Page 19 of Flirtasaurus
Mystery man continues his audio tour, which—against all odds—is still somehow incredibly sexy, despite the ridiculous text he’s reading. It seems the man has a gift.
“Until now. Now we know what every scientific sign points to: that a massive asteroid collision in the Yucatan over sixty-five million years ago, an impact that triggered an unstoppable, deadly chain reaction of events is responsible for ending the reign of dinosaurs.”
I can’t take it anymore. First of all, I always find talk of the dinosaurs’ demise to be completely devastating, so I kind of can’t bear to watch this. Second… I gotta find out who is behind this voice once and for all.
I’m not sure why this feels so earth-shatteringly important to me. Is it because I got stood up—for the record, Calliope FitzGerald does not get stood up—and I want to redeem myself somehow? Is it because I’m a scientist, and uncovering mysteries is basically my jam? Or could it possibly be because—and I absolutely hate to admit this—I feel… inexplicably sad at losing something I never even had?
Whatever the reason, this feels like my Dorothy andThe Wizard of Ozbehind the curtain moment. Hella important and full of giddy energy because I know, at long last, I’m finally about to get some answers. Unlike Dorothy, however, I’m gonna lay some serious smackdown on this guy when I find him.
I think.
Maybe.
I actually have no clue what the hell I’m going to do when I find him, but here we go regardless.
I shoot up to standing, and whisper, “If you’ll excuse me.” All three of my teammates turn their heads to look up at me. I guess I need to explain my sudden departure. I stammer, “I need to, uh… I have to… Um.”
Think, Calliope.
Ooh. Bingo.
“I’m having lady issues,” I hiss. “If you catch my drift.”
All three men immediately break eye contact with me and offer a smattering of uncomfortable, “Oh, yeah. Fine. Sure, go,” type responses. I’m sure I could have come up with a different excuse, but when in doubt, you can almost always count on fellas’ squeamishness around the subject of menstruation to get yourself out of a tricky situation.
The image on the dome screen shifts to a huge hunk of rock hurtling toward Earth right as I hurtlemyselfthrough the dark theater, scanning left and right, up and down, searching for wherever this dude could possibly be perched. Epic instrumental music pumps through the speakers. The kind you hear in movies during a high-speed car chase or a montage of a beloved character making terrible life choices that you know without a doubt she’s going to regret.
Then, I see it. A tiny speck of light in a dark corner. And directly above it… the shadow of a guy looking down at a lit-up piece of paper. I can just barely see his face. He leans forward and continues to speak into the microphone.
“An asteroid almost seven miles wide, traveling at speeds over 40,000 miles per hour is about to hit Mother Earth and create a crater twenty miles deep and one hundred and twenty-four miles wide. BOOM! Impact! The asteroid explodes with the energy of billions of atomic bombs!”
My body jolts as the entire dome above us fills with fiery orange light, but I continue to creep closer to him. Yes, creep. The word creep is completely accurate in this instance. I do not walk. I do not saunter. I am a creepy creeper creeping up on this man in a dark-as-hell theater while he attempts to do his job, and I do not feel an ounce of shame for doing so.
“Heat from this fireball reaches 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, setting up a shockwave spreading faster than the speed of sound! Hurricane winds take over in an instant! Ocean water is displaced, then fights back in the form of towering tsunamis! A seemingly endless expanse of rocks shoots miles up into the heavens, then cascades back to Earth, creating massive mountains! Tout suite!”
Is it me, or does this guy seem really excited by the imminent death of my dinos? And tout suite? Come on.
“In the six-hundred-mile radius of impact… Everything. Was. Decimated.”
I’m right beside him now, but he’s so wrapped up in his performance he doesn’t see me. That is, until I start the slow clap. A classic slow clap is guaranteed to get someone’s attention. Use at your discretion.
At last, he turns and spots me, his head whipping back and forth between me and his script as he sputters out a few more lines with an air of confusion peppering his delivery. “Within eleven minutes, uh… the, uh… the sky went completely dark.”
“I guess I know now why you would choose a dead baby fawn as a rendezvous point.”
I find in situations like this that it’s best to start mid-conversation. Why waste time with explanations and reintroductions. I mean, let’s get right to the point, shall we?
What is his response as he frantically fiddles with his buttons, head whipping back and forth?
“Um…”
Scintillating. What a conversationalist.
“Okay, let’s get more specific then. It makes sense to me now that the kind of guy who revels in the extinction of a magnificent empire of exquisite animals like the dinosaurs would also choose a dead baby fawn as a spot for a meet-cute and then pull a cowardly no-show.”
“I’m sorry, are you talking to me? Because I’m sort of in the middle of something.”
He gestures to the gigantic domed ceiling projecting gloomy images of a soot-filled sky with herds of Pentaceratops lifting their heads in confusion while more pre-recorded music plays. I don’t care, though. I’m on a roll.
