To the Ends of the Earth

October 25, 2024
Time to Impact: One Year

We lay side by side, on a vast emerald field, looking up at the night sky. A gentle wind glided over our thick winter clothes and scarves, running its hand over the fabric to flatten it. Blades of grass swayed with the ebb and flow of the breeze like waves across a viridian beach, occasionally breaking against towering islands of bark and wood. Hand in hand, we floated through a deep green ocean, surrounded by an archipelago of trees that sprinkled their leaves down on us like amber colored confetti, as if celebrating us.

But this was no time for celebration. This was a time for mourning.

I turned to her. All that I saw was her smooth brown hair, partially covering the side of her face as she looked up at the sky.

"So many stars..." she whispered, awe-struck. I faced the sky.

"It's just a bunch of tiny dots in the sky," I started, "I can barely even see them. What's so special about them?"

"You barely see them because of the light pollution from the city. I mean, we are in New York, not exactly the optimum stargazing location." She had a point. "And don't you think it's even slightly incredible that we can see something millions, maybe billions of miles away from us? It's like they're almost reaching out but can't quite manage to touch us, so they just sparkle since it's the best they can do."

"Ehhh..." I moaned, "They're just stars."

She smiled. "Whatever. To each their own."

A brief silence came and I stared up at the blank sky for a few more minutes. A question sat at the tip of my tongue, begging to be asked, but I clenched my teeth shut, imprisoning it, waiting for the appropriate time.

She sighed. "I'm going to miss nights like these."

"Yeah." Here it was. "So..."

"Hmm?"

"How long are you going to be gone again?"

"A little over a year."

"Oh." And my heart sank. I thought it would only be for four, maybe five months. "Does it really take that long to be an astronautical engineer?"

"Of course. It is rocket science, after all."

I gave a crestfallen chuckle. "Well, say 'hello' to Japan for me."

"I will, don't worry. And it's 'konichiwa," she joked.



December 2, 2024
Time to Impact: 10 Months, 22 Days

The phone I pressed against my ear hummed periodically as I tried to connect with a phone on the other side of the world. In the corner of my eye, a thin crescent moon shone alone in a dark grey sky. I sat upright on my bed, back against my bed's headboard, surrounded in beige-colored bedsheets. One hand held the cell phone, the other held a remote control as I passively watched my television screen flash and flicker.

Finally, someone picked up.

"Moshi-moshi," followed by a surge of Japanese words that I could not even hope to understand.

"Uh, yes, can I speak to Jessica, please?"

I was concerned that the girl on the other line wouldn't be able to understand me. Until I heard a chuckle.

"Speaking," she said. Unbelievable.

"Whoa, what? That's your voice?"

"Yeah." I could feel her smile through the phone. "Hard to believe, huh?"

"I'll say. God, your Japanese is flawless. For a second, I thought I would have to whip out my translator."

"Just trying to blend in. After all, when in Rome..."

The conversation continued for 15 happy minutes as we both asked how the other's life was in their respective countries. Strange occurrences, neighbors, work, we asked the standard questions that any husband would ask after talking to their wife for the first time in two months. And as those 15 minutes flew by, my eyes lazily scanned whatever program happened to be playing on my television screen. Something about astronomy, I think. I didn't really care.

I heard a bell ringing in the background.

"Oops! Gotta go, lunch break's over. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Alright. Love you."

"Love you too!"

A click as the receiver on the other side of the world lay its head down against its plastic bed, guided by the gentle hand of an angel. And before long, I too lay my head down, immersed in the warmth of my bed covers.

And I dreamt that she was beside me. Side by side, we lay almost buried in velvet grass that gently brushed against our skin. Petals fluttered down from trees like a flight of butterflies floating down to Earth, some pink, some white. The ends of her hair flowing and dancing to the rhythm of the breeze as she looked up, deep into the darkness of summer's night sky.



January 14, 2025
Time to Impact: 9 Months, 10 Days

"Koh-nee-chee-wuh," I spoke into the phone, almost straining myself. She broke into laughter.

"Your Japanese is horrible," she said between bursts of laughter, "You wouldn't survive a day here."

"Well, it's a good thing I have you then."

She smiled. Light conversation continued for 5 minutes before she finally brought it up. A topic that forever changed my life on Earth. A topic that started with three simple words, chained together like the first three dominoes of a mile-long line which toppled one after another until the last domino fell off the table and into eternal blackness, dragging my heart along with it. Three simple words. They caused everything. I hate them.

"Have you heard?" She said.

"Heard of what?"

"The asteroid we saw. It's gigantic, 25 kilometers wide. Scientists aren't sure right now, but apparently, there's a chance that it might hit Earth."

"Oh my god. That's horrifying. Can we stop it?"

"Probably. I mean we have gigantic nukes that can turn entire cities into piles of rubble, you don't think we can blow up a space rock?" I gave a brief chuckle as she continued. "Besides, there's only a small chance that it'd hit, so there's nothing to worry about."

"Oh. What a relief."

"Yep." A bell rang. "Lunch break's done, I'll talk to you later!"

"Bye."

Click.



