HOME | DD

Description
"Some cosmological models with an open universe predict that there will be a phase where as a result of slow fusion and fission reactions, everything will become iron."
- Wikipedia

Americium
I first notice the Universe turning to iron when Ronnie Parker burns to death. Walking through the charred remains of the house and smashing what glass we could find, like kids do, I find a melted piece of plastic that used to be the smoke detector, and I dig through it and find a tiny ball bearing of iron. I hold it up to the light, and it falls into the ashes, and I can't find it after that.

Uranium
One night, every nuclear power plant in the world clicks off. This, along with the deactivation of every nuclear weapon in the world leads to a new era of peace. People thank God for saving them and taking away element after element. At this time, I put up a periodic table in my room, over the world map, and mark off the elements as they are obliterated from the Universe. Scientists predict that by the time the essential elements transform into iron, humans will be long gone.
One night, I am lying naked in the bed of my truck and smoking, with a naked Mary McGregor at my side, and we watch stars extinguish themselves and the aurora that now appears over Illinois nightly.

Lead and Mercury
One day, a police officer loads his gun. He looks at the slug before he puts it into his revolver and sees that it has changed colors. It kills anyway.
Thermometers shatter as the mercury solidifies into iron. This happens around noon one day, as our science class is using mercury thermometers. I'm examining the temperature, squeezing the bulb, making the mercury go higher and higher when it shatters. For a minute, I think that I am really that strong.
Then I start to bleed.

Gold
My mother looks at her left hand, screams, and suffers a massive heart attack. Her wedding ring has changed colors and elements. Quietly, most of the world's computers shut down when the fine gold circuitry transfigures itself.
My mother is crawling on the ground now, and we're all surrounding her and screaming, and she makes her way to the closet and rips down her wedding dress, and feels what used to be fine gold embroidery.

Silver
I am sitting on my parents' bed. It is the day of my high school graduation. My mother i s brushing her hair. She turns around to warn me about the dangers of women, and the mirror's silver backing becomes iron. I realize how dangerous this is to my mother's health, and I throw The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens at the mirror. It shatters, and my mother's life is saved. She screams anyway.
The same night, my little brother walks into my parents' room, and asks in his little boy voice But Mommy, how are we going to kill the werewolves?

Arsenic
On page A8 of the morning paper there is a story of a woman who has turned herself into the police. She has been trying to kill her husband for four months by poisoning every drink she prepares him with arsenic. The husband thinks he has been saved by God, that God has a plan for him now.

Copper and Nickel
Electricity stops as copper wires become iron wires. Everyone in the world is cut off from one another. Brass bells become less glorious sounding. The Statue of Liberty buckles and dulls. Scientists are cut off from one another until they reconnect the world and use aluminum wires in place of copper.
Two months later, the Earth becomes a lot lighter. Previously, the core was made of a nickel-iron alloy. Now the earth is completely iron, and thus, gravity is reduced. The day after htis happens, physics teachers have their student calculate the new gravity of the Earth, and jump around hte room, feeling a lot lighter all of a sudden. The Moon begins drifting away and tides stop. Nights become a lot darker as the Moon becomes a pinprick in the sky, and then, one day, is nothing.

Iron (Intermission)
The day the Universe reaches iron, there is a ticker tape parade in New York City. Scientists say that the Universe has reached stability and there will be no more elemental destruction. 92 elements are gone forever, they say, but we'll make do. I find my old periodic chart and unfold it carefully, and make fresh red Xs where I left off. That night, my wife turns to me in bed and says Well, now that that's over, I guess we can have kids.

Chlorine
Everyone in the world digesting food clutches their stomach and dies. The acid in stomachs has turned to iron. Humans are forced to puree food and everyone has feeding tubes.

Aluminium
Elements are changing at a faster rate now. In less than a second, every computer in the world shuts off. Boats sink and planes drop out of the sky. Electricity stops again, and this time for good.

