I read the notion, on some scientifically correct web site (so many stack this Library of Babel; who can recall? it’s book-marked, some-place, on one browser or other), that a comet emerges from the cold black Greater Than. Expected to punch out Gaea’s lights in June, 2085.
“Why must you kick me down, grasping?” she cried. “You promised peanut butter cookies and chocolate cream cheese. And chill hugs – better than nothing…”
“Oh, please. I’ve never laid a hand – or foot – on you and never would. Ok? Quiet.”
She settled, briefly, for a lower pose.
The article said this comet was larger, faster, discovered close, relative to light-year measurements and what-not, and carried a kind of steadfast certainty not in keeping with calculations of random risk. This sky flake of ice dust was “streaming the upper fuzz course limits of strike orbit” and similar scientific cockle-doodle-do. The words “Gigi-ton collision estimate” struck somewhat more powerfully than all the Ivory Tower jargon.
She said, “These night-terrors of dream-fighting exhaust every possibility of distance. I mean, the physical. This fucking sucks.”
It’s just a giant snow-ball, and calculations of objects newly seen are premature, at best. But these astronomers mean business. The comet is predicted to strike right on time. Direct line of impact. 2085 is not exactly “tomorrow,” but still.
“My land-lord’s mom died,” she said. “Just telling you.”
Who can cope with such absurd demands? Courage, strength, wither in turmoil of such mood discomfort. It’s not like anyone can help. These situations are immensely stressful.
“Give me art and send me dick,” she snapped. “Shits and giggles. Crap a better hurt today?”
All this uncertainty. “Exact out-gassing is slim,” the sky-gazers say. “One in 120 million dealing tails,” or something like that. They really should have some kind of lay interpreter, a regular human being who speaks English, or some language that can be easily translated on-line. Darkness expounding upon darkness, with arcane equations jammed in to further clarify and perplex. Well, the overall message is clear: many centuries of accumulation will soon be forcefully removed. No second acts or evolution of another species or anything like that. Just absence, lingering miasma of gas and dust.
“You god-damned Hannibal Lector sadist! You offer nothing but shame a la carte and a side of vomit. Nothing lost on you, you arrogant prick!”
I imagine there’ll be heaps of publicity around year 2084. Casinos run amok. Bet the house; what can you lose? Perhaps Science will develop a comet-smasher. Repel the ice with fire or lasers or some heavy plan the media will hype as Operation Comet Intent.
“Grief. Sadness. Tender death,” she mumbled, a heap of nothing on the rug. “You distort me.”
Some things…not even the hot-shot scientists can predict. Regardless. Evidence fades. Eventually.