They said on the radio that if an asteroid one kilometre wide was by
chance to catch the Earth’s atmosphere and collide with our planet, the ramifications would be awesome.

They said it would create a tremendous crater and cause an earthquake so big that all the buildings for thousands of miles would be demolished.

They said it would throw up a huge fireball which would burn everything to a crisp.

They said that the climate change caused by the debris in the air would be enormous.

Rosanne thought about this all morning. She was annoyed she had worried her way through 65 years of life, faced and overcome dramas, wars, and her husband, and now had to step into a crisis beyond her control. What’s more, they hadn’t said exactly when this asteroid was going to hit, or what they were going to do about it.

She wondered if the astronomers really knew what they were talking about. After all they sat up all night watching the heavens through those great telescopes, and must be exhausted with eyestrain the next day. However, she supposed if you could put a weird crawly robot on Mars, which was trillions of kilometres away in space, open out its little arms and then watch it pick up red rocks, you must know all about asteroids.

All Rosanne knew about asteroids was that they were bits of space debris which spread all over the heavens, whizzing around getting in the way of spacecraft and planets. In “Lost in Space” the big robot called out “Warning, warning!” when they were threatened by asteroids. Everyone became very stressed, and they had to activate their spaceship shield and try to dodge the bits that would shatter it. (The shields in those days weren’t very reliable). There were asteroids all over the place in “Star Trek” but by then they were pretty sophisticated, and of course Mr Spock could answer every question thrown at him.

Then there was that movie about an asteroid about to collide with Earth. Bruce Willis tried hard to divert it to clip the planet in one spot, but in the end people worked out there was nothing they could do but go up
on a mountain to see it coming towards them. They held hands when it hit, and were all annihilated.

Rosanne thought this was particularly defeatist. If there was an asteroid approaching earth she thought she should prepare for it. She was darned if she’d let something like a bit of space debris ruin things after all the trouble she’d gone to getting her pension and settling into her waterfront townhouse.

Rosanne began to fill out a survival list of things she could do in the event of an asteroid colliding with Earth. It was no use waiting for the Government to make a plan. They would still be arguing about it as it struck.

Firstly, if there was to be a fireball she would need one of those silver blanket things firemen used to cover themselves in bushfires.

Then, if all the houses were going to be demolished by the earthquake
and fireball, she would need a tent to put up when it had all settled down. She would need lots of tinned food, a spoon and a can opener, for if there was climate change because of the dust, food would be short.

Oh, and climate change would probably mean cold, so she’d need the mohair cardi her sister-in-law had knitted but was too warm for the Gold Coast. (You use everything if you keep it long enough). And if everything was destroyed she would need to be near water, preferably not contaminated, so it would probably have to be a mountain spring.

She wondered why on earth the people in the film hadn’t found themselves a mountain spring when they went up to watch the asteroid. They should have covered themselves with a silver blanket thing to deflect the heat at the time of the fireball, then put up a tent after the earthquake and lived on tinned food until the climate returned to normal.

It was simple really. She thought she should ring the radio station and tell them what to do, but then if Bruce Willis couldn’t work it out, what hope would she have of them believing her.

Well at least someone would be prepared.

___________

Helen Ellis has been a writer for many years. Originally an Editor for trade and charity magazines, she turned her attention to the theatre and wrote adaptations for Musicals and sketches for Revue. An antique dealer for 25 years, she had many published articles in 'The Antique Trader' magazine. Now retired, she has written novels and travel pieces, her latest, a piece about Greece, appearing in Lonely Planet's 'Rites of Passage- Tales of Backpacking round Europe'(2003).