Don't Fear The Reaper (8 page)

December 10 2006

Daily Mirror

METEORS THREATEN MANKIND!

Meteors
headed for Earth!

Paul
Radcliffe

THE
AMERICAN PRESIDENT
announced yesterday that a meteor is headed for
Earth. The announcement came when rumours and speculation caused a panic in the
U.S. The president confirmed that there is a meteor on a collision course with
our planet.

The sudden, harrowing news threatens to create a widespread global
panic. The discovery itself occurred on December 7 2005 when teenage amateur
astronomer, Kyle Freeman, discovered an unusual “object” near the stars Mizar
and Alcor at a Star party in his hometown of Franklin, Tennessee, with his high
school’s astronomy club.

Kyle’s high school teacher, Patrick Furlong, who organised the Star
party, alerted professional astronomer, Paul Horner, who realised that the
object was a meteor on a collision course with Earth.

Horner (41) died on December 7 2005 in an automobile accident prior to
his being able to alert the world.

The largest meteor is suspected to be roughly a mile or two in
diameter when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere in twenty-one days’ time. The
effects cataclysmic. However, meteorologists and scientists are in agreement
that life on planet Earth will not become extinct.

*

Crestfallen
by the global news of pending disaster, Rev Perkins folded the newspaper and
left the One Stop convenience store in a daze. The ambience in the queue where
townsfolk usually made pleasant chat (the weather, sport, etc.) was filled with
melancholy so profound the store’s walls seemed to close in on him.

The Christmas tinsel and colourful bulbs that came on in the evening
snaking around the lampposts caused a pang of sorrow in his chest. This time of
year was supposed to be about the Lord Jesus. A time of celebration and for
families and friends who hadn’t seen each other all year round due to working
commitments to gather around in front of a hearty fireplace and rejoice. Children
would wake early with fervour and excitement at what gifts lay under the tree
bestowed to them as did the three wise men in the biblical yarn.

The card shop across the road in front of the pelican crossing should’ve
been bustling with customers, purchasing cards in abundance for those they
cared about. The pavements at this time of year were overcrowded with shoppers
and commuters hoping to make a healthy profit.

Yet there was none of that. The roads weren’t jammed with vehicles. No
one jostled from one store to the other. No one shook hands with friends who
would be travelling to see relatives, wishing them a Merry Christmas and a Happy
New Year. Instead the frostbitten roads and pavements were empty, forlorn in
appearance, and Perkins couldn’t help think that this was merely a prelude of
what was to be the future if anyone managed to survive.

Scalding tears pooled in his eyes, blurring his vision until they
mercifully spilled out and trickled down his cheeks. He dried his eyes,
relishing the cold fingertips on his eyelids, cooling them.

A discarded newspaper was swept down the main road of the small town,
coughing pages and pages of the story that made all other news trivial in
comparison. Shops had been abandoned. There was no point to doing anything
ordinary anymore. The townsfolk’s spirit had been destroyed since soon the land
they lived upon would be in destroyed in the ensuing weeks. No one had any urge
or need to want to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

And who could blame them, Perkins wondered? What had they done as a
planet to deserve this pitiless demise? Individually there were bad and evil
people prospering when they ought to have been suffering, but as a whole for
all the sins and mistakes the population made on a daily basis, Perkins truly
believed that there were still too many genuinely good people to forsake.

Or was this merely coincidence that some of the astrologists and
scientists were claiming that asteroids and comets had been entering the
Earth’s atmosphere ever since the dawn of mankind and before, and that it was
only a matter of time before something like this transpired.

Perhaps God didn’t really exist, and they’d been fortunate as a race in
the first instance to have lived for so many centuries without mass
destruction. Perhaps they ought to be grateful for the time they’d had and
accept their fate (which there was nothing they could do to prevent anyway)
without complaint.

Shaking his head in utter disdain, Rev Perkins walked home.

