks where you’ll do your damndest to avoid the too-chatty boy who’s always in front of you in line.

By 4:13pm, the meteor has cracked open. Like a huge, ugly egg, it splits down the top in a ragged uneven line. You hear about that because wherever you are, the TV monitors perched high in the corner of the room have been broadcasting live from the park all day.

Nothing comes out except smoke, but you.

You’re starting to feel strange.

It just so happens that today your life is about to change. Maybe you won’t notice. Maybe you won’t connect the changes to what happened today. But today is definitely, definitively, and completely the day your life changes forever.

What will you do?