I am crossing the Van Allen Radiation Belt in a capsule made from a material similar to Plexiglas, but in appearance only; it is a dense material, impenetrable and molded into a perfect Faraday Cage. I am suspended thus not for my personal amusement, nor with any particular destination, as I’m geostationary, like a weather satellite. It is a splendid sight from here, no doubt, but it has been several months, and after such a length of time even a supernova will bore a man.
Why, you ask? Well, the Great Cataclysm of course, as foretold in numerous historical texts and prophecies. But I have spent Christmas in this damn thing, and now, two months past the “day of reckoning”, I have yet to see a trace of smoke, a spark of fire, let alone the tectonic devastation that was predicted. I was expecting shock waves and space-time ruffled up to the magnetosphere. But what? Nothing. Not a God damn thing! What is going on down there? Is it business as usual? Cars on the streets, corruption at the top, not a cogwheel misaligned, every worker-ant stationed as before? God damn it!
I am a scientific man. I went out on a limb on this one, I'll concede, casting myself up to this “observatory” on scant empirical evidence. You might argue that I should not have fled even if the facts were incontrovertible, even if I had sighted the incoming meteor myself. Or even if I witnessed it all after the fact: the sky lit up crimson; fault lines worldwide, torn open and running with lava. Even then I should have stayed put and faced the music. Perhaps I could have helped. Sitting here at twenty two thousand miles I can do nothing. My stock of food is good for two years. I can live. But is a desperate life. No, it is no life at all. Whatever is going on down there, send me back! I’ll take it, whatever the fuck it is: hellfire, limbs torn from their sockets, anything but this God awful quiet!
