slow time, the synapses implode, crystal methodology saturated the landscape, wild populations turn towards satellite dishes and random information fallout. mobile phones melt, polyunsaturated radiation burns through the thin dermis of life, x rays reveal the skeleton  populations, computer chips cook, civilisation takes a detour down a different path. a research assistant crunches numbers in an underground lab, five years is optimistic. she runs down to the bureau, a decrepit department fuelled by amphetamines and thick black coffee boiled on the surface by solar flares.
the committee look at the numbers, these things never lie, they just bend and distort your mind. 'what does it mean?' a young intern asked, she's lost the lower half of her body, it's grafted onto an anti gravity device, she controls with her fingers.
'it means that the doomsday clock needs to be reset.'
another man, old and germanic with a dr. strangelove stutter whispers, 'one second to midnight.'
'no professor we have some time left.'
'time to say goodbye.'
'maybe.'
they are silent, traversing their inner selves, finding some sort of acceptance. these are hardened men, the last of their kind, they have lost everything and have known the outcome could be this. they had worked very hard for the last few years attempting to prevent the inevitable ad they had failed.
the president spoke, we must make an announcement, people should know. they can prepare.'
everyone agreed.
the intern floated in front of the screen. her mind had interfaced with the numbers, she was processing faster than the computers, it was her gift. she could see qualities within the data, pictures, patterns and information. the quantity seemed irrelevant, for her numbers offered language, a code if you like. she understood the code, it was the language of the universe, and as she interfaced she smiled for instead of seeing the end, she discovered hope.
'wait, i believe you have all made a mistake.'
expectation filled the room, it sat there with its own weight.
'these figures are based on atmospheric levels following a non interventionist flow, if surface levels continue within five years all life will be unsustainable. correct?'
everyone nodded.
'the problem is we have started in the wrong place, we started crunching numbers after the event. if we start before the event we get a different type of curve,' she fiddled with the controls on the keyboard and the graph morphed from a u shape to an n, see the numbers invert, thus, we have an escape route.'
there was a collective gasp, the president gasped,'how...?'
the intern said, you looked at the flow of having a linear direction, a beginning middle and end, 1,2,3, but there was no beginning, no middle and no end, only a sequence of one to another, times arrow has to flow in one direction for us to experience an enthalpy.'
'what do mean by that?'
enthalpy is the opposite of entropy. i suspect that it started with the big bang, the expansion of the universe outwards, the birth of time. time is only now, we are at the face of the big bang, each moment is now. yet the numbers show we have come to the end if we look at them from that perspective, a human one. but the numbers are not sentient, therefore they have no perspective, they are just representations, co ordinates, what they show us is the pattern, and the pattern i see is an inverted one.'
it was the presidents turn to ask, 'what does that mean?'
'it means time will stop at a point in the very near future and then it will restart but in a contraction..'
'you mean flow backwards..?'
'exactly.'
'but how will that effect us, we will be dead.'
'yes that's very possible but we will also be the first to return to life once the cooling down starts, the atmosphere returns, our ashes will concentrate together, form substance, organs will restart, we will in effect be alive but as we died, starting life, living in a reverse time flow, all creation drawn by the gravity of the opposite of the big bang.'
'the crunch'
'the big crunch.'
'it sounds like a fate worse than death, i think i rather die.'
'the numbers never lie and as for death and life...i am afraid you have no choice.'
silence filled the chamber.