A Major Catastrophe

Have you ever had the sinking feeling in your stomach that you did not belong anymore? There you are, minding your own business when all of a sudden, a wave of panic ripples through your body and you have the internal urge to be anywhere but here. It is the feeling of waking up to reality, right before your mind has time to fully digest the dire situation you are in and your brain simply wants to yell “help”.

That’s what happened to me this morning when I missed my stop while riding the bus to work.

Luckily, with lighting-fast reflexes, I was able to press the “stop requested” strip and hop off the bus one stop later, thus avoiding a major catastrophe. But what would have happened if my reflexes weren’t so quick? What if I never noticed that I passed my stop? What would happen if I simply stayed on the bus?

After ten minutes, I would have reached Lechmere T stop where the bus would have turned around and headed back to Harvard Square via Cambridge Street.

After an hour, there would have been a shift change and a new driver would command the bus up and down Cambridge Street.

After ten hours, the bus would be parked overnight at the central bus facility.

After a day, the morning shift driver would probably be wondering why I’m still on the bus after all this time. But they never say when you have to get off the bus after paying your fare.

After a year, the bus would be at the mechanic for its regularly scheduled maintenance.

After twenty years, the bus would be decommissioned and disposed at a junkyard.

After a hundred years, the bus would be buried under a mountain of mechanical parts and refuse.

After a thousand years, the landfill would be full and covered. Due to the lack of space, the surface of the landfill would be terraformed to be a new residential zone.

After a million years, new species would evolve that will marvel at the archaeological significance of a fossilized bus.

After four billion years, the sun will go supernova, consuming the remainder of the atoms of the bus.

After 100 billion years, the universe will suffer a massive heat loss as all the stars burn out. The world, as we know it, will end.

Good thing I got off the bus when I did. I don’t want to cause the universe to end!