Oxygen
Not all of the oxygen turns to iron. Mainly, its the oxygen that is found in compounds, like water. Scientists don't know why, but a lot of them choose to kill themselves the day before oxygen changes. Elements are becoming iron faster and faster, not at a rate f about three per week.
The oceans become iron. My daughter is having her first sleep over, and I'm walking to her room with s'mores or something and I feel cold iron around my ankles. I run to her room, and throw the girls to higher ground. The next day, the floor is a couple of inches higher, and I'm forced to walk to work, getting out of the house through the window. Every closed door remains closed forever, as the air slowly becomes iron, stacking up a few inches each day.

Nitrogen
We're prepared for this. Everyone in the world seeks higher ground, and we see the Earth slowly fill up as the nitrogen that makes up most of the air becomes iron. We have to stay up all night, and we slowly make out way up more and more flights of stairs (we're seeking refuge in a skyscraper). People that get trapped are lost in a few seconds. The last few minutes of the transformation are the worst, as we sprint up stairs, avoiding the metal that had consumed everybody else.

Carbon
I'm kept alive, somehow. I wake up and my family is gone, and my entire body is metal. Trees have become steel, or at least the trees that were planted at the stop of the skyscraper are. I think I am steel too. I make my way to the edge of the building, probably to jump off. The sky is level with the skyscraper an is rising, from the bottom up now. I step over the protective railing (iron, too). I slip on the metal, and slowly make my way to who knows where. The world is at last the smooth ball that was shown in science books. I can't feel the ground rising, but it is. There's less and less oxygen as it bonds to the iron, at first rusting but then becoming iron anyway. I lie down on the ground.

Hydrogen
I'm still lying on the ground, and the sky is black because I am so close to space. The ground hasn't stopped rising for three days, and, likewise, space has moved closer as the atmosphere collapses. It's hydrogen today. I can feel it.
It takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach the Earth. My metal body enjoys these last eight minutes, and I slowly stand up. Just as darkness reaches the Earth, I jump, and for a while, before the Earth pulls me back, I'm weightless.

Description
"Some cosmological models with an open universe predict that there will be a phase where as a result of slow fusion and fission reactions, everything will become iron."
- Wikipedia

Americium
I first notice the Universe turning to iron when Ronnie Parker burns to death. Walking through the charred remains of the house and smashing what glass we could find, like kids do, I find a melted piece of plastic that used to be the smoke detector, and I dig through it and find a tiny ball bearing of iron. I hold it up to the light, and it falls into the ashes, and I can't find it after that.

Uranium
One night, every nuclear power plant in the world clicks off. This, along with the deactivation of every nuclear weapon in the world leads to a new era of peace. People thank God for saving them and taking away element after element. At this time, I put up a periodic table in my room, over the world map, and mark off the elements as they are obliterated from the Universe. Scientists predict that by the time the essential elements transform into iron, humans will be long gone.
One night, I am lying naked in the bed of my truck and smoking, with a naked Mary McGregor at my side, and we watch stars extinguish themselves and the aurora that now appears over Illinois nightly.

Lead and Mercury
One day, a police officer loads his gun. He looks at the slug before he puts it into his revolver and sees that it has changed colors. It kills anyway.
Thermometers shatter as the mercury solidifies into iron. This happens around noon one day, as our science class is using mercury thermometers. I'm examining the temperature, squeezing the bulb, making the mercury go higher and higher when it shatters. For a minute, I think that I am really that strong.
Then I start to bleed.

Gold
My mother looks at her left hand, screams, and suffers a massive heart attack. Her wedding ring has changed colors and elements. Quietly, most of the world's computers shut down when the fine gold circuitry transfigures itself.
My mother is crawling on the ground now, and we're all surrounding her and screaming, and she makes her way to the closet and rips down her wedding dress, and feels what used to be fine gold embroidery.

