The asteroid’s getting closer every day and all Dad wants to do is play one last game of tennis as a family. He called me over when he heard the news. The terrible news. Called me right away and said this isn’t how it’s supposed to end from his rocking chair. The Bible doesn’t say anything about an asteroid. I told him this isn’t how it ends then.
I keep seeing it outside the kitchen window. Painted in the sky. Beautiful and deadly.
Once he made his peace with it, he said to me, if it is the end… he wants to go out hitting a solid backhand. I could tell he was scared. He gripped his tennis racket harder than ever and braced it over his chest, the way he would hold it if he happened to be buried with it.
I said, what if I was able to return it?
He said… he didn’t think I had it in me.
The asteroid’s growing larger in the sky by the minute, as you would expect an asteroid to do. Taking up more blue. It’s not changing its mind or anything. No second guesses. No hesitations. I could admire its tenacity. Really.
Dad rounds me and my brothers up and asks Mom if she wants to make sandwiches while we play. You know, go out doing what she does best, I suppose? She says she’ll come but she isn’t making a thing. She’ll be making something for herself, maybe.
I can’t believe everyone will be on the court at the same time.
The whole family.
My older brother isn’t going now. There’s a girl he says he’d rather spend his last moments with. I’m sure getting laid is on his mind right now. He wants the female touch as his body expires and bursts into flames. Two earthly and celestial bodies colliding at once. I get it. The poetic imagery.
My younger brother says he doesn’t want to go either but doesn’t have a good reason why. He just wants to die alone, I guess. Like an old dog that crawls under the house when it knows it’s time to die. I can understand that, too. In a way. He covered himself in blankets and disappeared into his room to play video games in the dark. That’s kind of the same thing as under the house.
Mom went to the grocery store to grab things for the sandwiches she already said she wasn’t going to make. There was something about the way she looked at me before she left. Like she didn’t want to be looking at me at all. Like she was wincing. I don’t think I’ll ever see her again. She wasn’t even wearing her seatbelt when she drove off.
Dad’s only done a few practice swings in the front yard before his whole plan vanished into myth. He does his swings early because he’s too embarrassed to practice them at the tennis court, because the court is wedged between the houses of two more successful fathers. Fathers who play better. Fathers that watch us play… he thinks. Fathers that judge his warm-up.
Dad considers this while the world has a new shadow to consider. A new way of being. Everything feels skewed. The birds sound weird.
I tell him I’m the only one coming and the noise he makes reminds me of one of those birds. Just a weird, atonal, sigh of nonlanguage. Like a breath and a scream at the same time.
It’s when he makes this dying bird sound that I think I can handle his backhand today, and that not only can I handle it, but that I can cram it back down his throat in a way that’ll make only him proud. He packs the tennis rackets into the mini-van and waves for me to get inside. From my vantage point, his head falls perfectly into the center of the asteroid behind him, free spinning in space, gracefully coming to make history. It crowns him, even. It’s beautiful.
At the court, the wind picks up violently. Everything scatters across. Everywhere is something that ruins the game. Disturbs the momentum. I’ve got the edge on him so far. But he hasn’t shown me his backhand at all. I can barely hear his shouting from this side of the court. Thankfully. Can’t make out his wild antics when he misses an easy shot. He blames me for it… I can only assume from here.
There’s an electricity in the air that covers all the excuses now. We whip the tennis ball back and forth like it’s the last game of our life because it’s exactly that. Lightning frames the whole scene perfectly. Rain starts to fall. The tornado sirens are trying to get involved.
Dad keeps looking down the road behind him. Back toward home. Looking back like someone might appear out of nowhere. Hesitant to serve. He’s clutching the ball, but his hands are shaking. Everything about him looks off.
There’s an asteroid peering through the trees now.
He serves.
Dad’s trying not to look up at the asteroid. It’s changing the gravitational pull and the tennis ball’s going every which way now. Rocks and bugs are floating, too. It feels impossible to finish the game in these conditions. My dad’s waving off the asteroid. It’s ruining his game. Go, he’s saying with his hands.
He decides not to wait to unveil his backhand anymore and gives it to me on the next volley. It’s magnificent. Speedy, yet focused. Dialed in… despite the changes in gravity.
I kick off and I’m almost there.
Extending.
Overreaching.
Floating.
Then, nothing but a bang.
