The-Infinite-Sea-Pdf

Now I’m standing on the shores of a vast, shallow sea, watching the asteroid fall, a tiny dot, a pebble,
insignificant.
“When the dust from the impact has settled, three-quarters of all life on Earth will be gone. The world
ends. The world begins again. Humanity owes its existence to a bit of cosmic whimsy. To a rock. It
really is remarkable when you think about it.”
The ground shudders. A distant boom, then an eerie silence.
“And therein lies the conundrum, the riddle you’ve been avoiding, because confronting the problem
shakes apart the very foundation, doesn’t it? It defies explanation. It renders all that’s happened
impossibly discordant, absurd, nonsensical.”
The sea roils; steam whips and swirls. The water is boiling away. A massive wall of dust and
pulverized stone roars toward me, blotting out the sky. The air is filled with high-pitched screeching,
like the screams of a dying animal.
“I don’t have to state the obvious, do I? The question has been bothering you for a very long time.”
I can’t move. I know it isn’t real, but my panic is as the thundering wall of steam and dust bears
down. A million years of evolution has taught me to trust my senses, and the primitive part of my brain
is deaf to the rational part that screams in a high pitch like a dying animal, Not real not real not real not
real.
“Electromagnetic pulses. Giant metal rods raining from the sky. Viral plague . . .” His voice rises with
each word and the words are like thunderclaps or the heel of a boot slamming down. “Sleeper agents
implanted in human bodies. Armies of brainwashed children. What is this? That’s the central question.
The only one that really matters: Why bother with any of it when all you need is a very, very big rock?”
The wave rolls over me, and I drown.