Boom

Chapter Nine

Megan and Oliver got back in bed; there, once again, they took solace in one another's embrace, for between them there was an unspoken understanding, or perhaps sense of resignation, that all they could really do now is wait out the cosmic storm. They prayed together briefly; and afterwards they lay together in silence, waiting for the violence in the sky—the cacophony of sound and light—to end; for this night to go back to being like any other night. But the booms and the flashes went on, and on, and on.

"It's not stopping," Megan whispered, her head pressed against Oliver's chest.

"It will. It has to."

She took his hand, kissed it. "I'm glad I'm with you, no matter what."

But Oliver seemed not to hear her. "It has to stop, Megan. It has to stop. Because if it didn't stop, if there was another big one that came through and hit the earth, well, then—then it wouldn't be fair. You know? It wouldn't be fair."

Wait a minute, buddy, Megan thought, taking his hand. Don't come apart on me here. I need you to be strong so I can be strong.

"Fair?"

"And I just can't believe it'll end like this, Megan," he went on in the gloom. "I can't believe it that, any minute now, it could all just disappear, that everything could just be—boom—wiped out. Everybody, everything…gone in the blink of an eye. It's not fair. Do you hear me? It's not fair."

He was silent then. Megan got the feeling he was embarrassed. She stroked his cheek.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment.

Yep, he’s embarrassed all right.

"That's okay."

"No, really, I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to act like this."

Megan held his chin. "How are you supposed to act during a meteor shower?"

She thought she saw him smile at her question, but wasn't sure.

They were quiet again.

And the quiet suited Megan. It allowed her to think, to assimilate the possibility that this deluge of space rocks was really just the warm-up for a much larger meteor, the Big Mama that was going to break the Earth into a trillion shards of universal debris, or, even if it was the Not-So-Big Mama, still sufficient to wipe out most of the planet's life forms. Wasn't it supposed to be a meteor strike that had led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, once the dominant species on this world? Was it now Man's turn to be destroyed, to make way for the insects or the amphibians?

She was amazed that here, at this moment, fearing for her life, for her husband's life, she could pull off a little silent philosophizing.

***

It was the last, alone now—greatly reduced in size, but not destroyed. The Earth's defensive shield of heat and air had mostly held tonight; however, this one, like two of its peers before it, was going to survive.

***

Holding on to her husband's body, trying to control her breathing, her fear, and her strange exhilaration that this could be her last night alive, Megan found the wherewithal to ask herself the question:

What if the universe just isn't designed for life?

It frightened her at first, the idea that life, so exalted here on Earth, might actually be an aberration. Yet, in the face of an event such as this, she couldn't run away from it.

What if the normal state of things is actually lifelessness?

What if normal planets are supposed to be cold and barren?