When he reached the grey stone-walled vicarage and fished out the key to
unlock the front door, the reverend had the sudden urge to hurl the two bags of
shopping into the tall grass and bellow to the heavens in rage at what he used
to believe in. His rage he knew was induced by his foolishness for believing
all his life that God had saved him as He would save all those that lived by
His example and were good to others and kind to themselves.

The familiar layout of his one-storey home welcomed him. He closed the
door on the world outside, hoping to close the door on the world’s problems and
his outside too.

He made himself two ham and cucumber sandwiches, selected a Bounty
chocolate bar and poured himself a glass of Diet Coke. Using the remote device
he turned the TV on and leaned back in the one-seat sofa and went through the mundane
motions.

The rugby match which according to the week-old TV guide was due to be on
had been replaced by a special news programme titled ASTEROID HITS EARTH!

Perkins couldn’t quite understand the BBC’s logic of drowning the
enervated hope of those poor souls who still prayed and crossed their fingers
that they would be spared and that the prophecy wouldn’t be as cataclysmic as
predicted.

Why, he wondered, could they not just show a film?

His equanimity was forever duelling with his vexation, and details –
although trivial – such as striking more fear into the hearts of the nation and
the world was the reason if Perkins was a gambling man would wager vexation
would win.

Knowing my luck if they did put a film on it’d probably be
Armageddon!

He couldn’t be bothered to change the channel. Other programmes listed
had most likely been altered too; it wasn’t singularly the BBC, he supposed.

In the newsroom the presenter was facing a man in a dark suit with spiky
grey hair wearing expensive looking spectacles. Perkins used the remote to turn
the volume up, chastising himself for doing it, but doing it anyway.

‘What viewers want to know above all else, is there a chance of
survival?’

The man in the suit who worked for something called the PDA, an analogy
for Potential Devastation Asteroid, shifted in his seat.

‘I wouldn’t like to say for certain, as no one quite knows what the
impact will have. However, I am an optimist by nature and truly believe that as
long as we take proper precautions then a great number will survive.’

Gail Summers, a dark-skinned, anchorwoman with high prominent cheekbones
gave her full, undivided attention to the expert. ‘But this is an unprecedented
occurrence, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, no asteroids have ever struck the Earth
before, have they?’

The gentleman shook his head and raised his index finger. ‘That’s not
true, actually. Lots of asteroids have been detected to have entered the
planet’s atmosphere, but most aren’t anywhere near the size of the largest one now
destined for Earth. They usually break up into smaller pieces. However, the
most renowned asteroid ever known is the one that hit the Earth 65 million
years ago. It is believed that the asteroid threw so much moisture and dust
into the atmosphere that it cut off sunlight which lowered temperatures
worldwide and caused extinction...’ He left what he stated hang in the air not
for effect but due to its imperativeness.

‘Two-mile wide asteroids are set to hit the planet’s surface at about
30,000 miles per hour. The asteroids are so large and travelling at such
velocity the energy is equal to that of a megaton bomb. It is probable this
would wipe out most the planet,’ he went on. ‘This type of impact would be
disastrous. The amount of debris and dust thrown up into the atmosphere,
blocking out the sun and natural daylight would cause most living creatures to
perish.’

Gail had grown still and silent all of a sudden, lost for words.

‘If the asteroid is the size of a house that hits the Earth at 30,000
miles per hour it’d possess enough energy to flatten reinforced concrete
buildings up to half a mile from Ground Zero. If the asteroid is as big as a
twenty-storey building (200 feet on a side) it has the amount of energy equal
to the largest of nuclear bombs made today between 25-50 megatons. This
asteroid would flatten reinforced concrete buildings up to 5 miles from Ground
Zero.’

Gail picked up her tall glass of water with trembling hands and took a
much-required gulp. Then put it back down on the desktop harder than she
intended. No one noticed, or if they did, they didn’t care.

‘A half-a-mile wide asteroid would wipe out the U.K. and if it struck the
ocean it’d induce massive tidal waves hundreds of feet high that would expunge
coastlines in the vicinity.’

