Chixculub Essay

Chicxulub Essay

The short story “Chicxulub” is about parents having to go through the ultimate scare of their life, believing their daughter is dead. It starts out like a fun date night for the parents until they get a life changing phone call from the hospital. Once, they hear the news, they quickly go to the hospital, where they meet an unhelpful nurse. As the night wears on, they are visited by a doctor, who tells them that their daughter is dead. However, at the end of the story we discover that the girl is not their daughter. Throughout the short story “Chicxulub” there is a symbol that runs in parallel with the story line, which is meteors destructing earth, which compare to the drastic events that he is going through at a specific time in the story, moreover throughout the story, the meteors become more intense as the narrator finds out more about his daughter.

The first meteor that the narrator describes is the Tunguska in Russia. This meteor was very close to hitting the town of Saint Petersburg, however it did not harm anyone. “Or that’s not strictly accurate—the meteor, which was an estimated sixty yards across, never actually touched down. The force of its entry—the compression and superheating of the air beneath it—caused it to explode some twenty-five thousand feet above the ground…(Boyle 2).” In parallel to the narrator, at the specific time, the narrator was reading a book not affected by anything at the time. “It is just past midnight. I am in bed with a book, naked…(Boyle 2).” Even though his life at that present time was normal, any moment a “meteor” could hit his world. Moreover, the narrator continues to talk about the Tunguska explosion, and the potential disaster that it could cause. “But if—when—such a collision occurs, the explosion will be in the million-megaton range and will cloak the atmosphere in dust, thrusting the entire planet into a deep freeze and effectively stifling all plant growth for a period of a year or more. There will be no crops. No forage. No sun. (Boyle 7).” This runs parallel with the story because there was a late night call to the house, which could be about the narrator's daughter, therefore could potentially destroy his world. “Forget it!” I shout, and her voice drifts back to me—“What if it’s Maddy?”—then I watch her put her lips to the receiver and whisper, “Hello?” (Boyle 6).” After these events however, the narrator’s world starts to be destroyed similar to the meteors that destroyed planet earth.

Crab Nebula

The narrator’s world was destroyed the moment, his wife answered the phone. While on the phone his wife found out that their daughter was supposedly hit by a car. “She was hit by a car. She’s—they don’t know. In surgery”(Boyle 10).” Right after the narrator hears this news, he immediately thinks about a very destructive meteor called the Chicxulub because that was what his life felt like to him at that time. “When it came down, day became night and that night extended so far into the future that at least seventy-five per cent of all known species were extinguished, including the dinosaurs in nearly all their forms and array and some ninety per cent of the oceans’ plankton, which in turn devastated the pelagic food chain. How fast was it travelling? The nearest estimates put it at fifty-four thousand miles an hour, more than sixty times the speed of a bullet (Boyle 12).” Like the meteor the news of his daughter’s accident came extremely quickly and took a lot out of him, similar to the 75% of species destroyed in the Chicxulub meteor. The author continues to think about the Chicxulub and its “irreversible” effects on earth, while he is at the hospital. Similarly, with the potential death of his daughter, he could not save or revive her, she would be dead forever. The narrator’s world does not officially end until the news from the doctor, surprises him.

When the doctor comes into the room, he only has bad news to give to the parents. “...I can see what he’s bringing us and my heart seizes with the shock of it. He looks to Maureen, looks to me, then drops his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says (Boyle 37).” The narrator then talks about a meteor that has not hit the earth yet, but would cause an extraordinary amount of damage to earth. “...Some two hundred thousand cubic kilometres of the Earth’s surface will be thrust up into the atmosphere, even as the thermal radiation of the blast sets fire to the Earth’s cities and forests. This will be succeeded by seismic and volcanic activity on a scale unknown in human history, and then the dark night of cosmic winter (Boyle 37).” The hypothetical meteor symbolizes how the narrator’s world would be without his daughter, he basically said that he would live a dark and sad life from the destruction of the death of his daughter. However, once he finds out that the girl under the blanket is not his daughter, he is hit by a sigh of relief, and the “meteor” does not affect his “world.”

Throughout the short story “Chicxulub” there is a symbol that runs in parallel with the story which is when the narrator was thinking about meteors, the narrator used meteors that caused devastation to earth, to symbolize what he felt like throughout the story. The first meteor the author described (Tunguska) was a potential meteor that could have destroyed everything in the city. Similarly having imagined bad news about his daughter, could destroy his world. The author then talked about the Chicxulub which destroyed ¾ of living species. In his life, hearing that his daughter got in an accident, already destroyed part of his world. The last meteor the author talked about was the potential meteor which could destroy earth. However, like the meteor, in the end we find out that the death of his daughter did not happen, however if it did happen it would have ended his world. In the story, the author used meteors to symbolize what was going on in his life.