Poems and Curios

A kid 6-stepped around the perimeter of a small platform on top of a van, quickening his pace along with the beat blasted from bass-heavy speakers. Sneakers blurred as the curious crowds on the beach boardwalk transformed from passersby to rubberneckers to onlookers. While the snare crescendoed, the breakdancing kid introduced various flares and windmills into his repertoire. Just as the music reached its anticipated climax, he back-flipped off the platform onto a designated landing pad, triggering an optimally calibrated vertical launch of two Red Bull cans. The kid snatched the projectiles in both hands at their apex , and he crushed the streams of characteristically red-brown liquid into his mouth in a single, literally fluid motion. The gathered masses erupted, tossing their inflatable beach toys, cheap sunglasses, and boardwalk confections into the air. Queues flooded the sides of the van where Red Bull merchandise was freely distributed. It was a combination of product branding a...

As predicted by leading models to the millisecond, the sun released its final coronal mass ejection. Now obviously, this event was not the sun's final, but merely the final to be observed by those Earth-bound beings able to chronicle it. Other beings would also eventually observe this negligible blink of energy from galaxies away, and deduce its existential implications using inconceivably complex signal analysis techniques, resulting in a brief empathetic funeral for yet another extinct species. As the countdown reached zero, the anticipation was over and the "End of the World" parties commenced on schedule. These were less riotous and uncertain than one might expect; at the time, the overwhelming mood of humanity was practical pacifism. It seemed as if the advanced knowledge of impending doom allowed bucket lists to be completed and affairs to be settled in a graceful manner. It certainly helped that poverty, famine, war, racism, climate change, and other global problem...