Silver
I am sitting on my parents' bed. It is the day of my high school graduation. My mother i s brushing her hair. She turns around to warn me about the dangers of women, and the mirror's silver backing becomes iron. I realize how dangerous this is to my mother's health, and I throw The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens at the mirror. It shatters, and my mother's life is saved. She screams anyway.
The same night, my little brother walks into my parents' room, and asks in his little boy voice But Mommy, how are we going to kill the werewolves?

Arsenic
On page A8 of the morning paper there is a story of a woman who has turned herself into the police. She has been trying to kill her husband for four months by poisoning every drink she prepares him with arsenic. The husband thinks he has been saved by God, that God has a plan for him now.

Copper and Nickel
Electricity stops as copper wires become iron wires. Everyone in the world is cut off from one another. Brass bells become less glorious sounding. The Statue of Liberty buckles and dulls. Scientists are cut off from one another until they reconnect the world and use aluminum wires in place of copper.
Two months later, the Earth becomes a lot lighter. Previously, the core was made of a nickel-iron alloy. Now the earth is completely iron, and thus, gravity is reduced. The day after htis happens, physics teachers have their student calculate the new gravity of the Earth, and jump around hte room, feeling a lot lighter all of a sudden. The Moon begins drifting away and tides stop. Nights become a lot darker as the Moon becomes a pinprick in the sky, and then, one day, is nothing.

Iron (Intermission)
The day the Universe reaches iron, there is a ticker tape parade in New York City. Scientists say that the Universe has reached stability and there will be no more elemental destruction. 92 elements are gone forever, they say, but we'll make do. I find my old periodic chart and unfold it carefully, and make fresh red Xs where I left off. That night, my wife turns to me in bed and says Well, now that that's over, I guess we can have kids.

Chlorine
Everyone in the world digesting food clutches their stomach and dies. The acid in stomachs has turned to iron. Humans are forced to puree food and everyone has feeding tubes.

Aluminium
Elements are changing at a faster rate now. In less than a second, every computer in the world shuts off. Boats sink and planes drop out of the sky. Electricity stops again, and this time for good.

Oxygen
Not all of the oxygen turns to iron. Mainly, its the oxygen that is found in compounds, like water. Scientists don't know why, but a lot of them choose to kill themselves the day before oxygen changes. Elements are becoming iron faster and faster, not at a rate f about three per week.
The oceans become iron. My daughter is having her first sleep over, and I'm walking to her room with s'mores or something and I feel cold iron around my ankles. I run to her room, and throw the girls to higher ground. The next day, the floor is a couple of inches higher, and I'm forced to walk to work, getting out of the house through the window. Every closed door remains closed forever, as the air slowly becomes iron, stacking up a few inches each day.

Nitrogen
We're prepared for this. Everyone in the world seeks higher ground, and we see the Earth slowly fill up as the nitrogen that makes up most of the air becomes iron. We have to stay up all night, and we slowly make out way up more and more flights of stairs (we're seeking refuge in a skyscraper). People that get trapped are lost in a few seconds. The last few minutes of the transformation are the worst, as we sprint up stairs, avoiding the metal that had consumed everybody else.

Carbon
I'm kept alive, somehow. I wake up and my family is gone, and my entire body is metal. Trees have become steel, or at least the trees that were planted at the stop of the skyscraper are. I think I am steel too. I make my way to the edge of the building, probably to jump off. The sky is level with the skyscraper an is rising, from the bottom up now. I step over the protective railing (iron, too). I slip on the metal, and slowly make my way to who knows where. The world is at last the smooth ball that was shown in science books. I can't feel the ground rising, but it is. There's less and less oxygen as it bonds to the iron, at first rusting but then becoming iron anyway. I lie down on the ground.

Hydrogen
I'm still lying on the ground, and the sky is black because I am so close to space. The ground hasn't stopped rising for three days, and, likewise, space has moved closer as the atmosphere collapses. It's hydrogen today. I can feel it.
It takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach the Earth. My metal body enjoys these last eight minutes, and I slowly stand up. Just as darkness reaches the Earth, I jump, and for a while, before the Earth pulls me back, I'm weightless.