Down Comes the Rain

Sight-seeing

Mattel Brigand hadn't expected much of the coming summer. As he lived up in the northern reaches of Unotavia, in the nation of Arcadia, the passing of winter meant time to restock the food stores and get ready for a busy year getting people out of trouble with sudden blizzards, storms and landslides caused by melts.

And then, three months ago, National Defence spotted a blip on the star maps. A bunch of astronomy students had thought they'd found a meteor – turns out, a sun a few systems over had blown its fuse, and was sent a hug chunk of its asteroid belt their way.

Nations all over had sent missile after missile, rocket after rocket, in an attempt to slow it down, or veer the debris of course.

Mattel had watched those broadcasts every day, not sure what he was going to tell the people he pulled from wrecks and floods and snowstorms about whether or not things were, in fact, going to be okay, if they were just going to be turned to space dust anyway.

And then, the unrest began. As trials stopped happening, as people gave up, Mattel got more calls from the station to dissolve fights and stop looters. These sorts of things usually only happened further South, in the Dominion of United Unotavians, and the emergency services and fire departments just... weren't ready for people to pull guns on them over bags of rice. The planet was descending into madness, and he had the contacts to prove it.

"It's ridiculous," Jock had told him on the phone last week. "It's like everyone just... lost their minds."

...Mattel would give anything for a hug right now. Especially from Jock. But the farmhand has been busy keeping things inline in his own town – a volunteer firefighter himself.

And then, this morning, a strange feeling shook the world. Mattel had woken up and crashed out of bed, feeling like his bones were vibrating out of his skin, before hearing the panicked shouts, opened his apartment window, and looked outside.

A strange shadow hung in the early dawn sky, such a dark blue it neared to black at the horizon. Mattel glanced at his watch. Four forty-five am. He looked back up. And got an in person look at the sudden violet flash that lit up the sky. He felt a distant rumble, as if the very atmosphere was being squeezed around the beam of light, and watched it come into contact with a black spot near the moon.

There is no description of a sound you didn't really hear (because it would have killed you if it did) but felt and saw as trees bent and cracked full minutes after the black spot in the sky shattered in fractured segments of white hot, super large shooting stars that were way, way, way too close for comfort. The is no way to describe the instinctual terror Mattel felt as the clouds suddenly ripple like a wave as one particularly large segment skirts the horizon towards the rising sun.

Mattel swallows, and adjusts his glasses.

Hearing comes back slowly. Every car in the street has its alarms going off. Every house has its smoke alarms and kettles screaming. One or two tires have burst, and others continue to pop after the impact dissipates. Some of the people outside are holding their ears, shaking from shock.

(Mattel runs back into his living room, and thanks God for his double-glazed windows. He calls a couple of ambulances, and runs out with his first aide kits and shock blankets. These next few hours could be the most stressful final hours he could possibly think of, but he wouldn't dream of being anywhere else.)

When he finally makes it back to the Special Emergency Services station to actual start his day, he is amazed by the lack of people, although he shouldn't be surprised. After all, one of the asteroids came five months early. That's... kind of terrifying. He doesn't blame his colleagues for spending what could be their last days with their family. It just so happens that Mattel can't, and a friend of his has just told him about some place he needs to be right now.

(Amazingly, King's Pizzeria is in fact, still open. Apparently, Mr King wants to go out like he's lived – cooking – and his family is willing to accommodate and work for free, as long as they are together. He somehow gets something like thirty-eight pizzas in twenty minutes along with a kiss on both cheeks and a firm hug from men and women and children who think they're going to die. Even as he drives on to the school Bethany told him about, where kids have been left alone for the past week, his face stays tingling and warm.

He wants Jock to. Fucking. Be. Here.)

Bethany greets him at the gates with a smile.

"Thanks for bringing the truck, Matt."

He hands her the pizzas and gives her a squeeze. "I brought my hard-drive of movies, if you'd like."

She isn't crying right now, but she was, and her eyes are still red with stress and fear.

She brings him to the kids, and together with the remaining teachers on staff, they get more bedding and toiletries set up for the little ones. Quietly, the vice principal squeezes his shoulder in understanding when he sees the number of kids still desperately trying to contact parents who refuse to pick up their phones.

Sometimes, humanity disgusts him. And so, whilst setting up his microwave to make as much popcorn as possible to give them a distraction for just a little while, he heads out to the business district to see if he can get more camping gear and bedding.

For some reason – although in a way, he understands – some places are still opening, co-workers clasping each other in firm hugs and families sitting and bouncing up and down on bedding doing things they'd never do if it all wasn't ending.

"Again!" squeals a girl as her dad double-bounces her on a king single. "Again, Daddy!"

The workers spot his SES badge, smile, and hand him every doona, throw, quilt, blanket and pillow they have in stock onto his truck. Multiple families spot him on his way, and somehow, he accidentally gets three more schools of children camping on the oval with Bethany's.

She smiles at him, as tradesmen and truckies and fast-food workers drop by and knock up tents and wagons by the dozen.

Somewhere, someone has called in a Mr Whippy, and Mattel laughs so hard he almost cries at the Zebby man in the truck handing out free ice-cream to everyone. Policemen stop by. Fire Squads. A notable Lamborghini does a donut in the carpark for the more excitable kids.

(The world is ending, and the first asteroid may have been diverted, but there are dozens more far larger ones headed their way, and they were in no way equipped to head to another planet, if there were any to find with their limited technology. Why deny these people, these children, any joy or delight or delicacy in the face of death? Such things as moderation are worthless. They deserved better. But this is all Mattel can do. The smiles on saddened faces tell him it might just be enough.)

As they put the kids to bed, as more lost children make their way over under instructions from the police officers that find them wandering, Mattel turns to the international broadcasts, wondering.

The large chunk of asteroid that grazed the planet cleaved a huge mark straight through Pazia, right next to where Jock lives, and Mattel lies awake that night, staring at the roof of the gym, praying to Gods he doesn't believe in.

Please, he begs nobody.

Please.