I have this way of bookmarking things that I see on the Internet which catch my attention at the moment, intending to return to them later when I have time--but then of course when later comes around, I most often have forgotten why they seemed important or somehow connected to anything in particular.
Such is the case with the story of the boy hit by the meteorite. It happened very recently in Germany. The boy was hit in the hand by a pea-sized object from outer space (which upon scientific inspection proved to be a meteorite), and when the little supersonic rock hit him, it sent him "flying," as he put it, and then proceeded upon its final trajectory to bury itself in the road.
It's one of those struck by lightening sort of stories I guess, and must have at least conferred upon the unsuspecting boy a certain sense of personal notoriety. How many of ones friends, after all, will be able to say that they too have been the target of a meteorite? It is something one would tell his children and his grandchildren. It is something that singles a person out from the otherwise madding crowd.
Perhaps it is the greatest thing this boy will ever achieve, all his life long.
I wonder how many of us are dignified by accidents just such as this one?
Another space object, Halley's comet, has long been considered to possess a portentous character, dumb hunk of metal and stone that it would otherwise seem to be. Much is made of its presence astrologically, such that its visits often become connected with either the end of the world or the age of Aquarius, and everything in between.
Of the comet, and of himself, Mark Twain said this:
'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'
But what about all those other people who came in and went out during roughly the same period of time, and yet made nothing of the same sort of splash.
Well.
Cosmic recognition is a great thing indeed--it is the inscrutable sign which nonetheless explains all, and for which all of us wait and hope.
Hit by a meteorite? How curious that we were both in the same place at the same time. What are the chances, right?
2 comments:
The biggest achievement this boy will ever do is getting his name plastered all over the planet's media outlets, with a LIE.
Even the simplest understanding of physics or meteoritics exposes him, but reporters don't bother digging these days.
He'll be remembered in the same venue as the man who sold Brooklyn Bridge.
Interesting. I happen to be one of these people who believes just about anything he reads, or at least in some particular shading. Frankly, however, I did wonder how a meteorite that had implanted itself in pavement somehow failed to pass right through the boy's own flesh on its way.
Post a Comment