Comet 2I/Borisov

On Dec. 7, the extrasolar comet now known as 2I/Borisov will make its closest approach to the sun.  (from the NYT)

BEFORE

I tripped on the sidewalk in front of my son's house and broke my ankle, so they put me in the hospital first and then in a private rehabilitation center for a week before allowing me to go back to my son's house. That's why I missed all the initial hullabaloo about the comet crashing into the earth in December. They only let you read USA Today in the rehab center, and that rag wouldn't know a news story if it hit them in the face with a sack of nickels. When I found out about the comet I immediately talked to my son.

"This thing really gonna hit the earth?" I asked him at breakfast.

"Looks like it" he said glumly. "Please pass the yogurt."

I'd seen all the movies about this sort of thing, so I quietly packed my suitcase with plenty of warm clothing and my old Boy Scout hatchet. Then I bought two dozen cans of sardines and stewed tomatoes down at the Dollar Tree Store. There didn't seem to be a run on basic supplies yet, so I got a couple rolls of toilet paper as well. Then began my watchful waiting. People didn't seem too upset or hysterical about it. I had a few old friends come over to visit me, shake hands, and say how pleasant it had been to know me -- to which I replied 'Ditto.' My son kept going to work each day and to play with his dog in the evenings.

"Why aren't people going crazy about this terrible thing?" I asked him one day at dinner.

"We're all pretty much burned out with our jobs and the stress of social media" he told me. "It'll be a relief to become extinct in a blinding flash. Is there any more of that colcannon left?" 

When the big day arrived I stayed in bed, with my best Sunday suit on, and said a long prayer. My son decided to go in to work as if nothing was going to happen. I must have dozed off, because I was awakened by a loud rumbling that shook the house so bad I was rolled right out of my bed onto the floor. I squeezed my eyes tight shut for the end, but all that happened was I became aware of a strong scent of peppermint and the faint sound of "woo-woo" repeated over and over again -- for all the world like the silly exclamation Hugh Herbert used to make in the old Warner Brothers movies. 

AFTER

When I picked myself up off the floor I looked out the casement window, but couldn't see anything much beyond gray mist. So I went up the stairs into the kitchen and out the back door. The smell of peppermint was much stronger, but not unpleasant. My son's dog came up to smell my leg, then coughed up a small bag of sunflower seeds. The mist lifted to reveal things pretty much the way they had always been. But there were some differences. Sparrows were running around in endless circles on the driveway. The lawn was all dandelions -- the yellow so blindingly bright it hurt my eyes. I went to the front of the house and found the carcass of a dead narwhal in the street, covered with bumper stickers that read "My child is an honor student at Tuttle School." Then I saw the mail lady coming down the street like nothing had happened. I decided two could play at this game, so I greeted her nonchalantly when she gave me a handful of junk mail.

"Turned out to be a nice day for this time of year" I told her. "Hope they move that dead narwhal soon."

"Yeah, I don't think this good weather will hold too much longer" she replied. "There's a dead rhino on your neighbor's roof down the street. That'll be hard to get down." She gave me a smile as she continued on her way. Rhino? What rhino? I walked down half a block and sure enough there was a white rhino on Ted Schaeffer's roof -- it was almost split in half. 

My watch had stopped at exactly 2:15, and when I went back in the house I noticed that none of the clocks, on the microwave or on the wall in the hallway, were working. They all read 2:15. That must have been when the comet struck. Where exactly did it strike, I wondered to myself. I turned on the TV, but Oprah was on every single channel, talking about the benefits of cooking with grape seed oil, so I turned it off and sat quietly in a chair until my son came home.

"We survived!" I greeted him. He didn't look particularly happy.

"I know" he replied. "And I got laid off today. Shit!"