Meteor Shower-Short Fiction by Jonathan Stewart

Winter is here, as of yesterday. How better to spend your time than curled up in bed with some short fiction on your laptop? This is a work-in-progress from a forthcoming graphic novel, which will feature the work of something like 26 different graphic artists and original stories by Indyish writer, Jonathan Stewart.

Meteor shower

It is late at night. Two lovers lay under the stars talking and holding each other. About an hour ago they had a midnight picnic and the basket and empty bottle of champagne lay beside them. It is late summer and they chose this night for the picnic because of the annual meteor shower. As yet there have been no shooting stars. They have not spoke for at least fifteen minutes and the women is drowsing in and out of sleep. Suddenly she snaps back to full wakefulness and almost shouts: “Wait! Up there” she points. “Is that one? A comet?” He throws his head up and scans the sky “Where?” he asks. “I must have been dreaming but it was so big”, her voice is quiet now. It is lowered to about the level of the poplar leaves that are rustling around them.

“Besides” he starts in “It’s not comets we’re looking for. It’s meteors. See comets are like..”. She cuts him off “I know the difference between a comet and a meteor. I think I fell asleep and just woke up confused. I dreamed about a meteor that almost filled half the sky it was so big. I guess it was a comet I dreamed about then”. He is smiling now but it’s a moonless night (better to see the meteors) and she can’t really see the details of his face. He pulls her closer and says “Maybe you dreamed about the big one. The meteor that is going to kill us all. They say it’s only a matter of time you know.”

She rubs his stomach and talks, speaking louder then the poplars “I go the movies too you know. I’ve heard about the killer meteor. And who are ‘they’?”

“They?”

“They! They!! you said ‘They say’”.

He thinks just for a few seconds and replies “I don’t know. You know. They. Scientists. Hell even historians I bet. It was a meteor that killed the dinosaurs. We’re past due for another. It’s just a matter of time. You know the meteor that extincted the dinosaurs hit with the power of a thousand atom bombs?”

“One: Extincted is not a word” she says then continues “Two: Where did you read about the power of a thousand atom bombs thing?”

The man says “Extincted is a fine word. I don’t know where I read the thousand atom bomb thing but I know it’s right.” The woman says “I wish we could die by atom bombs. Together you and me. It’s a much cleaner death then some stupid meteor. Stupid meteors probably wouldn’t kill us right away. I heard that the dinosaurs died when the meteor kicked up so much dirt it blocked out the sun. I’d rather turn on the tv and hear ‘the commies are about to drop the bomb so duck under the chair’. I’d jump in your arms instead and wait for a nice clean death where you and I would be mushed into each atoms for eternity.”

He pauses briefly and listens to the poplars which are rustling (rustling rustling) and says “Being mushed into your atoms does not sound like a clean death per say. I think I’d prefer that though. Much more personal then some space rock killing us. I read somewhere..” She cuts him off “You’re always reading something somewhere!” He ignores her and continues “I read something written during the cold war that there is a missile with everyone’s name on it aimed at us by our enemies. Much more personal. Now our enemies are our friends and unless North Korea gets its shit together we probably will not die in a nuclear blast.”

She sighs theatrically and starts digging her nails into his stomach. She kisses his ear and stage whispers into it.
“Wouldn’t it be romantic to die by atom bomb and have our silhouettes burned into the floor forever”.

“We’d have to make sure to be outside on the concrete then. Or on some surface where our silhouettes can stay.”

She leans back from him then says “It’s no good. The meteor’s going to get us. Or we’re going to run out of oil and civilization going to fall apart and we’re going to die in the chaos. That isn’t a very romantic option. You and I living in societies’ tatters, hunting with sharpened sticks for old people so we can eat them.”

“You have a strange idea of romantic.”

She pauses trying to remember something and says “Have we fucked in a cemetery yet? Is there one near by?”

“Do you have to ask that question? No we haven’t made love..” She interupts “I said fuck. How are you supposed to make love in a cemetery. You fuck in a cemetery.”

