Metafire

"Are you worried to start imagining more?"

"No. Somehow, I am still not particularly worried. It is really interesting that it's easier to worry and waste the imagination than to imagine things. The worst waste is when you don't worry and don't imagine either. Somehow we need to motivate ourselves into space. It's just like the problem for the President. No matter what, we have to really want to escape the planet. But there isn't a single good reason that comes to mind."

That was the last night they had together.

The next morning, Pete went into work but Erisa stayed in her apartment. Erisa was re-arranging the condiments in the condiment cabinet when the apartment lit up, the sound started, and earth shook. She went outside to see a mushroom cloud rising above Earth in the direction of Boston. Shortly thereafter, the power went out. The telephone too.

Without panic, but in a complete state of shock, she started piling things into her car. She wrote directions for Pete and left the note on the door. She knew she was too close.

She had a friend in Manchester, New Hampshire. Nobody was going crazy, but everybody was moving away from the blast. She got to her friend's house by noon. The TV was satellite. It worked. Erisa and her girlfriend watched the rest of the day.