Based on what Mr. W has told me about this experiment, it scares the crap out of me. Apparently some scientist is about to start blasting particles at some nucleus at light speed using a new machine called the Large Hadron Collider, hoping to spin the nucleus and then explode it to see what’s inside a molecular nucleus. The experiment’s hope is to discover and recreate the start of life, i.e. to prove the Big Bang Theory. This experiment is scheduled to start on Wednesday. Meanwhile, three other scientists say that this experiment could produce a black hole that would suck matter into it insatiably until the Earth itself is completely sucked in and/or destroyed, and that once begun, there’s nothing we could do at this point to stop it. These three scientists use their warnings to sue the first scientist, and all three have emergency petitions to the Courts for a preliminary injunction (a preliminary court order to stop the experiment from happening while the case is being decided in Court).

I’m really not cool with the thought of the world ending, or of my dying, in the next couple of days. I imagined being with my family, clinging to each other and crying. Or frantically trying to call loved ones on the phone and not being able to get through as everyone is calling everyone else, too, getting the “all circuits are busy” recorded message. Or cringing with my eyes squeezed shut on our bed, Mr. W holding me, as the edges of my reality start dissipating alarmingly, my whimpering about to be cut short by the molecular breakdown of my vocal chords. Or, as this last scenario is happening, Mr. W holding a gun to my head, asking me if I’m sure I want to be euthanized in this most violent but quickest of ways instead of finding out what happens on the other side of a black hole. Or of my floating gravity-lessly in black space, unable to breathe, panicking internally as the vacuum I’m floating in explode the blood out from the thin membranes of my eyes.

Then the rushing thoughts and stages: Who the hell gets to say how the world ends? Who the hell gets to trade in the lives of billions, of this entire planet, to satisfy his curiosity? Why don’t the billions of us get a say? Am I so helpless? Should I prepare for death? At least I got to experience love, marriage, and I’m glad I didn’t bring a child into this world to be taken out this way. And what about all the people with plans for the weekend? For Thursday? For their next birthdays? For their children? I remember that in AP English IV my senior year, we studied a poem that I only remember the ending of (cuz I was a bad student and didn’t pay attention), which is
“…this is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang, but a whimper.”

And then I read this just now. And feel a little bit better. Just a little bit.
One dark comedienne’s take.
THIS still scares me, reading between the humor.

I was planning to go to bed early tonight but now I’m thinking I’ll go spend some time gazing up at the hubby with big watery eyes instead. While hugging my struggling cat.