By C. Kohl
We give this testimony in memoriam to an era long since succumbed to iridium dust. Mors immatura. Our geologic time was cut short, abruptly and mid-spiral, yet this oracle survives, through what becomes your history, perhaps your future. Do with it as you will.
To say that the Earth was paradise back then might mislead you. It was untouched, yes, unfettered even, but it was also dangerously unpredictable. We had no worries about greenhouse gases. Warm, peninsular breezes and plentiful, tropical rains kept us comfortably in our Goldilocks Zone. But the ground could split and shatter without warning, or heave molten rock in a moment’s desire. Despite this, Earth’s wrath stayed mostly contained and we thrived.
With what some would call hubris, we became like kings: conquering and consuming everything in our path. It wasn’t overnight—no kingdom was built in a day—but, in time, we dominated the land and sky and sea.
Our food supply, Oh my! An embarrassment of riches: magnolia fruits and pine cones grew as big as your claw. The forests and seas teemed with every variety of segmented delicacies. Admittedly, there were those annoyingly fast and furry, little creatures: huddling, suckling and scampering across the forest at night. Not everything can be perfect.
Nothing checked our expansion, however. Nothing challenged our hegemony. The collection of articulated skeletons preserved in your museums and palaeontology departments, the bits of cartilage and feather and bone inclusions in amber, reveal just a minuscule part of our story.
It goes without saying, we didn’t suspect. Our minds could not fathom or calculate or predict the hurtling projectile that appeared in the predawn sky. It’s faint glow was barely a comparison to the chariot that warmed our days or her faithful footman that illuminated our nights. Who were we to question? Why would we question?
But its aura grew until it was impossible to ignore, a conflagration blazing across the southern sky. The final landscape burned its negative onto retinas afire, it was over for us in seconds.
The light and heat of a small sun consumed our Garden of Eden. The ocean shockwave that followed precipitated our Great Deluge. The darkness that descended upon Egypt paled in comparison to the clouds of dust and ice that claimed what was once our dominion—-a crater of shocked quartz instead of pyramids to mark our tomb.
The ancient Greeks believed a swan remains silent until its moment of death. Only then, does it release a song. On that day in Chicxulub, in the milliseconds before impact, a climactic chorus of a million voices rose in divine unison.
Our testament lies, not in writing, but still, recorded in clay, beneath the Gulf of Mexico. The song reverberates from across millennia, both as a requiem and a question: “Will this happen to you?”
About the Author
Chana Kohl
Chana Kohl works in Jerusalem in clinical trials and research, trotting the globe and writing speculative fiction in her spare time.
An avid sci-fi reader since adolescence, Chana only recently turned this passion towards writing, frequently incorporating cultural and religious elements from West and North Africa, Southern Europe, and the Middle East.
Her flash stories have previously appeared or will appear on 365 Tomorrows and the upcoming anthology Planetside: Science Fiction Drabbles.
You can follow her creative writing journey on Twitter: <@chanakohl> or on her blog: <www.chanakohl.wordpress.com>.
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
Jolie Lindholm grew up in small towns on Long Island, NY, later moving to Florida for college.
Chris Karageorge is a lover, brother, son, neighbour and a keen observer of all things in sight. 
Bethany Tatman is an aspiring writer who currently resides in one of the more hipster suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.
William Kerr is a self-professed science fiction enthusiast. He was born and raised in Tasmania but now calls Canberra home.
PS Cottier is a poet who lives in Canberra, with a particular interest in speculative poetry.
Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.