The End of the World, Together

“You’ve heard it right folks, we have an even larger heatwave coming to hit the south this weekend, once again breaking the previous heat record. While we’ve had temperatures in the high 100’s this week, we’re gonna get up into the teens of the hundreds reaching at least 115 today.”

“Man again? Texas is getting a little too hot for me,” said Melanie, my wife. We were just recently married three months ago but have been together for a little over three years. And she was right, it was getting way too hot. “We might have to move to Alaska or some place like that if it gets any hotter, Matthew.”

“I agree,” I said with a chuckle. It was her thing to be a little dramatic about certain things, but I found it quite charming. “I grew up here in Houston, but man this heat is getting to be unbearable. Maybe after work today we can go to the complex’s pool?”

“I like that idea,” said my wife with a warm smile. “I’ll order some takeout from our place and then we’ll go swimming?” 

I nodded in response, “Yup, sounds great.”

“It’s a date then.” The warmth of her smile alway amazed me. It reached into the depths of my heart and always brought me such a unique joy. Easy to say, these have been the best three months of my life. I finished my degree at a university in Utah earlier this year and then we got married and moved back to my hometown of Houston, Texas where I got my dream job as a researcher at NASA. It was quite literally everything I had dreamt of. 

“Well,” I took the last sip of my coffee and set the mug on the table where we had been eating breakfast together. “I gotta go to work. All of these crazy solar flares and heatwaves have given me plenty to do at work” I got up and started to grab my things. Melanie walked over and hugged me tight before giving me one last kiss goodbye.

“I love you, Matthew.” 

“I love you too, Melanie.” I really did, so much. Keys in my hand, I headed out the door and got in my car to head towards my work. All that there was on the news were announcements about record temperatures and news anchors talking about what it could be. Everything they were saying was right. This was the hottest summer Texas had ever seen, that the world had ever seen. It’s all we were working on at NASA right now, trying to figure out what was happening. We dropped all space shuttle research and experimenting and dedicated all of our efforts to meteorology and research. The government had labeled it a high priority for us. I can’t lie, I didn’t expect to be working on something so big this soon. 

As I arrived, I opened my door and the heat slapped me in the face. Once inside, everything that everyone was talking about was the heatwave. It was the only thing occupying our minds. I reached my desk and set my things down. It was early, about 9:00am, and the first thing I always did was set up my things and check all emails. However, this morning was different. As soon as I set my things down, I noticed a yellow sticky note on my keyboard. I looked around at the cubicles around mine and saw that each one had a similar, yellow sticky note on some part of their desk where it was practically the first thing you saw. I picked it up, and on it written in all caps said “URGENT: EMERGENCY MEETING, HEATWAVE, 9:30AM, MEETING HALL #1.” What could the meeting be about? They never called a meeting for everyone like this. It was about the heatwave though so it was important. Did they figure out what was causing it? Was the heatwave going to get worse? My interest was peaked and that’s all I could think about while I did my daily morning tasks. 

I sent Melanie a text telling her about the meeting, “They’ve called a company wide meeting that starts in eight minutes about the heatwave.”

She responded, “What?? Tell me all the tea. I want to know EVERYTHING.”

“Hahaha of course I’ll tell you everything, if it’s not top secret of course;)”

“Matthew”

“I’m kidding Melanieee, of course I’ll tell you everything as soon as I know.” Before I knew it, everyone around me was getting up to head to the meeting hall, so I did too. I was still pretty new so I didn’t really have many friends at work, more so acquaintances. So, I just walked in and sat in a random seat next to some people I didn’t know, but of course they were speculating about what could’ve happened to prompt such a meeting. 

Right at 9:30, the president of this branch of NASA walked up to the microphone. He looked sweaty, which was understandable with the heatwave, but it seemed to be a type of sweaty that comes from nervousness, not heat. He cleared his throat and looked at all of us intently. Something was wrong. “Good morning employees of the Houston, NASA Branch. I’m going to keep things brief, because quite frankly there is not much time to be anything but brief.” What? There wasn’t much time? Did he have another meeting after this one that he had to get to? Behind him, a large screen lit up with pictures and graphs. He skipped through the slides until he got to the one he was looking for. It was a picture of the Sun. 

“Now as you all know we have been experiencing record temperatures and rather strange heat waves. You probably heard on the news this morning that an even strong one is coming in and temperatures will get up to around 115 this weekend.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Well, we’ve figured out why.” He skipped forward to the next slide. It was another picture of the Sun, but closer up. There seemed to be an array of loops extending out of and back into the Sun, as if it were being unraveled. 

