The Cosmic Pellet

Eustace lived his life as a monument to caution. He wore a padded helmet indoors, sanitized every molecule of air, and ate only the blandest nutrient paste, fearing germs, accidents, and the sheer randomness of existence. His greatest ambition was a serene, predictable demise in his ninety-ninth year, preferably whilst dreaming of tax rebates. One Tuesday, after triple-checking his fortified bunker against earthquakes, pandemics, and rogue squirrels, he decided to reward himself with a single, perfectly calibrated nutrient pellet. As his trembling hand reached for the ceramic bowl, a small, unremarkable meteorite, no larger than a golf ball, having traversed billions of miles through the cold vacuum of space, finally found its terrestrial target. It had ricocheted off a forgotten satellite dish three blocks away, smashed through Eustace's reinforced triple-glazed window (the very one he'd meant to install the anti-cosmic-debris netting over "tomorrow"), and struck him precisely on the cranial dome. He collapsed instantly, the nutrient pellet still just out of reach. In a final, fittingly ironic twist, the coroner listed the cause of death as "impact with an extraterrestrial object," effectively making him the unluckiest, most cautious, and most spectacularly unique casualty in human history. His last thought, had he had one, might have been, "Well, *that's* unexpected."