Constant Dawn

“I’m freaking out right now,” Sheila whimpered.

The fiery southern horizon glared up at us, the rim of the world glowing like the planet had grown a halo.

It looked boring. We’d been looking at it for months now.

“You’re not going to feel it when it happens,” said Palmer for the 90th time that day. He was still trying to comfort her, hoping she’d give him an end-of-the-world fuck. Nature’s imperatives never sleep, even in the face of annihilation.

“People have been saying that since they found out,” Sheila snapped. “If it didn’t help then, do you think it’ll help now?”

Palmer didn’t say anything, went back to his joint.

The surf kissed the sand. We sat on our chairs and blankets and drank our beers. The last beers we’d ever drink. Some of the last beers ever produced. They’d been free. A group down the way was passing them out.

There were all sorts of people on the beach. We looked like we were camped out for an eclipse.

“Here,” said Tarsim, offering his own joint to Sheila. “Hit this. You’ll feel better.”

‘That is the LAST thing I want right now,” Sheila responded.

“I’ll give you a hand massage,” said Jane. “I’ll use that cuticle cream you like so much.”

That finally calmed Sheila down. She closed her eyes and focused on Jane’s fingers kneading her own.

I was high myself but I didn’t feel any particular way about it. It was just now, like it had always been. I knew that in a few hours, it wouldn’t be now anymore. It wouldn’t be anything, for anyone.

And for some reason, it didn’t bother me. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I’d had my dark nights of the soul, cried myself to sleep like everyone else, but that was weeks ago. I guess I got it out of my system. I kept waiting for another panic attack or some such thing, but it never came. Maybe I’d reached “acceptance” in the “you’re going to die” countdown.

We hadn’t seen a star in weeks. Night had turned to perpetual dawn. Just this eerie light on the southern horizon. The light is M117-H, the comet hurtling toward earth at however millions of miles an hour. People named it all sorts of things. My favorite name was the inevitable Comety McCometface. It’s less than an hour away now.

Society has been surprisingly civil about the whole thing. People actually calmed the fuck down. There were pockets of freakouts and discord here and there, but mostly it wasn’t much different than normal. In fact, people were nicer to each other. Everyone keeps saying, “It’s a shame it took something like this for us all to get along.”

They never even formally announced it until last week, but everyone knew.
You can keep certain information quiet for too long in the Internet age. We’ve known for a few weeks now, ever since the night sky started getting lighter for no reason. Everything was so fucking calm. I almost wished people would freak out, just so it’d feel more normal.

There were never any movie scenes, not anything apocalyptic anyway. It was just real life. Boring and tedious and always less interesting than you wished it would be while simultaneously being exactly what you needed.

“Well, we had a good run,” said Jane, pushing her thumbs into Sheila’s palms.

She and Tarsim were married. Palmer and I were single. Sheila was recently divorced. Her husband lived in San Francisco and couldn’t get here because all non-emergency flights had been grounded for weeks.

The experts were saying that it was possible some far-off future civilization would learn about us the way we learned about the dinosaurs. Mount Rushmore and other stone carvings are going to be around for a long time — the comet’s hitting Antarctica, so North America will be spared any sort of tidal waves or fireballs. At least that’s what we’re being told.

Sheila pulled her hand away from Jane and started blubbering. She couldn’t be consoled. I shoved my own black thoughts away. I was too close now to give in.

Sheila sat there on the second, rocking back and forth like an autistic preschooler while Jane rubbed her back. The rest of us sipped and stared.

“You’re completely ruining this for everyone,” Tarsim snapped at Sheila.

“How long?” I asked.

Comety McCometface was schedule to wipe out all life on earth at 3:08 AM EST.

Tarsim looked at his watch.

It was 2:38. Half an hour.

“Woo-hoo!” yelled Tarsim like a guy on a roller coaster. “No stopping this train!”

Sheila cried harder. Jane had tears on her face. Palmer put out his joint and rocked back and forth himself. I could hear other people down the beach crying and yelling. It was for real now.

I looked out at the horizon, wondering if I would still be thinking anything in an hour.