Collision Course

It’s not that unusual, really,

the asteroids hurling themselves

at our colony.

It happens all the time,

but we blow them up

before they crash, of course.

X-457, for example,

could have vaporized us all,

and that’s just one!

We usually are on a collision course

with around 250 a year, on average.

It’s such a routine occurrence

that now it’s kind of a party

if we dodge an especially big one.

About a month or two in advance,

the governor will announce

that the enormous rocky projectile

is rushing, unwanted,

headlong at us.

On the news, they’ll discuss its size

and what would happen if it did

actually hit us,

and everyone shudders,

and some people panic

and apply for transfers off the colony,

and some people are convinced

that the fail-safe system will fail this time,

and some people, the religiously minded,

pray and hope for some kind of

apocalyptic redemption.

But most of us just go about our

day-to-day lives,

secure in the knowledge

that the Alliance will take care of it,

strike it with a missile like a piñata,

while we sit with picnic baskets and telescopes

under the stars,

oohing and aahing at the resulting meteor shower

as the fragments of the asteroid

burn out magnificently in our atmosphere above.

And we would be doomed

in the face of mechanical failure or simple human error,

but would it be any worse than

the endless storms on Indra 42-S?

Or the sand typhoons

on Seth 938B?

Or the fact that Janus 51 will definitely

crack in half at some point,

but no one knows quite when,

and the weather is pretty nice,

so you’ll still be on the residency

waiting list for at least 10 years.

So better to have a night out,

with friends and family,

eating all the best imported foods,

crack open an old bottle of Earth wine,

sing songs,

scratch your dog’s ears

and kiss your lover,

you know,

just in case.