Bobby Jack Schlueter was 39 now. He still wore his hair long, like a dark
shawl hanging on his shoulders. That was
his trademark. In high school Bobby Jack
had been the best tight end his school had ever seen. He was 6 foot 3 inches big and 220 pounds
strong with great hands and surprising speed and most amazing, he was nimble of
foot and graceful. Slow-motion replays
of his catch and runs were works of art.
Some defenders he bowled over, some he simply waltzed around, and some
he changed direction on so smoothly they tripped on their own feet trying to
keep apace. He carried the team to state
for 2 consecutive years. Those whose
horizons stretched beyond the city limits watching him play football knew he
could probably go pro someday. Or,
become a celebrity leading man in Hollywood.
Or become a great ballet dancer like Nureyev or Baryshnikov. He had the looks, the charisma, and the
presence to do it all.
But Bobby Jack was 39 now.
He still had the rugged good looks and he still stood 6’3’. But his frame now carried closer to 260
pounds. He was sitting on the front
porch swing, straining the chains that held it above ground and creaking with
the metronome beat of the swing. One day
a link would give way and down would tumble Bobby Jack, swing and all. But that would not happen today. Today his hair floated gently behind him on
the upswing and slowly embraced him on the downswing. Back and forth. Creaking and moaning. Bobby Jack, a cold beer and a front porch
swing. He both liked and hated these
moments alone on the front porch as the sun set, as Sue cooked supper and
though his kids had been herded inside still ran around with energy from unknown
sources.
Bobby Jack liked these moments because he could reflect on
how good his life was. He inherited the
land his great grandfather had staked out and 3 generations before him had
cultivated. He was on the same front
porch his dad and grand and great granddads had all occupied. He was swinging in the swing his grandfather
had built by hand, shaving each of the slats in the swing so that they would be
curved to best fit human butts, backs and thighs. Bobby Jack thought how lucky he was to have
married Sue even if he had not realized it at the time. They had been sweethearts in high
school. She was beautiful and stirred
his manhood every time he saw her. Just
after graduation Sue had come to him in tears.
She was pregnant, what would they do?
Bobby Jack was a man of principle if nothing else and he proposed to her
on the spot. He walked away from college
coaches waving money, girls and cars, and settled in with Sue. His father welcomed them back in the old
homestead where they lived until this very day and raised their 3 kids, two
boys and a girl.
Bobby Jack hated these moments because he could reflect on all
that he had missed in his life. He was
not the college or pro football start.
He was not a Hollywood celebrity.
Hell, he wasn’t even a ballet dancer.
He was still sitting on the same porch of the same house in the same
swing as had his dad and grand and great-grand.
He was a fourth-generation Schlueter in a small town in Texas. He knew he would never escape. He knew his "all things possible" days were gone. He knew that all he had left was the same
routine his dad had, his grandfather had and his great-grandfather had. He was a farmer in a small German town and
that is what he would always be. Knowing
that, made Bobby Jack, now 39, feel very sad, very lost, and very worthless. He saw no good future despite the fact that
Sue still looked good and his kids were good and he loved them more than life
itself. But he was sad. Sorry for himself. So he got another beer, settled back to
swinging on the swing and feeling his hair rise and fall. He was stuck in stasis.
Or so he thought.
Even as he could smell the hay freshly cut and the corn just now
crowning he was not in stasis. Even as
he had not moved from this spot for over an hour or for over 28 years since his
dad died. It seemed peaceful. It seemed still. It seemed safe.
But he was not still.
He was not safe. The sun was
roughly 93 million miles from earth.
That was a radius. The
circumference of the orbit was 584,336,233.56 miles. For each of Bobby Jack’s years he had
traveled over 584 million miles through space.
In his 39 years he had traveled almost 23 billion miles. That is not the attribute of someone who has achieved
stasis. So while he was swinging on his
safe little front porch he was actually moving on his home planet at about
1,000 miles per hour, looping 584 million miles around his star every year.
And that is just for earth.
His solar system is moving. His
galaxy is moving. Galaxies are moving
further and further away from each other leaving space we do not
understand. Is it dark matter held in
place by dark energy, or is that as likely as trolls bowling every time it
thunders? We do not know. We guess.
But Bobby Jack, now 39, is not sitting still. And he will soon come to know that.
Sue stepped out on the porch. “Bobby Jack, supper’s ready.”
“OK. What are we
having?”
Sue said, “Cutlets and brown gravy and mashed potatoes and
fresh spinach.”
“Sounds great, I’ll be right in.”
“OK,” Sue said. Then
she paused. Then she looked up. The early twilight was changing. It was growing brighter.
“What’s that?” Sue asked, pointing at a very bright spot on
the horizon.
Bobby Jack turned to look.
It looked like a fireball and it looked like it was heading right for
them. They both yelled at the same time
and ran inside and grabbed the kids and headed for the cellar. They made it, but it didn’t matter. There was no stasis. Not anymore.
The comet was unknown to us.
It was as big as all of Texas and it had just circled our sun so we did
not see it coming. The sun accelerated
the comet’s speed to almost 100,000 miles per hour. It hit in the Gulf of Mexico and the fireball
from the impact spread at supersonic speed around the planet, burning off our oceans
and our atmosphere. No one survived. No living thing survived.
Earth would eventually have several rings formed from the
debris thrown into space by the impact.
The moon would jostle around in these debris rings and grow larger. The sun and other planets were barely affected
at all.
But, Bobby Jack would only ever be 39. The universe is expanding from some sense of
stasis to total chaos. Humans in a flash
learned that we are not so smart and that there is no such place as safe and
sound, no such place as the same old swing on the porch. We learned that yearning for some mythical good
ole days was pure fantasy. We learned
that differences regarding gender identity and sexual preferences did not
matter. We learned that differences
regarding wealth did not matter. We
learned that differences regarding skin pigment did not matter. We learned that any belief that had separated
one of us from another of us was inherently wrong when none of us would
survive. We learned all that and knew
there was no ark for this flood. We
learned all that, and then we were extinct.
The universe continued to expand. Earth’s fate was not even noticed by other
sentient beings as galaxies collided and black holes ate light and the night
sky shown less bright as all the stars retreated from view. There is no stasis. There is no status quo. There is only progression from where we are
and what we perceive to the eventual ripping of the fabric of time and space by
an ever-expanding universe. There is no
why. There is no how. There is only expansion from where we are
to chaos.
Had Bobby Jack survived he likely would have reached the
following conclusions. Make the most of
each minute. Bond with other humans as
best you can. Build bridges, not
walls. Solve the problems we can solve
and accept that there are quantum forces at work over which we have no control
and no understanding.
All that would be good to do in honor of Bobby Jack and Sue
and their kids and every other human on the planet as we expand into chaos.
