Science is wrong: the sun is just a gigantic orange. (Backlog, pt 2)

(from 9/2/08)

I was inside my house (although it wasn’t any house that I’ve ever lived in in real life) doing something unremarkable, perhaps reading a book, when my father came in.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“You need to come outside with us. The world is ending soon and you should spend the final moments of your life with your family,” he replied, somewhat more placidly than the situation called for.

I followed him outside to the lawn, where the rest of my family was sitting. We were on the peak of a low, broad hill that looked out onto a wide sky. Hanging low in it was a too-big sun that had the charred appearance of a dying ember. Its outer layers had peeled away like the skin of an orange and coiled like a fiery helix from the north end of the sky to the south, lying parallel to and just above the horizon. The atmosphere was a terrible red, and I felt a stab of fear in the pit of my stomach as I surveyed the phenomenon and wondered how long it would take for the world to succumb to its inevitable fate. But then I relaxed and smiled as I thought, “Thank god! This means I won’t have to get Alzheimer’s like my grandparents!”