Editors Note: I am expanding the original Number of Days from 4 to 6 in this scenario here. Because if the Earth IS going to go down in a blaze of inglorious doom, it doesn't really matter WHAT I do in a writing exercise for Steemit. Two days just won't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things
Journal: Found in the ashes by survivor PU-6.5.37, on April 18th. After they emerged from under ground and the nuclear dust cleared from meteor -- F.B.M.- 48163.52687H-.639
My Journal
By D.D. Schteinn
Age: 11 Years
Thursday - April 12th
Dear Journal,
End of Spring Break at school this week. Only 2 more days of freedom. Darn.
I met Griz, Fish and Tommy down by the bridge this morning. Sugar Creek sure is shallow now. We searched for crawdads for a long time, but didn't find any. Dad says it's due to the pollution, but we think it's Jimmy McDimmitt and his friends getting them all.
Sure hope we don't run into them again today. Fish (Mikey) really lit into them. It was a good one, too. Didn't repeat one cuss word for a good two minutes straight. So funny when he gets going. Glad his Dad taught him how to cuss so good. He told him years ago, “If you can't fight, cuss them out better than anyone.” His Dad really knew what he was talking about. Luckily we had Griz to back us up, if a 5 minute Fish-swear didn't keep the hoodlums at bay. I sure wouldn't want to get into a fight with Griz. His older brother taught him how to box.
Griz says we need to make a trap if we're going to catch any crawdads. We hauled up the old shopping cart from the 'hole' by the culvert, and knocked the handle and wheels off with a big old rock. Now we just need a wooden box and some wire to finish putting the trap together. It got dark, so we had to quit. We hid our cart in the weeds, and tomorrow will go to Old Man Tucker's Dump to find a wooden box and some wire.
I got home after sundown, and Dad wasn't too happy. I guess I didn't hear the dinner bell.
Good Night, Journal
Friday - April 13th
Dear Journal,
We met up at Tucker's Dump this morning. Couldn't find a wood box in the pile for nothin. And Fish is acting really weird today. Tommy asked him if he “got his period". We all laughed, though I had no idea what that means. But wasn't going to ask. Don't think Tommy did either. But he always says things that don't add up. Like, where fireflies come from: “it's the reflection of the moon off their butt.” I don't think that's right.
I had time to talk to Fish, when all the guys were digging around up in the trash heap. He sat on an old green chair with three legs, and said his parents were acting REALLY weird. They got into a big old fight last night, and he said that's not very usual. Something about the world, but that's all he heard.
He said they were really acting weird this morning too. His Mom didn't want him to go down to the dump, but his Dad just said “Let him go, Bonnie, let him be a boy today” or something like that. And “he should have some fun today.” His Mom stared at him and started crying, and his Dad just looked at him and had a weird smile on his face, and teary eyes too. Really freaked Fish out, but they wouldn't say anything more about it.
Fish said his Mom wouldn't quit hugging him either, and she had tears in her eyes again when he left the house. He asked her if it was because he forgot to feed Poochie the night before, but all she did was make a weird noise. It was like she held her breath, inhaled, then let it all out real fast at once and laughed and cried at the same time. Fish said it made a kind of "No" and a sqwaak noise altogether.
Then she gave him a really hard, long hug again, sat down in a chair and turned away and just stared out the kitchen window. Fish left, because it was all too weird for him. He almost forgot his sandwich bag! Now that's REALLY weird! Not like Fish at all. He eats more than all of us put together, even though he's a 98 pound weakling.
Sitting at the dump, I told him we'd figure it all out, and then the guys came up with a wood dynamite box and some wire they found, and that was the end of our talk. I told him not to worry, and Tommy looked at us with his sideways look, and said, “worry about what? THIS!?”
He pulled a big old rusty piston from a lawn mower or something out from inside his baggy overalls, wiped his hands on his only yellow and brown-striped shirt, and said “Don't tell Old Man Tucker! I'll throw it back. JEESH!” We all laughed, and I looked at Fish and just nodded. And told Tommy Old Man Tucker wouldn't care, it's all junk anyway. I think this made Tommy mad, so he went off in a huff, mumbling about his new piston and how dumb we all were.
