Life As We Knew It

“‘You don’t think anything is going to go wrong?’ I asked him. ‘It’s not like meteor is going to hit us. It’s just the moon.’” 

Miranda’s attitude toward the moon event is a stereotypical example of how many teenagers view the world and their relationship to it. Events that do not impact them directly seem removed or minute, as is the case with an asteroid hitting the moon. As Miranda says, it is “just the moon.”

“And then it hit. Even though we knew it was going to, we were still shocked when the asteroid actually made contact with the moon. With our moon. At that second, I think we all realized that it was Our Moon and if it was attacked, then we were attacked.” 

The asteroid’s impact with the moon is viewed as an attack, and people’s reactions to this event foreshadow their reactions to its eventual consequences. The moon being hit is compared to a declaration of war, and as Miranda will soon see, there will be many casualties.

“But the moon wasn’t a half moon anymore. It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger….It was still our moon and it was still just a big dead rock in the sky, but it wasn’t benign anymore. It was terrifying, and you could feel the panic swell around us.” 

The moon is no longer a quiet, benign rock in the sky. It has moved closer to the earth, and its movement causes widespread panic.