I woke up this morning, dragged my ass out of bed, and looked out the window. Everything looked pretty much the same as it had yesterday. Except it wasn’t. Maybe it was me. I’m not sure. But as I stood there, it occurred to me that we’re floating on an ocean of molten rock that for the most part we can’t see or feel. Earthquakes and volcanoes are happening everywhere you look. There’s one in Iceland right now. Tectonic plates are moving like bumper cars. There’s subduction in the lithosphere, which sounds pretty bad. On top of that, the cosmos is using us for target practice with meteors, comets, and black holes. It’s like we’re all wearing bulls-eyes, which is some scary shit. Worst yet, I remember reading somewhere that it’s all going to end. Not right away, but soon enough. The sun’s going to go red giant on us and swallow the Earth. Then the universe is going to freeze. We have an expiration date. “Use before the next five billion years.” After that, there won’t be anything left. So I took a crap, got a beer from the fridge, and went back to bed. The hell with it.

Jim Woessner works as a visual artist and writer living on the water in Sausalito, California. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College. His publishing credits include The Daily Drunk, Flash Fiction Magazine, Close to the Bone, Adelaide Magazine, Potato Soup Journal, The Sea Letter, and others.