T-minus

CW: end-of-world scenario.

T-minus 11:58:37.

It must have been around eight in the evening when they announced the asteroid impact: I had just gotten into work. I had class later than usual, and all I wanted was to collapse on my couch—then, halfway through my bus downtown, Sandra called, and asked when was the earliest I could come in.

I said, eight thirty. Sandra said she would pay for my Uber if I just got there, so, at ten past eight, I had already put on my uniform polo.

The radio was halfway through “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” when it was interrupted by an emergency alert. The voice crackled with an explanation I didn’t quite understand. It probably would have helped for the warning to have less acronyms: NASA I knew, but PDCO and NEO were out of my pay grade. The extra numbers provided were only slightly more helpful. 

I looked out the window. I saw the neon lights, the gas pumps, the faded billboard across the road, advertising a billboard for sale. I couldn’t even really see the moon yet. I heard the announcement loop, idly leaning on the counter near the register, waiting to see how many laps it would take for the radio to return to my dad rock. It didn’t end. 

I called Sandra first, oddly enough; then, I decided to try and call my mom. Both went straight to voicemail; I couldn’t tell you which one irritated me more. I listened to the loop one more time before deciding to just connect my phone to the speakers and play whatever work-appropriate playlist I had there.

T-minus 11:26:53.

We weren’t a big station, which meant I had time to try and google what all those acronyms that kept looping meant, but my signal was too slow, and I was met with an endless buffering screen. Pettily, I was upset—not because I still didn’t know what a PDCO was and why I should care, but because I wasn’t going to be able to scroll social media much through the shift, either.

I used the time, instead, to step outside, staring upwards. The sun was no longer visible, and only a sliver of sunset hues remained right above the horizon. The stars were just beginning to show themselves. None of them looked any bigger than a speck, certainly none that looked to be 1300 feet wide.

I went back inside and listened to Linkin Park overlap with the looping announcement. Through a guitar solo, I learned the thing coming at us was neatly named 2026 OH1. I still couldn’t google what that meant. 

I shut the radio off and turned my playlist up.

T-minus 10:44:04.

A group of people stopped at pump four to get some gas. They couldn’t have been older than me, maybe younger, even. They were laughing, though they took a break from the fits of giggles to ask if there’s any good motels nearby; apparently their signal was too weak to look online. A girl with blonde hair and big sunglasses that reminded me of my grandma’s knocked over the grab-and-go display by the cash register.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she blurted out, immediately trying to grab at the packets of skittles and put them back into place. One of the blonde’s friends made some joke about her being a klutz.

“No, no— don’t worry about it.” I moved over to help order the small, colorful bags more properly. They stuck out of their plastic container. Was there a point in fully re-shelving them, now? 

I smiled, rang them up. One of the guys paid for their gas. They bought some chips and one of the skittles packets, too. Maybe they felt bad. If they did, they were good at laughing through it. I didn’t have the heart to tell them. 

T-minus 09:51:09.

My playlist looped. I recorded another voicemail to mom and swept the floors. I considered getting the mop out and properly cleaning up this one stubborn sticky spot by the refrigerators, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. 

T-minus 08:34:21.

I tried calling my parents again. Thrice. The phone felt heavier with each “at the tone, please leave a message”, sitting cold against my hand. The chime that indicated doors opening made me pause halfway through my voicemail, and I’m sure the shaky breath I let out got recorded. 

The man who entered looked tired. He had on a worn blazer, his dress shoes were scuffed, and his eyes were framed by grey bags that spoke of more than one recent sleepless night. He nodded and gave a tight smile when our eyes met. I dialed my mom’s number for the fourth time. 

At the tone, please leave a message. 

“Evening,” the man muttered, and my head snapped up. I hadn’t noticed him approaching, but he was in front of me, unloading what he held in his hands onto the counter. Packet of gum, a redbull, one of the shitty bouquets from out front, and a doll. Blonde, green-eyed, dressed in a radioactively bright mix of pink and purple.

“Just this?”

“Just this.” He didn’t look at me, only at my hands ringing up and bagging the items. His hands trembled when pressing his card to the reader. Then, when he didn’t move to take the bag or the bouquet, I lightly nudged them towards him. He cleared his throat. “It’s for my daughter,” he said. “The doll.” 

“Oh.” I blinked, tightening my lips into a smile and nodding. “That’s nice.” 

“It’s… past her bedtime now, but…” he took a few moments before finally looking up at me. He wasn’t crying, but I think he wanted to. “Might wake her up.” 

I nodded again. We stood there for a few moments, before he turned around and left.

T-minus 07:55:56.

Dad rock started reminding me too much of my dad. I left him a voicemail, too. 

T-minus 07:11:03.

