There was a time when the world wasn't going to end. I wish I could tell you that it was a better time, that people were nicer then, that the skies were bluer and the water was cleaner. I really wish I could. But things just aren't that simple. The world has changed in that one, brief year. It's stayed the same, too. You know what I mean, right?
It's a planet that will do us in. Not Mercury or Venus. Not Jupiter. Not even Pluto, the almost-planet. The scientists call it XK-17664. The journalists have nick-named it Shiva, but probably not for any real reverence to the Hindu god. Most likely some poor intern did a Google search for "god of destruction" and took the first name that sounded frightening enough for the evening news.
I call it Timmy.
Timmy is a visitor from another solar system. It has been postulated that Timmy was ejected from his (not "its"; "Timmy" is a guy's name, after all) home in the early stages of system development billions of years ago, before he had been able to settle into a stable orbit.
He's fairly small for a planet, rivaling Mars in diameter. If he had been bigger, he might not have been tossed out of his solar system, and we humans would be happy here on Earth for millions of years. Or, at least until we destroyed ourselves with nuclear weapons or overpopulation or reality shows.
We've known about Timmy for about a year (the government probably knew for a while before then; just ask the conspiracy theorists). Everybody had their wild theories on how to save the human race. We could create a wormhole big enough to swallow Timmy and spit him out in some other solar system's backyard. (The Trekkie in me adores this plan.) Or how about building a force field so that Timmy will just bounce right off? (My guess is that this genius has never played billiards.) The military was gung-ho on sending a bunch of nukes to blow Timmy off the face of the planet. (Not enough firepower in the world, kiddos.) Oh, I know! Pray! (I'm not even going to touch this one.)
The most sensible plan involved building giant spaceships to shuttle us off to Mars, if it survives the destruction of Earth, and if it doesn't, to deep space. Generational ships? Sounds easy enough. Only a year to design and build them? Crap.
As for me, I grabbed my girlfriend and a year's worth of rations and headed to my family's cabin in the mountains, away from civilization and its inevitable collapse.
~
I can see the whole galaxy from my backyard. In the city, light pollution erases all but the brightest stars; I'm lucky if I can make out Orion or the Big Dipper. But here I can get lost in the universe and float up, up, away from this doomed Earth.
Sarah and I like to spread a blanket out in the meadow and huddle close together with a thermos of hot cocoa. We listen to the sounds of the forest as the stars drift by. Every once in a while there's a shooting star and we make a wish.
"For wish number eighteen-"
"Nineteen."
I look at her. "Are you sure?" She nods. "Number nineteen, then. For number nineteen, I beseech this fiery bit of extraterrestrial rock for a bag of marshmallows!"
Sarah turns to me, a smile playing across her lips. "Marshmallows, huh?"
"Yup. I'm having this urge to build a fire and roast marshmallows on sticks."
"It's 'toast' marshmallows, not 'roast' marshmallows."
"Okay then," I say. "I'm having this urge to toast marshmallows, Little Miss Nitpick."
She grins. "Aw, I love it when you give me passive-aggressive nicknames!" I tackle the little minx, and she shrieks with laughter.
Twenty minutes later, we lie back on the blanket and shiver in the crisp night air. It's a good night, until we realize the moon is gone. Our moon, yanked away by Timmy. We had our first kiss under a full moon. Sarah likes to take pictures of me with the moon like we're pals going for a hike. It's silly, I know. She gets so embarrassed when she asks me to pose with my lunar buddy. I act like it's a chore sometimes, but only so that she'll use her hands to bend me into place.
She won't take pictures of me with Timmy, and I never ask her to.
~
Timmy dominates the sky now. He looks bigger than the moon did, bigger and uglier. Already we can see the scars on his face, fresh and ragged, unweathered by oceans or atmosphere. One side of his face is marred by a giant gash thousands of miles long.
"He looks like Mars."
"He's black, not red."
Sarah rolls her eyes at me. "Because of the scar, not the color. Mars has a scar like that. The Valles Marineris."
I squint and turn my head to the side. "Yeah, I can see that. It looks like he's bursting at the seams."
"Maybe he is," she says. "Maybe Timmy is really an egg ready to hatch, and inside is a demon god."
"A hungry demon god."
"Very hungry." Sarah nestles her head into my chest.
"Mars' evil twin," I mutter. Sarah starts to cry. I hold her close, and we stay that way until dawn.
~
The earthquakes come every day as Timmy tries to rip us apart. An avalanche nearly destroyed the cabin last week.
Every time the ground moves I expect to go flying out into space. It's going to happen, I'm sure of it. I can already feel Timmy's gravitational pull canceling out part of Earth's. Or maybe it's all in my head. The first time I felt it - or thought I did - I acted like I was floating away. I hoped it would put a smile on her face. It didn't.
Sarah took a picture of us today. Indoors and away from the windows. Away from Timmy, and away from the sky that no longer looks like sky. She developed the picture and put it on the kitchen counter.
"No more," she says. I kiss her cheek. She looks at me like I'm not here. She turns away and gently places her camera in the trash can.
I'm floating, I swear it.
~
Today, I think. Today he comes, Timmy, Mars' evil twin, or Shiva, god of destruction. The sky is dark with the angry face of a primitive world. The ground shakes all the time. There's smoke in the air, and the valley below is filled with lava.
Sarah and I hold each other in the backyard and watch as the air starts to burn. The black planet roars with the voice of a thousand dragons. The Earth rises up to meet it.
And then it's over.