“As you probably know, these are solar flares. In the past, they have happened very regularly, and it was something that wasn’t to be worried about. Now, they’re happening at an increased rate, an abnormal rate.” He skipped to the next picture, this one being a closer image of the solar flare. It looked normal until you looked in the solar flare and saw discoloring of black and green. My heart sank. I did not know what that was, but it was not good. He continued, “The Sun is dying.” There was a great pause there for quite a long time. It was almost as if he couldn’t believe the words that left his own mouth. Neither could anyone else. “It’s sick, and has been for a long time. Civilizations that lived anciently on this Earth saw it and knew it would happen, but even us, with the most advanced technology so far, couldn’t see it until the day it happened.” Everyone gasped and various noises of disbelief jumped through the various parts of the auditorium. “Yes, you heard me correctly. The Sun is going to die today, and the Earth with it. It will implode in on itself and turn into the most massive blackhole we have ever seen and suck the entire Milky Way Galaxy into it. Heat won’t kill us, but gravity will.” He took a deep breath. “Go home to your families and enjoy your last day. The implosion is predicted to occur at about 8 o’clock tonight. Thank you.” 

And just like that, he grabbed his things and walked off the stage. For a moment, we all just sat there in disbelief, staring at the picture of a sick sun that he left on the screen. It wasn’t how I would’ve imagined it would be. I had imagined that after that moment that seemed to last an eternity, the chaos would start. I thought everyone would jump to their feet and start yelling, either to each other, themselves, or to loved ones on the phone. Everyone stumbling over each other in an effort to get home to their loved ones, but no. After sitting there for a moment, a man in the front calmly stood up, excused himself, and exited the row. Almost one at a time we all left, in silence, all contemplating the information we just learned. I had never experienced anything so surreal in my entire life, but I had never experienced the death of a star. 

After a moment of contemplation, I stood up, grabbed my things, and left. I didn’t bother going to my desk, but rather just headed to my car. Slowly, I drove home. Once in the driveway, my wife heard me arrive and came outside to greet me. She was still in her pajamas as it was only around 10:15 am and she had nothing to do that day. 

“Matthew? What are you doing..” I interrupted her with a hug. It was all I could think of doing. Calmly, I grabbed her hand and walked inside with her. I sat her down, and explained everything to her. She cried, and I did too.

“So, Matthew,” her voice was a little shaky and she was speaking as if someone we loved had just died. “What are we gonna do for our last day alive?” 

I couldn’t believe the question. Here we were: newly wed, just out of college. We had our entire lives ahead of us and we found ourselves asking what we wanted to do for our last day alive. “Well, let’s enjoy it.” I said with a smile. I guess it was comforting because she ended up smiling back. We ended up deciding to do our favorite things together. Closer to our stellar deadline, we ordered food from our favorite restaurant and it was delivered to our house. The plan was to relax and eat our food while we watched our favorite movie, ‘Interstellar’, until the Sun was to explode. It was simple, but that’s what made us happiest. 

With our food in hand and comfiest pajamas on, we piled into our couch and started the movie. It was ironic that this was the movie we chose to watch. I mean, we were sitting in a world that was about to die, and watching a movie about people trying to escape that very same thing. It was weird, but at the same time comforting. It was comforting knowing that we had accepted what was going to happen and that we weren’t running from it. It was empowering, almost. 

Of course, the news and everything outside of our small home was pure chaos. News and radio hosts were screaming about how everything was going to end today. Stores were being looted because for some reason those things would provide some value for people who were about to die. But we were in our house, eating our favorite food and watching our favorite movie. To make my last night alive even better, I was next to the person that I loved more than anything else on this stupid planet, my wife, Melanie. 

We were reaching the end of the movie when it was 8pm. With a look of hope and acceptance, we looked at each other. I guess part of me was hopeful that NASA would be wrong, but they weren’t. Slowly, the sky lit up a bright red. It almost looked angry, but I imagine it was just in pain. It got brighter and brighter until suddenly it wasn’t bright at all. The TV turned off, and we held each other tighter. I knew exactly how it was going to happen, but didn’t want to tell Melanie because I knew it would just scare her. That light  was a combination of hundreds of solar flares, the Sun’s last action before dying, imploding into itself, and becoming a massively powerful black hole. When the light left, I knew it had died.

After a moment, we felt a rumbling in the ground below us. I had never experienced an earthquake before, but that’s what I could imagine it would be like. Melanie started to cry softly and I held her tighter. Destruction became more audible. People started to scream in the houses all around us. I held her even tighter. We closed our eyes. The street outside cracked in half. Our house split in half, and suddenly, we died together.