The Upside Of Doom

By Lewis Grossberger

Boy, am I disappointed. Here I was all excited about that Giant Killer Asteroid streaking toward our planet. For a few delicious hours, cataclysmic devastation on an unparalleled scale hung in the air, perhaps the end of civilization as we know it. It happened to the dinosaurs; now it would happen to us! Then--bam!--the rug was pulled out from under me.

Ha-ha, we're not going to be annihilated after all, crowed the TV newsies in their irritating way. Seems the scientists had miscalculated. A bunch of astronomers announced that the space slab's going to miss us by a good 600,000 miles. This letdown came the day after another bunch of astronomers (who had apparently paid less attention in high school trigonometry class) announced a miss of approximately 30,000 lousy miles, which left open the possibility of a good, solid creaming should a tailwind or something come along at the right moment. How depressing.

That noble rock had seemed like such a civilized destroyer. Your average catastrophe gives little warning. Tidal waves, volcanoes, earthquakes and their ilk just barge in unannounced and wreak havoc. So rude! Not 1997 XF11, as the scientists so imaginatively named our space Kevorkian. It made a reservation. We were provided the exact date of arrival: Oct. 26, 2028. A Thursday. Gives you time to clear some space on your calendar, pencil in the appointment. Note to Self: Thursday--run amuck in sheer terror before being blown to smithereens along with everyone and everything I've ever known and loved.

But frankly, after the obligatory minor spasms of unreasoning, abject fear had rippled from hair follicles to bowel, it seemed to me that maybe the end of civilization as we know it isn't such a bad idea. After all, in our long, tedious march of regress have we earthlings really accomplished much besides spewing garbage, ammunition and the Jerry Springer Show into the environment? Wouldn't it set a nice example if we could just for once accept the inevitable and issue a press release reading, "Hey, we gave it our best shot, but we really weren't up to this existence business, so we're out of here"?

There might even be some survivors when the Big Smackeroo comes along (which it still might--there are a lot more Giant Killer Asteroids out there where XF11 came from). It could erase only 80% or 90% of the populace. You know, getting back to the old model of a few small, isolated farm communities scrabbling desperately for a meager living might be just the tonic humanity needs to knock out some of its arrogance and softness and regain that good old spiritual edge we used to have back when we were all sacrificing goats to the rain deity and receiving stone tablets on mountaintops. We didn't worry about sordid political scandals in those days, did we?

All I'm saying is let's not be too quick to form a negative judgment on this issue should the Giant Killer Asteroid menace reappear. (It's bound to, because, as I think about it, the astronomers probably changed their tune under pressure from the government, which feared mass panic and worse, a possible reduction in tax compliance.) Let's not go running around throwing money at expensive schemes like asteroid-whacking nuclear missiles and backyard asteroid shelters until we at least consider the benefits of letting human life attain a dignified closure.

But hold on--maybe I'm making false assumptions here. Maybe I'm foolish to think I need to bother persuading people. When CNN was still reporting that the danger was real, which I'm more and more convinced it is with every paragraph I write, an anchorperson smugly intoned, "Don't panic; you've got 30 years before the asteroid arrives." There's a typical human for you, already in denial. "Thirty years?" people think. "Hey, I've got time; I don't have to do anything right now." You watch, these folks will put off dealing with the problem until the last minute, the way they do every April. Citizens will be debating who goes on the lifeboat rocket to Mars only to find that nobody ever got around to building it.

Besides, nowadays most people are used to getting offended only by insults to their ethnic group, their race, their religion. Tell them their species is about to be massively insulted, and I honestly don't know if anyone will be able to identify with it. They'll be thinking, "As long as every group's gonna die equally, then it's fair!"

Basically, people will be grasping at straws, making excuses, ducking and weaving and pretending, as they always do in tight spots. "Well," they'll say, "let the government handle it--as long as they don't raise my taxes!" Or: "I don't believe this asteroid stuff; it's a massive right-wing conspiracy to distract the President from adequately defending himself against Kenneth Starr." Or: "I'll give you odds of 5 to 1 the thing misses us." Or: "I'm old, so I'll be dying soon anyway. Why should all those youngsters still be around having fun when I'm not?"

Listen, the end is going to be beautiful. Take my advice: just lie back and enjoy it.