“No we haven’t fucked in a graveyard. Wouldn’t you have remembered?”

“I don’t know. I’ve fucked a lot of men in cemeteries. I lost my virginity in one. To the grave digger.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Well…that part… yeah. You have to bear with me sometime. I went to a catholic high school. I have years of suppression to work out.”

“ I didn’t know you went to a catholic high school. Do you still have the uniform?”

“Now you’re getting romantic. So where’s the nearest cemetery?”

“I don’t know”

The conversation stops suddenly as it often does on hot summer nights. The trees and the warm earth and the stars (still none of them falling) sap it up somehow. They talk by holding each other. He says “If we died in a terrorist attack that’s no good either. It’s not the same as the ruskies nuking us somehow. I wouldn’t find that a romantic death. I mean I don’t care about their holy war. We’re not even their enemy. I mean if we were their enemy, I mean if we were a couple of crazed Biblebelt republicanvoting darkyhating whackjobs and they rammed a plane into us I’d be like ‘grab me dear’ our most hated foe has destroyed us, come die with me with so we can be with Jesus..together…with Jesus’”. She ponders this and says “Yeah totally. Or if we got sarin gassed or anthraxed, we’d die puking up our anuses on to each other. Not how I want to go. Plus if it’s a terrorist attack that means it would be us and some others. Not the whole world. If there isn’t you and me I want the earth a fiery inferno.”

“You say the sweetest things. So thats it then? You and me till the killer meteor, the terrorists or when we run out of oil.”

“You are forgetting one of the most obvious. Ecological disaster. A wide variety of deaths for us. Famine, drowning or freezing from the climate change, turning into mounds of cancer from the uv or…”

“Ahh stop already. I get the picture and… ‘mounds of cancer’?”

“My point is: more dire options none of them how I’d want it with you.”

“Maybe the whackjobs are right and Jesus is going to come back any day now and end the world”

“That’s no good because he’d send us to hell. Since hell is suffering and punishment we’d be separated and wouldn’t be together.”

“Don’t you know Sarte’s play Last Exit”?

A little annoyed she says “No I don’t know Last Exit”. Slipping into his didactic tone he tells her “You know the famous quote ‘Hell is other people’? It’s from Last Exit. There are all these people right? And they’re stuck in a room together and can’t get out and start driving each other bonkers. Then they realize they are in hell and stuck in that room together forever. So that would be hell for us. We’d be trapped together till we hated each other and would spend eternity hating each other”.

They are interrupted as the meteor showers finally starts. It can’t be described as it can only be witnessed. They lay back for a time that can not be counted and watch it and more then watch it. Like the meteors they fall to earth over and over and over again. Then it tapers off and ends. Now it is very very late as opposed to very late and being late summer it’s getting cool. They both shiver secret shivers neither wanting the other to feel the spasm. There are the sounds of the night then they begin to whisper sweet nothings into each others ears. The man gets distracted though and says “I read this book once” Though useless in the dark she rolls her eyes “Here we go”. He ignores her and continues:

“I read this book once. An old science fiction book by Wells named Year of the Comet. See this comet goes right past earth and we get this huge dose of gas from its tail. Everyone falls asleep and when they wake up they’re happy and everyone gets along and builds like, a perfect world”

“The comet gets everyone permahigh?”

“It changes them to good somehow. Maybe we’ll get a dose of comet gas and we’ll not die by famine or drought or something. Just you and me in funland forever.”

“The comet changes the world into disneyland?”

“Something like that I guess”

She climbs on top of him and says “Put that out of your mind. Lets have the atom bomb instead. Lets do what we’d do if it was about to drop any minute. You have to really believe. Really believe it’s about to drop. It’s about to drop and we’re going to be ashes together. It’s going to drop and we’re going to be atoms crammed together, it’s about to drop and we’re going to be a silhouette. You have to really believe. It’s about to drop, it’s about to drop….”.

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John also covered Pop Montreal and the Future of Music Summit with Team Indyish back in September. Check out his reporting here.