I finally got a call through to my mom, but the phone lines were way too busy to actually talk. I made out the words airport from the little I caught over the shitty signal—good. It was good to hear her voice, however choppy. After we were cut off and the line went dead, I sat there for a few moments, staring at my phone lockscreen, some default photo of mountain peaks during a sunset.

I considered my options for a while. Ubering was out of the question. The usual bus I went home with wouldn’t be there for another two hours, assuming it ever came. I was upset to realize that if I died here, it would be after staring at some shitty stock photo. 

T-minus 06:42:04.

The chime above the door sounded again. I quickly straightened my polo—wrinkled from leaning against the shelves in the employee area, flicking through alternative playlists—and was met with a disheveled looking guy. He stood tall, though lanky, and seemed nervous as he approached the register. I got halfway through my greeting, more focused on my attire than the words, when a click interrupted me.

I lifted my head to find the barrel of a gun staring back at me. 

“The money," the man said, with little confidence for a man currently holding a pistol in front of my face. I must have been staring for an inordinate amount of time, because he jerked his hand. “The money. In the register.” 

I blinked at him, still in shock from the news of a meteor and from the cold of the metal inches away from my forehead. “What?”

“I’m robbing you. This—this is a fucking robbery,” the man spat, his voice breaking slightly. His hand jerked again. I could see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “Give me all the money from—from the register.”

Perhaps my hands moved too slow, perhaps I didn’t have enough panic in my movements or my face. I only remembered staring at him, instinctively reaching for the panic button, when he let out a frustrated groan. He cursed at something (me?) and walked out in a fit.

T-minus 06:25:19.

I checked around the back to make sure that the man was really gone, and not hiding out back. He was, indeed, gone. 

T-minus 06:08:26.

I spoke too soon. I saw the man approaching this time, and managed to lock the doors before he could get in. He banged on the doors for a few moments, his movements still carrying something nervous. I pretended not to see him and walked away, focusing all my strength on the buffering circle in the Uber app. I turned the announcement back on, hoping for some information on whether planes were taking off.

T-minus 05:56:01.

I went to the small closet that we called an employee room and cried.

T-minus 05:18:44.

I stepped out front again. When I went to unlock the doors, trying to force my hands not to shake, I saw the guy was still there, leaning against the glass. He scrambled to his feet when he saw me approach, immediately pressing both hands against the glass. When I moved away, not going to unlock it now, he sounded like he was about to cry.

“No—no, wait, please—” 

I stared at him, key dangling in hand as he continued. Mostly, I was looking to see if he still had the gun on him. If he did, I didn’t see it.

“Please, come on— just—just don’t leave me out here alone, please—”

A beat.

I unlocked the door. He muttered something, sounding equally half-grateful and half-desperate, and I didn’t react, only continued watching him. He walked through the aisles as if all the nervous twitching had worn him out: slow, dragging his feet, head almost bowed. Neither of us seemed to be in the mood to talk, and I walked back to the counter. My hands felt restless. I properly re-shelved the skittles.

T-minus 04:43:56.

I kept an eye on him, glancing every-so-often at his haunted little silhouette from behind the register. At first, I could hear him breathe heavily, as if he were exhausted—then, after a while, all I could hear was the shuffling of feet and the hum of fluorescent lights overhead.

After enough idly haunting the room, he finally shuffled over. Up close, I could see his eyes were puffy, looking weirdly suited to the scraggly mess of brown hair atop his head. He tried to come behind the counter, and I instinctively recoiled. “What are you doing?”

He looked clueless as to what could have caused my reaction. Pointing at the cases behind me, he said, “I want a pack of Marlboro Reds.”

“Do you have an ID?”

“Is that really what you’re thinking about right now?”

“You look like a kid.”

He let out a frustrated huff, patting down the pockets of the stained hoodie that hung off him. After a moment, he tossed a plastic card down on the counter, and my eyes slid over the details. Peter D–something, born in May, 2003. 

Reluctantly, I reached behind me and grabbed a pack of cigarettes, sliding it over to where his ID was moments ago. “Cash or card?”

Instead of trying to interrogate my thought process again, he slunk off, and I didn’t have the energy to argue any further. I pulled my phone out again and tried to call my mom. He noticed and shook his head, gesturing with it to the windows.

“Someone drove into one of the poles nearby. You’re not gonna get any signal.” 

I listened to my phone ring endlessly.

T-minus 04:07:09.

After a while of silence, I found him—Peter—outside, playing with the cigarette pack, flicking it open and closed. He wasn’t smoking, simply leaning against the wall and staring out at the pumps and the neons underneath the dark sky. I joined him, tucking my hands behind my back, though I focused my gaze on the road a few hundred feet away, the bus stop sign down there barely visible.

The road was silent now, save for the distant sounds of an alarm. After a few minutes of silence, Peter’s gaze joined mine, and he gestured out with his hand to where a mix of orange and yellow light broke through the dark. “Down there,” he said. “The telephone pole. Totally fucked.” 