The PDA scientist’s brow gleamed with sweat beneath the lights in the
studio. ‘All we can hope for is the asteroids are relatively smaller than the
largest one is predicted to be and hits the ocean as far away from the
coastline as possible, thereby reducing the damage and loss of lives.’

Struggling to find her voice, Gail was glad the gentleman sitting
alongside her had finished his analysis with the word “hope”, if not for the
viewers’ sake then her own.

Unnerved, Perkins killed the TV and sat, still holding a half-eaten
sandwich, not at all hungry in spite of his protesting stomach.

From what he gathered from the news was that there would be life after
the asteroids; although how much life and in what capacity was left to the
worst fear of all – the unknown.

*

In
the ensuing days, Anthony Perkins had read the newspapers and watched more
shows on TV regarding the asteroids and Doomsday. However, the prophet of the
Vatican church, bishop John Hayes had told him about, persistently clawed to
the forefront of his consciousness.

The conflicts in Israel and Afghanistan, the third world countries dying
of starvation, and the mysterious fog and the mad hysteria that it apparently
induced, plagued the world with misery and suffering. None of that mattered
now. No race was greater than the other. No sex was the superior of the two. 

No nation dominated the others. All the aspects of the world and life
itself were forgotten. Everyone was equal. Everyone alive faced the same
harrowing fate.

St John’s Church was empty, save himself. He had arranged to meet with
John this morning at the church instead of at the village café. That was
another pleasure enjoyed that seemed like a thousand years ago.

When his friend and colleague arrived he looked as Anthony felt –
harried. They were so constrained with anxiety – scarcely containing the panic
raging within; instead of sitting in the vestry they positioned themselves on
the back row of the pews.

‘You’re not the only one whose faith is wavering,’ the Rector said
without preamble. They didn’t have time for greetings and cordial chat.

‘My sister is due any time now,’ Rev Perkins said, not acknowledging the
Rector’s brusque comment to start their conversation. ‘She’s without a husband
and needs all the support she can get.’

The bishop didn’t conceal his agitation.

‘I’m gonna go and be with her in the next week or so,’ Anthony went on,
unperturbed by the Rector’s noisy exhalation. ‘But I just wanted you to know
I’ll be here for you every day till then.’

John Hayes removed his thick-lensed spectacles and knuckled his sore
eyes. ‘I thought you’d be running for the door by now, cursing God and all of
Christianity.’

‘My faith in God may be on the rocks,’ Anthony said, ‘but my faith in
people like you will never fail.’ 

The bishop offered a smile. ‘Very nice. Poetic even.’

Rev Perkins turned away, disgusted by the sarcastic remark.

‘No, I mean it.’

Perkins tilted his head back and regarded the rafters overhead, seeing
the daylight illuminate the colourful translucent depictions on the
gothic-style windows. ‘What’s happening to us?’ he asked no one in particular.
‘No one comes to church anymore these days, except the elderly; afraid ’cause
they’re standing on death’s door. But what about the others? Maybe this isn’t
about anything else than bad luck or punishment of being too concerned with
ourselves and secular desires. The Pope spoke to the public yesterday about how
we needed to have faith… no one listened. Other ministers preaching around the
world aren’t truly speaking on behalf of God. Have you heard them? They stand
there giving an oration, speaking of good and evil and love and hate colliding.
And yet, if one looks close enough you can see the pride and the joy surfacing
on their faces, overwhelmed by how many parishioners and media attention
they’re getting. All they care about is their fifteen minutes, and if you
believe in God then the meteor will leave you unscathed. Pardon my language –
but that’s complete horseshit!’

The Rector couldn’t protest Perkins’ outburst, as it was all true. He’d
seen ministers in the U.K.; the Archbishop of Canterbury, and ministers the
world over, raising their voices so they were almost shouting over the masses
of followers about the End of Days. He had to admit the religious freaks were
as bad as the terrorists, murderers and other people who cherished nothing
sacred but their materialistic gifts… as if they would make a difference.