Impact by Douglas R. Turek

Impact

by Douglas R. Turek

Daphne ran free across the flowing green meadow towards the still small pool nestled in a nook in the valley. The sun was early in the day, oblique and bright. The coolness of morning and the dew of night were evaporating to the stream of light and warmth that flowed from the sun in neverending promise. The half-cookie moon, presently neither an exclusive denizen of night nor day, was perched high in the sky, still bright despite the paling of day around it. A light breeze skimmed the meadow, as well as Daphne.

She was young, happy, half-naked, and on holiday, as all young people should be. She had found this meadow on the property of her grandparents' farm, and it appeared to her a paradise of beauty and seclusion. She snuck out of the house early each morning, although her grandparents, being farm folk, were already awake to hear her pad down the hall, exit the house, and sprint towards the trees to the promise of her private eden.

An early morning skinny dip, in chilly water no less, is, for some, better than coffee. It can clear the head and open the senses, if not the pores.
On this particular venture, she had not dawdled, picking flowers and letting herself get distracted. She was keeping an appointment with fate that she didn't even know was there, waiting for her mere moments into the future. No one knows when they have such an important meeting, and all of humanity had an appointment, stretching out across a day through the curvature of the Earth, the path of her orbit, and the tenuous web of cables for telegraph and telephone that spread like ivy across her beautiful blue face.
Not too far from the glistening, nervous edge of the pool was a stone, high enough to stub your toe on, but small enough to be utterly useless for lying out upon. Daphne kicked off her sandals, nudging them to rest against the stone, and pulled off her dress. A quick fold later, it rested on the stone. She circled the pool, judging it, trying to determine from what angle she should dive in. She walked around towards the deeper end and distanced herself from the pool, to get a good running start.

Above her head, out from Earth about 220 thousand miles, a small ball of stone and ice, hardly bigger through than Daphne's precious meadow, had already gotten its good running start. Through a series of gravitational tugs stretching back millions of years, it had been drawn into the heart of the solar system, dancing about with partner after partner, some largish planets with thick coatings of gas, others little specks of rock smaller than itself. This gravitational foreplay was now leading up to a conclusion, as this small stone's running start was a good [insert miles per hour here]. It's latest and newest dance partner, the moon, had found it too irresistible to let it go.

Daphne had backed up to about twenty feet, and now let herself go. She put her foot ahead of her, above the ground, to let gravity help her to her destination, as we all do when we walk. Or run.

The dancing stone met its partner, and its fate, in a kiss of white hot impact. The shock and heat generated by this ostentatious display of friction melted the stone and much of the surrounding area, evaporated its icy makeup, and pushed dry lakefuls of dust and loose rock out and up, temporarily distracted from the gravity of the moon by another raw force of nature, one which digs craters and carves out legends. The heat came with a twin, light, which flowed outward mostly unimpeded by gravity. Some of that light flowed towards a small meadow on Earth that sat beside a small farm and carried in the palm of its valley a young girl, who was currently running with joy towards a tiny pool of water, where she expected to meet only a slap of water and an invigorating icy shock.

She ran, and leapt into the air above the gently lapping miniature waves of her cool morning indulgence. The moon, still pale and bright and half-lit in the onset of day, was above her and reflected in the surface of the water, when, just to the east of Copernicus crater, a red dot appeared where it should not be.
To Daphne, the oval, slightly teardrop shape of the pool framed a moon lit from the side with a glowing red dot at its center. The overall effect, to her, was of an eye, and only a god could have such an improbable eye, centered, as it was, through the pool and the moon and the fiery spot, on her naked body soaring through the air. She hit the water giggling, that the heavens should go to such trouble to get a peek at her nude form. The icy slap and the freshly opened eye of god above her made her tingle with ecstasy and shudder with awe.