Stardust
meteorology
“And that’s a wrap on the school board story,” Angela says, swiveling a precise fifteen degrees toward the green screen. “For what’s happening above your window this morning, let’s send it over to our newest member of the Channel Six family. Tim, welcome to the team. What’s the forecast?”
Tim beams. He is wearing a tie patterned with tiny gold spirals. His socks, briefly visible as he turns, are printed with little ringed planets.
“Thanks, Angela. Great to be here.” He gestures at the map behind him, which is, oddly, not the regional Doppler. It is a star chart. “Folks, we’ve got a really exciting morning ahead. The Eta Aquariids are still active through the weekend, peaking around three a.m. local time, and conditions are looking favorable for a rate of about thirty an hour from a dark site.”
Angela’s smile holds. She glances at her producer, who is silent. The control room has not yet processed what is happening.
“Tim,” she says lightly, “that sounds, ah, atmospheric. Any chance of rain for the morning commute?”
“Excellent question, Angela. Atmospheric is exactly right. Most of what we’re tracking burns up between seventy and a hundred kilometers altitude, so technically yes, atmospheric activity all morning.” He clicks a remote. The star chart zooms. “Now if you’re heading out before dawn, look east-southeast. Halley’s Comet is the parent body for this shower. Halley swings by every seventy-six years, which makes him our most reliable correspondent. Wish I could say the same for some of the folks in this newsroom.”
In Angela’s peripheral vision, the regional Doppler flickers onto the green screen for half a second, then vanishes, replaced by an animated comet with a smiley face.
“That’s, well.” Angela’s hand finds the edge of the desk. “That’s lovely, Tim. And how warm will it be when people are looking east-southeast for, for Halley?”
“Cool,” Tim says. “Very cool. Space is about negative two-seventy Celsius, so dress in layers.”
A producer’s voice finally crackles in Angela’s ear, one syllable, unrepeatable on air. Angela widens her smile by a calibrated two millimeters.
“Tim, I think our viewers might also want to know about temperatures down here, on the ground.”
“Sure, sure.” He waves this away like a fly. “Ground-level conditions are within normal parameters. The real story this week is the Lyrid radiant drifting out of favorable position, but the Aquariids are picking up the slack. Speaking of slack, I want to address something I’ve been seeing online. A lot of folks are confused about the difference between a meteoroid, a meteor, and a meteorite.”
“Tim.”
“It’s actually simple. A meteoroid is a rock in space. A meteor is the streak of light when it burns up entering the atmosphere. A meteorite is what’s left after it hits the ground. So three different words, depending entirely on where the rock is. Real estate matters, even up there.”
Angela laughs because that is what her body instinctively does in front of a camera when nothing else will save her.
“Tim, this is wonderful, but I do think folks getting their kids ready for school want to know whether to grab an umbrella.”
“Oh, definitely no umbrella.” Tim looks earnest. “An umbrella against a meteor would offer almost no protection. The kinetic energy alone is enormous. That said, the odds of a strike are astronomically low. Pun absolutely intended. And even if one did hit, well, you wouldn’t see it coming. They tend to arrive out of the blue. Pun also intended.”
The floor director is making a slashing motion across her throat. The smiley comet on the green screen is now wearing a tiny scarf.
“And honestly, Angela,” Tim says, leaning into the camera with the warmth of a man arriving at his point, “we are all, every one of us, stardust looking up at more stardust. The dust of Halley burning over us all tonight, the viewers at home, you and me.”
“Back after the break,” Angela says, into the camera, with all of her teeth.
The red light goes dark. Angela does not move. Tim is still smiling at the lens like a child who has just performed a successful magic trick.
Heels strike linoleum at a velocity Angela has not heard since the layoffs. Marjorie from the third floor crosses the studio in seven strides, lanyard swinging, coffee sloshing from the open cup she has forgotten she is holding. A dark constellation of drops marks her trail across the gray floor.
“Tim.”
“Hi, Marjorie.”
“What in the name of God was that?”
“The weather segment?”
“That was not the weather segment. That was a planetarium show. You are a weatherman. You report the weather. Tomorrow morning you are going to stand in front of that map and you are going to tell people whether to wear a coat. Are we clear?”
Tim’s brow knits. He looks at the dark star chart, then at Angela, then at the smiling comet, then back at Marjorie. His mouth opens, closes, opens again.
“Sorry,” he says. “Isn’t this the meteorologist job?”