Hit Oort Miss

Abstract

Hit Oort Miss C. A. Hume (bio) It all happened around the time that all the things started to run out of order. There were just three new messages in my inbox. The first was the last rejection letter, from the last PhD program—the safety school. The second email was from the University, reminding faculty that there was a plan in place should the asteroid actually hit and to assure students of this fact but not share the plan or even be too specific about the possibilities of a plan because the Committee on Catastrophic Possibilities and Student Retention was nearly finished with the literature review. Then, and only then, would they work on the finalized language. There was a lot of that going around these days. Language. It's still working, thank Dog. The last email was sent on behalf of the Dean of Student Affairs, featuring descriptions of her recent wedding to her "high schl solemate and best friend." Adding insult to inquiry there were accompanying photos, and they were gorgeous. I Ggled the resort. It cost more per night than I make as an adjunct per class. 11:35:26 AM "Fuck," I blurted out to no one in particular, for this was the exact moment I knew: I am that asteroid that's going to destroy the world. Ever since Play-Doh (but before Gettier fucked it all up), knowledge was defined as a justified true belief. So, when I say I knew it, I justifiably, truly, believingly knew it. I was that asteroid. This kind of revelation requires getting drunk on Tuesday at 11:16:58 in the afternn. Luckily, it's a college town so bze is the collective Achilles' wheel. "Turn that fu-u-uckin' th-ing off!" a bars-tool visionary announces through ponderous speech and wild gesticulation aimed at the pub's TV. "It's bad anouf the fuu-ckin' thing is gonna kill us all, now they're jus eatin' a dead horse." [End Page 29] The bartender chuckles as he the channel. He looks at me and winks, "The news is good for business these days—people coming out of the wind work to push a bit of the worry down with the old brown." The drunk grumbles about the crawl on the bottom of the sreen giving details about all the things presently falling out of order—it's a lot: apparently harps no longer work. Despite his protestants, he keeps the rest of his assholes to himself because assholes are like opinions, everyone's got one. When I was twelve, I realized I could teleport. You'd think that might help with the realization that I was also that asteroid. You'd think that, but ask yourself would you be justified in that belief? The whisky is helping, though. Whisky solves a lot of problems. It reality gets credit for that. I've never actually teleported before because it requires two people that know how. The one person has to reach behind themselves, not physically but metaphysically and also through themselves to the other. Like curling the pages of a bk through the spine to fold the other connecting page. Just like that, in truth. It works through a process of absenting the presence and presencing the absence until one reaches all the way through. Then all you have to do is take the hand of the other person who is doing the same thing, and they'll fold you across. It's pretty straightforward math in an n-dimensional system, which justifies it. I used to t it all the time. I'd feel my hand slip through, but no one ever grabbed it on the other side. "Aren't you nervous?" I ask the bartender. The crawl reads that handkerchiefs now put snot into people's noses, and it's never the temperature you'd expect. He shrugs, "About the asteroid? No time. If the shuttle fails, these people will probably move on to heroin—make hay while the sun blinds." "Yeah," he hears me say, "got to make money." Capitalism and the end of the world is a bitter thrill to swallow that...