I could hear Mom ringing the dinner bell from the back porch, so I had to go before I could talk to Fish again. He looked pretty bummed, but Griz punched him on the arm and said “buck up, Fish, it's all adish”. I have no idea what that means, but he says stuff like that all the time. It did make Fish laugh though. And cuss for about 15 seconds about his sore arm. I could hear them, still going at it as I headed home on my Typhoon. The last thing I heard was Fish still cussing a blue streak, and Griz yelling at me to meet them at the trestle tomorrow.
Good Night, Journal
Saturday - April 14th
Dear Journal,
By the time I got to the trestle, the guys had already hauled a load of big rocks up from the creek below, rolling them up the steep hill and onto the tracks. We dropped bombs into the creek, making HUGE splashes, and sunk a whole bunch of German U-boat sticks floating below. We were on our fifth trip for boulders before lunch, when I noticed Fish sitting alone down by the backwater. I stayed down there and we talked, while Griz and Tommy got us wet dropping more loads into the creek from above.
Fish was quiet and nervous, and seemed really odd to me. Then he told me what it was. He said his Dad had finally talked to him, and told him what was going on. His Mom was there, but all she did was stare at him and get kind of hysterical and cry and wipe her red-face and eyes a lot. And jump up and hug him really hard and then sit back down at the table.
Fish's Uncle Dave works at Cape Canaveral, and Fish got to see a space launch there once when they drove to Florida in the station wagon. Uncle Dave told Fish's Dad that a big old meteor was going to run into the planet. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but he couldn't keep it from Fish's Dad, since he was his brother. So he told him anyway, even though he might get in trouble.
When his Dad told Fish all this, he made Fish promise not to tell anyone else yet. They didn't want his Uncle to lose his space job. Fish made me swear on a spit wad fist that I wouldn't say anything to anybody. Not even the guys.
I'm not sure what all this means, but is is really weird and kind of scary. I need to go home tonight and look up about meteors in the World Book Encyclopedia.
After we sat on the trestle and ate lunch, we made a huge dam out of the rocks we dropped in the creek, then rolled more up to the trestle and bombed the H-E-double toothpick out of it. It was fun. Mom rang the bell, and I rode home.
We're going to meet back at the creek tomorrow, and put in our crawdad trap. We told Griz to bring some lunch meat from the refrigerator for bait, since Tommy's family can't afford to buy it. Or worse, use it for crawdad bait. I knew we didn't have any left, I ate it all in my sandwich on the trestle today.
Good Night, Journal
Sunday- April 15th
Dear Journal,
We met at the Sugar creek culvert again, and set up our crawdad trap. We wired the box into the cart cage part, with only a crack for the crawdads to crawl through. Then we baited it with the bologna. Tommy and Griz got into a big argument about where to put the trap. Should it be near the culvert, or under the bridge. Important stuff.
While they were yelling and heaving big water rocks at each other in a splash fight, I got to talk to Fish again about what was going on at his house.
He said he got up this morning, and his Dad was sitting in the coat closet by the front door. Just sitting on a chair, in the dark, by himself. His Mom was either talking on the phone, or smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee at the table, and just staring out the window at the dog in the yard. Fish tried to ask her what was going on, and all she did was hug him, and cry some more, light another cigarette, and ask him where his Dad was. Fish told her he was in the closet, and grabbed his lunch bag and went out. When he left, he saw his Mom go into the closet and close the door. This REALLY freaked out Fish.
I told Fish what I had read last night in the Encyclopedia. A meteor was a huge rock or piece of a planet, that flies through space. Sometimes they hit earth, and it's no big deal. But if they're big enough, they can smash the earth to smithereens. Fish's eyes got HUGE, his lip quivered, and he started to sniffle. I told him not to worry, and that maybe we should tell the guys. He said he didn't want to, his Uncle might get into trouble, so we went back to helping with the trap.
We finally got the crawdad trap in place, by the culvert. There was no winning an argument with Tommy. He NEVER uses any logic. The old lunch meat smelled BAD, even under the water, so we went down below the bridge to go look for a muskrat Jimmy Simmioncheck had seen the day before. (We ran into the McDimmitt guys earlier, and that's when they told us about the muskrat. We didn't tell them about our crawdad trap though.)
