There was that conference this weekend so you’re home alone. You sit in your living room with the TV on. The president is on every channel, literally every one. You flip through more than a few to see if this is some kind of joke. But no, there he is, giving the same speech.

Asteroid. Impact imminent. Somewhere in the South Pacific. Extinction level event. All efforts to divert have failed. Right to know. Sixteen hours. God bless.

Sixteen hours, you realize that’ll be around midnight. Seems appropriate.

You turn the TV off and bury your face in your hands. You’ve seen the asteroid in the night sky for months now, slowly growing bigger. Watching it has made you something of an amateur astronomer. But you’d never thought… They’d always said…

Your phone hasn’t stopped ringing or buzzing. Call after call, text after text. You realize it doesn’t matter what you thought or what they said. Not anymore, not today.

It’ll be okay. I love you.

You repeat those words over and over throughout the morning. You call, not text, everyone who matters to you. You leave nothing unsaid. You are calm, you provide comfort.

The conference is only a few hours away, but you know how the roads are going to be. You have a cousin who lives practically halfway between the conference and where you live. You make plans to meet at your cousin’s. What luck, the rest of those who matter the very most to you all live within an hour or two of your cousin’s. You all plan to meet there as soon as you can.

You weren’t wrong, the roads are rough. Cars have crashed, blocking the roads off in some places. You have to drive over grass, through ditches and onto sidewalks to get around. Someone on one sidewalk, who you didn’t even get close to at all, throws a fist sized rock through your windshield. It just barely misses your head. You keep driving.

You pass burning buildings. You pass people crying, looting, fighting. You pass crowds rioting. You pass despair and desperation. 

But you are calm.

What a beautiful day it would have been otherwise. What a beautiful day it still is. The asteroid’s there, even in daytime. It’s been that way for a while now. In the sky, it’s bigger than the sun. Even it is beautiful.

You find yourself excited for the day ahead, for when you reach your cousin’s. You have so much you want to do, things you’ve wanted to do for so long but never had the time. You laugh, that seems funny to you now.

You’ve been getting calls from everyone who’s made it to your cousin’s already. Everyone else is getting close. For some, there’s been trouble, but everyone is okay. Everyone’s going to make it. You’re grateful, you’re thankful.

You’re only a few blocks from your cousin’s now. You pull over in front of a little lake to watch a pair of swans swimming. This isn’t the end, you trust that now. You know that’s why you’ve been calm.

This isn’t the end and yet all you have is today. But, isn’t that how it’s always been?