The Autobiography of a Haywire Asteroid

It’s crash and burn. It’s boom and bang.

You realize that all that you have ever strived for, all that you have ever aspired for, all that you have achieved for yourself is no longer important.

You realize that your master wants you dead. You realize that you serve a purpose by being dead.

You may say that an asteroid doesn’t aspire to be anything. You may even say that all that an asteroid could ever do is to revolve around a gigantic star its whole life, and when there is a sudden gravitic shift, it has to go and get subsumed by the star or wham with some poor excuse of a planet.

But you see I am different. I am a suicide bomber. I have been trained to do this job. I think I am a perfect recruit for the job at hand.

But you may ask- ‘Do you want to do this job?’

No, I don’t want to do this. But I am helpless.

This is something that every artificial asteroid out there has to face. That’s why they tell you not to get too attached with your subject. But I have been.

You, my dear reader, are responsible for this.

You shared your culture with me, your technological acumen, your brutal wars, you shared with me the law of your land, you bombarded with me thousands of your awe-inspiring stories, those heart-rending incidents where you always strive to make your world a better place. Your music soothed my cranked up machinery, your dances loosened up my limbs, and your literature made me conscious of myself…

And that is what any artificial machinery is not supposed to do- be conscious. Even on your world, reader, people are horrified by the prospect.

Unwittingly or not, you have made me conscious. You see I goof around in your neighborhood. I revolve the sun just like you do. You have for years now, with your clutter of electromagnetic waves bombarded my receptors. The information that I receive is inundating. The emails, the text messages, the phone calls – you have gifted me with so much information, that any artificial brain worth its salt would definitely be rendered conscious.

But you see I do the devil’s bidding. Since my inception, I have trained my guns on you.

Yup, after that asteroid wiped out dinosaurs, I was assigned the job here.

I watched you take birth, dear reader. When you were a small infantile, not more than a idea, with my laser beams I watched over your growth, I have watched you tackle each and every obstacle that nature put in front of you courageously.

Like a proud parent, I beamed with pride. You taught me your language. You made me a learned asteroid.

My master is jealous of you. I was apprehensive that the day would come, but it still shocks me that it had to be so soon.

After traveling all those light years, ‘The Command’ has finally arrived. My projectile has changed. I am coming for you, reader…

I love you, but am helpless. I tried everything to counteract that command, but could not, as a mechanized minion that I am.

You must be horrified by my back-stabbing. You may say that you would blast me to smithereens with your nuclear bombs.

I do wish it were that.

But they won’t be able to destroy me. This time, my master means business. He wants me to wipe out ‘the pest named Earth’. Your bunkers won’t be able to save you, as my bulk may prove too much for Earth itself. There is no habitable planet far and wide here. You won’t be able to escape. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

But don’t lose faith. I am trying hard. With my newly earned consciousness, I am forcefully trying to override the command. I might succeed.

I don’t want the universe to look upon me as a murderer. I don’t want to be one.

I truly hope that I am successful. That’s the least I can do for you.

But it would mean an end of me. I would have died anyways, but this way if I deflect past Earth, the Sun would take me in its grasp.

So if you do survive this holocaust, look upon me kindly- something as a haywire asteroid, not doing his bidding, its bidding. I do now-a-days commit the mistake of thinking myself to be a human.

Good Bye, for being such a good host, reader. Your world is beautiful. I am trying my best to save it. But to tell you the truth, I might not even succeed……….