February 13, 2025
Time to Impact: 8 Months, 11 Days

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. It's when you hear about something for the first time and suddenly, soon after, you start seeing it everywhere. And that asteroid appeared everywhere.

For the first few weeks after I first heard of it from her, the meteor was all that everyone talked about. They talked about it on late-night talk shows, they put it on t-shirts, they mentioned it in between sips at the water cooler. Coffee mugs, bumper sticker jokes, news outlets, and especially the Internet, it was inescapable. Everyone had heard of it, no matter how big of a rock you lived under. It was even barely visible in the night sky, I heard. But I'd never seen it.

Interestingly, the majority of people treated it as either a spectacle not to be missed, or a dark joke of sorts. Nobody took it too seriously.

But the surge of unexpected media attention prompted scientists to take a closer look at their calculations. And they discovered something. Maybe a misplaced decimal point, or a sine was used instead of a cosine, but nevertheless, their calculations were wrong.

And everyone stopped laughing.


"Happy Valentine's Day!" She said.

"Happy Valentine's Day."

"What's wrong?"

"Have you heard?"

"Oh. The meteor? Yeah. Scary stuff." Scary doesn't even begin to describe it.

"But I'll let you in on something," she began, "They're actually building a sort of rover here in Japan designed to land on the meteor and boost it just slightly to the right so it'll miss Earth."

"Is it guaranteed to work?"

"Well, no. Nothing's ever guaranteed in space work, especially not this rover. After all, this is the first time that humans have ever tried redirecting an entire asteroid before. So no, no promises, but I have faith in our scientists."

"Alright. Well, if you trust them, then I'll trust them too."

Ring ring.

"Lunch bell. When I get out of work, we'll spend some time together for Valentine's Day, I promise."

"Sounds good. Love you."

"Love you too, bye!"

Click.

I tossed my phone onto the floor and it let out a muffled thud as it landed on the carpet that cushioned its fall. I reached to the side of my bed and turned off the bedside lamp perched on a nightstand. I pulled the covers up to my neck and turned to my side, facing one of two windows of my apartment on the 50th floor. Like an illustration in a book, the window showed the bustling New York skyline in between margins of half-draped curtains. Buildings of various heights rose out of the concrete Earth, as if reaching out to touch the sky.

And visible in the distance, a faint sparkle of light, alone in the night sky.



June 21, 2025
Time to Impact: 4 Months, 3 Days

The sharp icicles of February had long melted and for awhile, dark clouds and torrential rain had engulfed New York for three long months as engineers from all around the world helped the Japanese create the rover. The world held their breath as the engineers worked longer and longer and the asteroid inched closer and closer. Its presence in the night sky was unmistakable now. To the naked eye, it appeared as a bright star, brighter than the rest, near the Little Dipper.

In New York, it was the only star in the sky.

And at long last, today, the storms ended and gave way to golden drops of sun as summer began and brought with it the launch of Ad Astra I, mankind's magnum opus. A rover that would save humanity from extinction.

And once more, the world's attention was directed to the stars. Television screens showed live footage of the egg-shaped silver shuttle that towered over Tanegashima Space Center, the egg that, although unmanned, still carried the hopes and dreams of every human being on Earth. Rays of brilliant sun reflected off the egg's smooth surface, sparkling like the stars it hoped to touch.

And it touched them. Three, two, one, the countdown went and the ignition sparked the egg to life. The shuttle flew higher and higher, into cloudless skies as people around the world watched in awe. We cheered in unison as the egg soared farther and farther away from us, closer and closer to the stars.

And it touched them.



September 30, 2025
Time to Impact: 25 days

For a moment, the world stopped turning. For a moment, time stood still, and people stopped moving, and nothing was important. Nothing but the news that was pasted on every television, on every newspaper headline, on every major website around the world. And as the eight billion pairs of eyes read the news, as the eight billion pairs of ears heard the announcements, eight billion hearts crumbled. Eight billion dreams fragmented into microscopic, unsalvageable pieces. Eight billion people died.

Ad Astra I had failed. Our days were numbered. We had days to live. Precious, precious days to live.

I wished that I could go back in time, stop her from ever saying the words "meteor" or "asteroid," as if never hearing about it would somehow prevent the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon from ever starting, as if it would somehow make the meteor stop existing. But no matter what, I couldn't stop it. The asteroid was fast approaching, and there was nothing I, or anyone else could do.

As a last resort, world leaders collaborated and fired their nuclear warheads at the asteroid, but it didn't even scratch the rock surface. Panicking, other hastily made shuttles were sent blindly into the darkness, each as fruitless as Ad Astra I. It was indestructible.

Infrastructure, government, everything came to a sudden and abrupt halt. Mass transportation stopped and people were essentially landlocked. Nations that used to be the major organs of the world had their veins and arteries severed, locking them to their own lands, preventing them from communicating with other countries. And sooner or later, cell by cell, every organ would inevitably die.

Countless people committed suicide, opting for a quicker and less painful way to die. The rest were urged to quit their jobs, use whatever time they have left to bid farewells, or share their last memories with the ones they loved.

