Claire’s head spun. What could survive, if anything? Could her father possibly be right? How deep, exactly, would a bunker have to be to survive the impact? Was it even survivable? Claire wondered how big the space rock would have to be to utterly destroy the planet. Would the cockroaches inherit the earth? Would some strange intelligent species, millions of years into the future be studying the mass extinction event of the humans, just like her species studied the dinosaurs?
Claire ground her teeth in frustration. So many bogus websites were popping up, and she didn’t know what to believe any more. Some people were saying everyone was doomed and should prepare to meet their maker, others were saying it could be survivable and others again were down-playing the whole thing, or outright calling it a massive hoax.
Most governments were keeping quiet on actual real detail, as were the space agencies. Claire hoped it was because they were diverting all their energy and attention to stopping the damn asteroid. News channels were calling in any ‘expert’ they could find to shed light on the matter.
Claire could feel a massive headache coming on, so she carefully closed the laptop.
After feeding the boys their dinner and bathing them (a job that was much easier with Tom around), Claire sent her mother a quick message. Skype?
Before long, she was looking at her parents on the other side of the world. Noah excitedly waved at his grandparents, and Tristan tried to poke the screen. They spent a good half hour chatting to and watching the boys, and listening to Noah regale them with a story that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but seemed to include Claire, a dragon, a whale, and a castle on the moon. They didn’t talk about the asteroid, and for a few short minutes Claire let herself forget and just enjoyed listening to Tristan gurgle out the odd word and Noah’s epic story, and watch her parents dote on her kids.
After putting Noah and Tristan to bed, Claire wandered the house. This was the first house that they’d owned. Claire had been filled with glee when she’d banged the first hook in the wall. A week after they’d moved in, they’d picked up Lancelot from the SPCA. It had seemed unnatural to Claire to not have a pet, but a string of landlords had been adamant on their no pets policies. She ran her fingers along the wall. They’d spent weeks picking out this colour, this precise shade of blue. She drifted into the kitchen. The renovation plans were sitting on the desk in the study. Slowly, they’d been making this house their own. For what?
Claire turned her mind to what she’d take with them. She pulled a large storage tub out of the garage and wandered around the house, picking up and examining items. So many photographs. Her and Tom in front of the Eiffel Tower. Lucy and her in the bathtub when they were around Noah and Tristan’s ages. Wedding photographs. Baby photographs. Claire picked up a small framed photo of herself with her university friends. She wondered where they all were now. She still kept in touch with Shelley and Holly, but she hadn’t spoken to Jemma or Casey in years. She wondered why. There hadn’t been anything in particular, no falling out or nasty words. Just a slow drifting apart. She put the photo down, and told herself she’d email Jemma and Casey before it was too late.
Claire studied the shelves. So many trinkets, memorabilia collected over a lifetime. She didn’t think Tom would mind if they didn’t take his Under 17’s hockey trophy with them. Claire sighed and put the box down. She didn’t know what to take. What to save, what would comfort them in the coming months? She decided to wait for Tom to come back. They could do this together.
Claire lingered over her desk. Her journal peaked out from under a pile of papers. She used to be a prolific diarist, recording every day and every thought. Since having the kids though, she’d not written nearly as much as she wanted too. Sometimes she’d sit down and write the date, and then just stare at an empty page, too exhausted to actually transfer her thoughts onto paper. She picked up the notebook and flicked it open to the last entry and smiled softly. She’d written about Tristan’s first word. Not mummy or daddy, but Noah. Although, coming from Tristan it sounded more like ‘no-ha’.
Claire sat down at the desk and found a pen. She wrote the date at the top of a new page.
An extremely strange few days. I don’t think I’ve processed it yet. Not properly. Maybe this will help. We’ve been told an asteroid is coming. A big, civilisation crushing asteroid. There’s still time for someone to figure something out and banish the rock before it does any damage, but what if it doesn’t?
I always felt like I was being cheated, in a way. I’ve always loved history and finding out about what happened in our past, and intensely curious about our future. I thought it was unfair that I couldn’t read a book and find out, or stick around past my natural lifetime and see for myself. I remember when I was a little kid, just beginning to grasp the concept of time. If I could find out about the past, why couldn’t I find out about the future? This was around the same time that I realised I would never grow up to be a 6ft tall, dark haired, olive skinned Brazilian model and would be stuck with my pale freckly skin and short body forever. The harshness of reality.
Now there might not be anything to find out. I don’t know how I feel. Scared. Terrified, really. Hopeful that we’ll somehow survive. Pissed off that it’s happening in our lifetime. Angry that my sons… I have no idea what kind of future my boys will face, if they’ll face one at all.
I wish this was all just happening in a book and that I could flick to the end, reassure myself that it’s all going to work out. But I can’t.
Claire put the pen down and rubbed her hand. She didn’t handwrite much anymore. Gone were the days when she could write pages upon pages without even a tingle. She read over her entry and let out a deep sigh. She closed her eyes and lent back in the chair, taking deep breaths. One hour at a time, she thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tom
TOM closed his eyes and held on. The initial exhilaration of flight had quickly worn off.
Once the old man had turned up, it had been a surprisingly quick and simple transaction to get on their way. The man was more interested in the money than checking that Mike could actually fly. Tom had started to wonder if he even owned the planes, or was just an office worker making an opportunistic quick buck. He found that he didn’t care, as long as they got the plane and got out of there. He just wanted to get home. Mike had tried to bargain him down, but the old man wouldn’t budge. He knew they were desperate.
They said goodbye to Emma again, hopefully this time for the last time. Well, hopefully he’d be seeing her again at next year’s conference, but for now, he’d just go with hopefully not seeing her again in the next few days. She’d given them both a hug and a kiss on the cheek and wished them good luck. Tom felt touched. She’d helped them so much, and yet she barely knew them.
Mike had mapped out their intended route. The plane could only go so far before it needed refuelling. It was over four thousand kilometres from Vancouver to Toronto. Even though it was quicker to fly over the United States, Mike wasn’t sure what kind of reception they’d receive from the American authorities. Neither of them had their passports with them, and they didn’t have clearance to enter United States airspace, and he said he wasn’t sure what the procedure was to get it anyway.