One Minute to Impact

One minute.

It struck me, toward the end, that every disaster movie had been too optimistic. Deep Impact thought that we'd have around three years to save the world. Armageddon predicted a few weeks. But Asteroid 409233 Megiddo was discovered and tracked at t-minus 100 minutes to impact.

With less than two hours to plan, there wasn't much that could be done. The asteroid was going to crash in eastern Oregon and take out half the continent - what chance did I have, in Boise?

Forty seconds.

I had the chance of dying while hustling and bustling to live, or dying in a manner that I decided. I would have decided to go out among friends, but all my close friends are screennames, and most of them are asleep, on the other side of the world. I didn't want to wake them up, only to horrify them with my real-time death. In any event, I've already sent out my final message.

Twenty seconds.

I look out of the window of my apartment. In the distance, I can almost see a fast-moving streak of orange. Any second now-