Chicxulub

Thoughts:

This a very engaging story, fun to read. The ending feels kinda like a “gotcha,” but I guess that’s ok. What’s interesting is that it does end the story focusing on the family whose daughter really did get killed. You don’t always see that. Usually a plot like this would just end in the joy of it being someone else there on the gurney. As a reader, you feel a sense of elation that the daughter is no dead. However, this is muted by the fact that the other family is brought up. All the feelings of anguish and horror you were just released from are now true of another family. You realize there is no respite for them, no happy ending.

And that seems to be the point of the meteor. It could wipe out everything, raising the question of “is there any meaning to our world at all” if we should be destroyed so suddenly and completely? Yet, tragedies on a smaller scale raise this same question for people everywhere all the time. Your son may be fine, but someone else’s is dying – right now. What do we do with that? I’m not like the father in the story, as I do turn to God, but it’s a terrible problem of existence that must be faced by everyone, no matter your race, status, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

Very thought-provoking story.