“I’ve always said, if I only had one day left to live, I wouldn’t want to know about it,” I complain over the rim of my latte.

Jane squints her red rimmed eyes at me and leans forward, chest pressing further into the small table between us, her hearing apparently impeded by the frantic screams of passersby.

_‘Really should’ve made coffee at home today,’ _I think.

I try not to leave my place on holidays, but I just didn’t consider the apparent end of the world counting as one.

That was my mistake.

My attempt at a much needed sip of caffeine is unsuccessful. I look down at my cup indignantly.

Empty.

Huh.

The remaining foam at the bottom seems to form taunting shapes of familiar continents currently at evident risk of total elimination.

To me, the loss of coffee is more distressing than potential inevitable demise, as I’m presently living fully in the denial phase.

I couldn’t recommend it enough.

It just doesn’t seem realistic for something as eternal as Earth to be eradicated by an errant rock.

There will be a last minute solution. I’m sure of it. I’ve seen _Armageddon_, like, a hundred times.

My huff of a nervous laugh inadvertently disperses the foam shaped continents like a forceful blast.

I shakily replace the prophetical cup in its pointless little plate, hands flattening on the table to convey my seriousness during a refreshing window of blessed silence.

“I just think it was rude of the scientists to announce anything about the asteroid, you know?” I reiterate.

Jane presses her lips together to hide her reluctant amusement.

She pins her attention on the traffic outside the window where we sit, finding the newest flock of frantic last minute shoppers much more interesting than addressing reality.

I don’t blame her.

She audibly clears her throat and flashes me a grin that doesn’t stick. “So, are you going to the watch party after this?”

Glass shatters in the distance.

“At Brad’s? Nah. Kind of sounds like a nightmare.”

Both our phones dance on the table with notifications.

Jane’s limbs haven’t seemed to work since we’ve gotten here.

She hasn’t even taken a sip of the coffee I had to climb behind the abandoned counter to make for us.

I take the liberty of checking the alert we received and blow out a breath that rattles my lips.

My eyes raise to hers in apology.

All color has leeched from her skin.

“The asteroid is early,” I confirm.

Jane grasps her lukewarm cup of coffee in both hands and downs it like a shot of liquor.

I rise and slide behind the chrome counter to find a remote for the television mounted on the wall, clicking it on in time to catch the news report.

Live footage of the fiery leviathan of ancient rock, barreling toward civilization, still doesn’t compute for me.

Not while there are still excited shouts in the corridor outside this cocoon of a coffee shop, stragglers still distastefully preparing for watch parties – gathering around screens projecting the extinction of those poor people down on Earth.

“It’s just so awful,” Jane breathes at my side.

I loop my four green fingers in hers comfortingly. Memories fleet through my mind, millennia of attempted communications and warnings of debris fields that were denied. “We tried.”