We never did see the muskrat. But late in the afternoon, Fish was sitting on the bank, slowly kicking rocks into the water, and finally he couldn't hold it in any longer. He just blurted out, while we 3 were wading away from shore with our muskrat sticks, “a giant rock is going to smash the earth!”
Griz just stared at him, and Tommy said, "Yeah, and my big sister wants to kiss you too.” I stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. I guess we were going to tell the guys after all.
Tommy looked at us all, and realized something was more serious than usual. “Come on guys, let's go over to the park and play twist-a-swing. I heard they got new chains.” It was one of our favorite things to do.
But Fish was having none of it. “You guys, something bad is going to happen. My Dad says my Uncle says it's so. A big rock is going to crash into the earth. It will be really bad. He said there will be no one left here when it does.”
“You're nuts”, was all Tommy could come up with. Then he yelled, “here's your giant metreore(?), watch out”, and threw a big round water rock and splashed Fish on the shore. Griz slugged Tommy, then looked at Fish with an odd, scared look in his eyes. This REALLY freaked out Fish and I. We'd never seen Griz be scared of anything. He asked Fish, “what did your Uncle say about it?”
“I didn't talk to him. But my Dad did. But he said it will be really bad. And that there's nothing we can do about it.” This REALLY made Griz look scared. Then Fish went on, “a big meteor will hit the planet, and it will be like a nucular bomb.” Tommy looked more serious than usual, “when is it supposed to hit?”
"Uncle Dave said probably late Tuesday night", was all Fish could say through choked up feelings and teary eyes.
We all sat on the bank, and stared at the muddy water, slowly moving by. This was not good. Griz finally yelled out a giant “F***- **CK!!”, and threw another rock at the water. We all just stared at him, and then started cussing like mad just like Fish always did, and throwing rocks at the water like we we'd all gone crazy. We soon got really tired, and sat on the bank. There wasn't anything else to do or say.
The dinner bell rang, so I got on my Typhoon and rode home. I didn't tell my Mom or Dad what happened today, even when they asked. I didn't want to get Fish's parents or Uncle Dave in trouble with the space people. Plus I was very very tired.
Good Night, Journal
Monday,- April 16th
Dear Journal,
No school today. Maybe more of the world knows about this than we think. But it has not been on the News yet. Or in the paper. I looked. Maybe only the school knows.
We met at the old abandoned garage in the park, and made some plans. Everyone was very bummed out. A combination of scared, and hurt and not really knowing WHAT to say or think. But then Fish showed us the wad of money his Mom and Dad gave him this morning when he left the house.
He said they told him to go out and have a bunch of fun. We couldn't believe it. We were excited. We'd never SEEN this much money. Except maybe in the collection plate at church. Or when Mr. Bidwell sold his Buick, and held out the huge wad of cash in his hand, showing us while standing in his driveway. We never SAW that much money, ever.
Fish had a pretty good wad of cash too. He pocketed it, and we jumped on our bikes, and headed over to the Gas, Sip and Smoke for the day's supplies. We talked Tall-Gregg at the counter into selling us all the dirty magazines we could carry. We had to pay him extra, but we got 13 Playboys, 5 Stags, 3 Penthouses, and a few we'd never heard of or seen before. They were in brown wrappers. Which meant they showed EVERYTHING.
We bought 6 boxes of candy bars, mostly Mars, Bit-O'-Honey's, Three Musketeers, and Milky Way's, and then headed over to the Dairy Freeze for some HUGE ice creams.
I got a chocolate and strawberry swirl dish. Extra-Large, with cherry nut toffee licorice chocolate-chip coconut pineapple cinnamon cherry pieces and cookie bit toppings, with whipped cream and sprinkles. The other guys got stuff too long to remember or write down here.
It was hard to ride with all this stuff, but since Tommy uses his sister's bike with the tassels and 2 baskets in the back and one in front, he got to carry it all. He complained the whole way, but that was nothing new. We got to the creek, and unloaded all our stuff under the bridge.
What a day! After we ate half our ice cream, we swam in the creek. Even though my Mom always say's we'll get some sort of bug in our ears if we dunk our heads in the 'dirty' water. We didn't care about our ears or bugs today.
Then we ate the rest of the ice cream, while looking at our magazines on the shore. We saw things we didn't even know existed in those magazines. I can't put it in my journal. Mom might see it.