But here I was, in New York, thousands of miles away from the only person I wanted to be with. Thousands of miles away from her.

I felt like dying. Not because of the gravity of the situation, but because I was powerless to prevent it. No matter what, she and I would never see each other again. Our last real memories would forever be the phone calls we've exchanged and the star-crossed night we spent in each other's arms, under the iridescent night sky, as paper thin leaves danced in the moonlight.

Ring ring. I held the phone to my ear. Please pick up.

Ring ring. Please.

Ring ring.

Ring.

I hung up. There was no response.



October 25, 2025
Time to Impact: Two Hours

The asteroid is larger than the moon now. A colossal gray sphere in the night sky, like a period at the end of a long novel. New York finally took her first and last breath and now she slept peacefully. I sit in Central Park, listening to the absolute tranquility that hovered in the air around me. Not a single light shines from any of the skyscrapers around me, making them look less like buildings and more like square fingers pointing up at the meteor.

I sit and stare at the asteroid, which appears to hover over the buildings like a rising sun in the night sky. Slowly, I lie down and let my head rest on the soft, soft grass. I close my eyes and imagine that she is here, lying beside me, hand in hand like that same day exactly one year ago when I let go and she slipped from my fingers like a wisp of air. A ghost, leaving behind nothing but an imprint on the grass and honey-sweet memories.

I weep silently. I close my eyes harder, clench my hand tighter as if these actions would somehow make my dreams a reality, as if somehow, when I open my eyes again, the meteor would be gone and I would escape this nightmare and wake up to her warm touch on the palm of my hand.

And suddenly, I feel movement on the palm of my hand. Warm to the touch.

My eyes shoot open and I look beside me, but there is nobody there. I feel more movement on my palm and I lift my hand.

It's my phone. I'm receiving a call.

I answer.

"Hello?"

"Konichiwa," she whispered, voice cracking. A miracle.

I start sobbing. Through the phone, I can hear her whimpers as well. I can feel her tears running down the receiver.

I couldn't speak, and for a few minutes, our conversation consists of just crying.

Finally, I start.

"Why'd you have to leave me."

"I wouldn't have if I knew this would happen."

"Please come back-"
"You know I can't do that, no matter how hard I try-"
"Come back!" I scream, and the ambiance stops. The only sound for miles is the broken gasps of air I take in and out of my lungs.

After a few minutes, she talks in between sniffles.

"I'm going to miss nights like these."

"Please."

"I'm going to miss stargazing with you hour after blissful hour."

"Stop."

"I'm going to miss holding your hand."

"No!" I throw my phone a mile into the air and it lands with a crack on the ground. Half-buried behind grass, I still hear her muffled voice saying something.

I pick the phone up. A huge glass scar runs down the face of the screen, yet still she continues to talk. I press the receiver to my ear.

"Please don't be angry," she says.

And I collapse to the ground, face up, looking at the asteroid that was inching closer and closer to Earth. And I cry.

I turn on the speakerphone and set the phone next to my head. My vision blurs from my tears and I wipe them off.

And I see the majestic night sky. An ocean of stars pour across the heavens and paint the sky various hues of yellow, purple, and orange, like an abstract work of art on a deep black canvas. Galaxies, nebulae, and planetary systems all dance above me and around the circular asteroid in the middle of the sky, a spotlight. I am mesmerized.

"I never knew there were... so many stars..." I say.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Her words echo in my mind and I remember what she said a year ago...

"And don't you think it's even slightly incredible that we can see something millions, maybe billions of miles away from us? It's like they're almost reaching out but can't quite manage to touch us, so they just sparkle since it's the best they can do."

The meteor takes up half of the space in the sky now. I memorize the exact position the meteor of every star in the sky, I remember her face, her perfect, perfect face, and somehow the images blend in my mind and I see her in the stars, as a constellation. Her hair a streak of lavender stardust floating across the cosmos, her body a cluster of stars. And her face, the meteor, right in the center of my universe.

I gaze up at her. This is it.

"I love you," I whisper. My last words.

"I love you too."

I reach out.

And I touch the stars.





Author's Note: My second stab at your hearts with the dagger of romance. Again, hopefully it wasn't too sappy. I put a lot of work into this, a lot more than my usual stories, and I had a lot of fun writing it, so hopefully you had a lot of fun reading it too.

The origin of this idea was actually from an episode of "After Hours" from Cracked, where they talk about the most fun apocalypse. Michael Swaim brings up the idea of an inescapable meteor apocalypse (and has a less-than-romantic scenario in mind), which got me thinking: "How would I spend my last days on Earth if I knew that everyone was going to die at the same time?" Then, I started thinking of the most tragic thing that could happen to prevent that and thus, this story was born.

A few other inspirations. The movie "5 Centimeters Per Second" helped me with the concept of love and separation (and the movie's fantastic soundtrack was just perfect to write to). Also, a few concepts of "touching stars" was also inspired by the video game "To The Moon," a game I highly recommend playing.

Wrote a sizable chunk of this literally on Wednesday morning, so I didn't have time to proofread. So if you notice anything that sounds off, please tell me so I can correct it!