I am deeply concerned about this!

Orville Tutsniddle lived in a small house near Malibu, with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean. One night he had a horrible, vivid dream. It was about the massive, cataclysmic earthquake, predicted for years, that would cause the western edge of California to split off and topple into the ocean. The dream was so vivid and seemed so prophetic, that Orville was convinced that, not only would it happen, but that it was imminent. Frighteningly imminent!

He grabbed his wallet and a few important papers, threw a change of clothes into a suitcase, and, in a near panic, he leapt into his car. But as he was turning the key, the ground convulsed! He held onto the steering wheel for dear life as the car rocked, shook, shuddered, and bounced around in the driveway. The quake went on and on, and it seemed that it would keep going forever. Orville was convinced that he was too late, that, indeed sometime in the next moment or two, he would feel the ground tip, and he, his automobile, his house, and the rest of western California would be precipitated into the Pacific Ocean. He was doomed!

But gradually, the quake subsided. He sat there, dazed, suddenly realizing that all was calm and quiet. The quake was over. And he had survived! He had not been hurled into the ocean.

But he still felt the panic he had awakened with that morning. This quake, he felt, may have been merely a prelude to an even bigger quake. So he kept to his original plan. He started the engine, drove to the highway, and sped eastward. He had to get east of the San Andreas fault, where he would be safe.

He had not driven all that many miles and realized that he was about to cross the fault. In a few more minutes he would be safe!

But suddenly, what met his eyes cause him to hit the brakes hard, bringing the car to an abrupt stop. An icy hand gripped his heart as he slowly got out of the car, walked to the edge of a newly formed cliff, and found himself gazing at the Atlantic Ocean, lapping at the eastern shore of California. . . .

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The astronomy professor had just finished his lecture on the life cycle of main-sequence, G-type stars, like our own sun. He described how the star forms out of a rotating cloud of interstellar gas and dust, how, when enough mass gathers at the center of the vortex, the immense gravitational pressures cause thermonuclear reactions to take place, and the star ignites. A main-sequence star, such as the sun, usually lasts ten to twelve billion years, then as it burns up its nuclear fuel, it bloats into a red giant, consuming most or all of its planets, and then collapses into a white dwarf.

"Our sun," he said, "is about 4.5 billion years old. I will probably use up its fuel and bloat into a red giant in anywhere from 5 to 7 billion years."

A hand went up in the back row.

"How long did you say it would be before that happened?" a student asked anxiously.

"5 to 7 billion years," answered the professor.

"Oh!" said the student. "Thank God! I thought you said 'million!'"

Don Firth