“Oh.” I kicked an invisible rock near my shoe, watching his hand fall and his torso stretch out.

“Yep.” 

I looked up for a change, staring at the starry sky. There was a smudge somewhere up there, in the distance—not quite a star, nothing my eyes could quite make out, but uncomfortably big amongst the tiny dots that surrounded it. It made my stomach turn.

T-minus 03:38:46.

After getting cold outside, I decided to try and finally tackle the nigh-permanent sticky spot by the fridges. I hauled out the mop from the supply closet and a bucket. Peter came back inside after a few minutes, too, better insulated by his hoodie, and took a seat on the floor nearby. The sound of a packet of cigarettes flicking back and forth mixed with my labored breathing.

Soon enough, I was, apparently, outmatched by the stubborn stain, or perhaps by the effort of changing out water. The mop lay forgotten somewhere; I plopped down next to Peter, who hadn’t moved from his spot.

“You think I can grab an energy drink?” He asked, quiet, nudging me with his shoulder. My eyes were half-closed.

“Help yourself.”

T-minus 01:31:02.

I woke up thanks to Peter’s leg bouncing restlessly. He had gotten maybe 3 brightly colored cans of energy drinks while I slept. Two of them were empty, rolling across the floor, and the third sat open in his hand. He took a sip from it when he saw my eyes fluttering open.

“What time is it?” I muttered, rolling out my neck. My chest clenched when I heard car alarms in the distance and I realized where I was.

Peter looked at the cracked screen of his phone. “Half past six.”

T-minus 01:08:15.

I drifted through the station, trying to find something to do. Peter and I watched the speck from the window. It had barely gotten bigger, but it still managed to loom, too bright in the bright July sky. I put the mop away. I wanted to put on some music, but my phone was nearly dead, and I don’t know if the bluetooth would have worked either way. 

We shared some of the pre-made pastries in silence.

T-minus 00:42:30.

“What was your plan?” I asked. “With the money.”

“What do you mean?” Peter asked. He had an infuriating habit, I discovered, of speaking with his mouth full—I looked away, too tired to roll my eyes. 

“I mean, with the robbery. What would you have done with the money from the register?” 

He looked as if this was the first time he was considering the idea. “Maybe driven down to Atlantic City,” he finally said, running a hand through the perpetual bird’s nest atop his head.

“You have a car out front?”

“Nope.” 

T-minus 00:25:55.

At some point, tired of the stale air, I went outside, and Peter came with. The speck was still too small for comfort, oddly enough, though there were no more fires visible in the distance. Everything felt too quiet. 

“What do you think it will look like, when it hits?” I asked.

Peter shrugged. “Man, no clue,” he sighed, something tired creeping into his tone despite the three energy drinks that still made his hands shake. “My brother would have been able to tell you, though. He was good with all this space shit.”

“Your brother?”

“Mhm.” He nodded. “Aerospace engineer.” 

I let out a low whistle. “Shit.” 

“Mhm.” 

T-minus 00:11:11.

“What’d you do with the gun?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Oh, forgive me, would-be-gas-station-robber, for having a few concerns—”

Peter laughed. Actually laughed in my face.

T-minus 00:06:51.

“I hope my parents got to the airport in time,” I sighed. We hadn’t bothered going back inside, and though it was still early, the heat was already beginning to pick up. Maybe it was just the placebo effect.

“In time?” 

“I mean, I don’t know when planes stopped going out.”

“Oh,” Peter let out, then paused. “I hadn’t thought about that.” 

T-minus 00:04:23.

“I feel like we’re wasting time.” He suddenly moved to his feet, pacing the few feet in front of the automatic door. His hands regained their jerky movements as he shook out his wrists. “We need to—we need to do something. Something big, something—”

I sat there on the concrete, staring at him. He grabbed my wrist, tugging me over to a gas pump, searching frantically for… something. I would have helped him if not for the fact that getting within two feet of him meant likely getting elbowed in the face.

T-minus 00:03:46.

The fight drained out of him all at once, and he slumped to the concrete, panting. I cautiously sat next to him. 

T-minus 00:01:12.

When I finally got the courage to look at him again, I saw he was crying. Not loudly, not sobbing—just crying, tears falling past the hollows of his cheeks and onto the fabric of his hoodie.

T-minus 00:00:41.

Before I realized it, I was crying, too.

T-minus 00:00:36.

“Hold my hand?” He croaked out, his voice small, eyes trained on the spot above us that now looked almost like a cloud.

T-minus 00:00:20.

“Yeah, of course.” 

T-minus 00:00:10.

I closed my eyes, running my thumb over his knuckles. His hand felt warm in mine, as did the sunlight dappling across the bridge of my nose.