Griz brought a camp cook-pot with him, and we made a small stick-fire, and roasted Three Musketeers on whittled sticks. Then we made a candybar stew in Griz's pot, melting all of them together into one giant glob. We had to eat it with sticks, by twirling the goo onto them. It burned our mouths at first, but we didn't care. It tasted GREAT.
Tommy ate more than anybody, then threw up. Three times. And Fish looked a bit green, but WHAT A DAY! Even though we all felt weird about the huge rock in the sky that was going to hit us pretty soon, we never felt so good in all our lives.
The dinner bell rang, and I wobbled my bike home after all the candy bars and other stuff. I was happy for a while.
What a day!
Good Night, Journal
Tuesday - April 17th
Dear Journal,
I awoke from a deep sleep this morning, and heard my Mom and Dad talking out in the hallway. It was later than usual for me to get up on a school day. But then I remembered they'd canceled school yesterday because of the meteor. I went out into the hallway, stretched, and looked up at my Mom.
She looked really, really tired, with red eyes and bloated cheeks. I figured she must have been crying, like Fish's Mom. I just stared at her. She must KNOW. About the meteor. And the END of the WORLD! I kept staring at her, wondering if I should say anything or not. I thought of Fish's Uncle losing his space job. And what that would mean to their family. I just stood there not deciding, staring at my Mom. Should I tell her, or not?
She just looked back at me with a tired, blank stare. “Whaaat?”
I looked at my Dad, heading down the stairwell toward the first floor. I looked back at her, “Mom, I sure do love you guys.”
“I love you too, honey. Now I need to go fix your Dad some breakfast. He's been up all night. So have I. It was a LOONNG, long night last night.”
So they MUST know about the meteor. Fish's Dad probably talked to my Dad on the phone after I went to bed. I couldn't keep it in any longer. Space job or not, I had to talk to them. I had to know if they knew what was coming. Fish's parents must have thought we needed to know too.
I said it again. “Mom, I sure do love you and Dad. And Becky, if that counts. And I'm going to miss you guys a WHOLE lot.”
My Mom looked at me with a crooked little smile. “What ARE you talking about honey? We're not going anywhere.”
I was mortified. THEY STILL DON'T KNOW! !
I was bursting inside. My stomach felt like burning lava. I thought I might get sick. Not sure if it was all the candy bars, or because of the huge idea I had to tell them about. The one I wasn't supposed to talk about.
My Mom tousled my hair, and headed down from the top of the stairs, adding in as she went, " I hope your Dad and I didn't keep you up last night, talking about everything that's been going on. Now get ready, you'll be late for school.”
School. School is canceled! HOW could she not KNOW?!! All that's been going on?! How could they take this so lightly. The end of the world. An asteroid. THE END OF THE WORLD! My head was spinning. Little cones of darkness came at my eyes from somewhere outside, making me dizzy. It was hard to breathe.
Mom was on the stairs heading down when I recovered a little of my vision. I heard my Dad yell up from the breakfast nook below. “Hurry up, Jean, I gotta get to the office. If I don't get these stupid taxes done, we could lose the car. We could lose the whole HOUSE!! They're due at midnight! TONIGHT!!!”
I heard my Mom exclaim to him, from the bottom of the stairs, as she turned the corner toward him in the kitchen, “Good grief, dear. It's ONLY tax day. Like I told you last night, IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD!!!”
I yawned, and headed back to my room.
This was nuts. Was this all a dream?
Or was it all real?
I figured I'd find out tonight, some time after Midnight…
@Ω
Thanks for stopping in and viewing Scenario Two. If you have any thoughts about this, or anything else this post reminds you of, please comment below. I'd love to hear from you.
This post is in response to @dreemit 's latest writing challenge:
Post:What Would You Do?
You have just been told by a source you trust implicitly that a meteor is going to take out life on earth; there is nothing that can be done to stop it, and they have no intention of alerting the public. You have four days until impact/game over. What would you do with your time?
And this is ALSO what it inspired.
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And go to @ddschteinn -- There's a whole lot more...
Posted: 04/18/2018 @ 02:18
Excerpts From Late-Night Conversations With A Mechanical Cat
Fact Number 62
