Full Body Inflation

“It was fucking garbage, Wayne.”

“Hey, cmon, I liked it.”

“Oh, you liked a mindless action movie with scantily clad Hollywood women and explosions every 5 minutes? Stop the presses!”

This argument between Wayne and Sylvia had been going on like this from the moment they walked out of the theatre right up until now, as a promising anniversary date was slowly turned sour by the Hollywood machine.

“It's not my fault if you can't appreciate the nuance and subtext of a movie like this.”

For the world, it began as a perfectly normal day.  The sun rose, the winds blew clouds over the ocean, and everything was normal.  But one thing was all across the news come midmorning.  Every headline in every newspaper, across every language, said the same thing:

ASTEROID HEADED FOR PLANET

The sound of a page occasionally being turned was more or less the only thing audible throughout most of the building, save for maybe the odd creaking of a chair or a cough or two. Of course, though, libraries tend to be like that at the best of times. It was particularly quiet, however, on the evening at which he found himself taking up residence in a secluded wing of the library for some quality reading time.