Comet
Fiction: A close encounter with an inbound object.
We are honored to debut the author JS June in our journal with this short, funny, and wholly unique piece that certainly lives up to the promise of our mission.
Fred knew a lot of things about space, because he was a scientist at NASA.
He knew most comets spend millions of years flying through space all by themselves. This is in their nature. They like being cold and alone, unlike Earth, which is without a doubt a people planet. Comets, on the other hand, have no interest in humans.
Fred knew this but didn’t care, because he was in love. He was in love with a comet he’d found late at night at NASA’s observatory in New Mexico. The comet was officially called 447 A, but to Fred it had some devastating name like Kimberly St. Simone or Daphne Magnolia-Vasquez, or something. The comet was sixty-seven miles wide and composed mainly of ice and rock, which Fred was into big time.
Fred watched the comet on his computer monitor for fifteen minutes and felt beside himself and out of control with emotion. He watched the comet for an hour after everyone else had gone home. He began to sweat. He went to the break room and ate a yogurt cup while breathing heavily. He stood up to leave, and then turned around and ate another yogurt cup. He felt calmer afterwards but decided to stay in the break room another hour, reading articles on Wikipedia.
This had been going on for months. Fred would watch the comet at the observatory, feel like his chest was going to explode, go home, take a cold shower, watch Netflix, sleep restlessly, and then dream of eloping with the comet and having a shotgun wedding in Las Vegas. Fred was telling everyone he knew about the comet. He called his brother and told him he felt guilty about being so infatuated with a “giant space rock.”
“There aren’t any laws against it as far as I know, dude,” said his brother.
“I know there aren’t any laws, dude, but, you know,” said Fred.
Fred’s brother listened patiently. Partly this was because he was glad to hear Fred talking about something other than science which was boring. Partly also because the comet would in all likelihood never come within a thousand miles of the planet, and Fred’s brother had loved people who in all likelihood would never come within a thousand miles of him, so what could he say really?
Fred didn’t know what to do. He had no place to put his feelings, and nothing he could buy or compulsively do seemed to make him feel less like he was imploding and exploding at the same time. Not even yogurt cups. Not even hugging his pillows really hard. Not even lying face down on the ground and thinking about monkeys playing bongos. Not even driving to the forest and shouting at a tree. Not even shouting really loud at a tree.
“Jeez, are you alright?” said the tree.
“Sorry,” said Fred.
“It’s OK, but I mean, maybe you should talk to somebody about it,” said the tree. “No offense.”
“I know,” said Fred.
Fred found the comet on Facebook and sent it a friend request. The comet accepted the friend request but didn’t respond when he messaged it a gif of a skiing dog wearing sunglasses. He followed the comet on Twitter and Instagram, and then feeling a little like he was pushing his luck, he followed the comet on Goodreads and recommended a four-star review he’d written of The Da Vinci Code.
At the observatory Fred took a picture of the monitor that was following the comet. The picture was blurry and dark. Fred added a filter and sent it to the comet, and typed “new profile pic?”
The comet saw the message at 5:36 p.m. but didn’t respond.
Fred sent a longer message a week later.
“Please come to Earth. We could see a movie. I have an espresso machine at my apartment. It’s really fun and I could show you how to use it or just make some for you since you don’t have hands.”
The next day after work Fred saw that a worldwide crisis had developed. A comet of planet-ending proportions was on a direct collision course with Earth.
“We’re all going to be annihilated like the dinosaurs,” said one news reporter. “This situation objectively sucks,” he added. “Let’s ask this school teacher from Baltimore what she thinks.”
The news reporter pointed his microphone at the school teacher from Baltimore.
“I feel like this is Fred’s fault,” she said.
Fred got in bed and stared at the ceiling. Maybe it was his fault. Maybe the comet was coming to see his espresso machine. It seemed somewhat likely. The espresso machine was made in Italy, and had a built-in milk steamer.
Fred got a call from the president.
“Please, for the sake of everyone, break it off,” said the president of the United States.
“We haven’t even spoken once,” said Fred. “I sent it a gif of a skiing dog and it didn’t respond.”
“Obviously you have chemistry, but it’s not going to matter if the Earth is destroyed,” continued the president.
“Okay, I guess,” said Fred. He opened Facebook and typed, “whoops forgot that I have a lot of laundry to do this weekend. Can we reschedule for another time? Sorry, lol,” and sent it to the comet.
Fred felt sad but life on Earth continued. Water continued to run through rivers and oceans, restaurant bills got paid, and people generally tried to get happiness wherever they could get it, sometimes in places on Earth, and sometimes in elusive wandering things that left silvery trails in their minds.
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