Turn, Turn, Turn...

When the world stops spinning, theoretically everyone will fly off. Sort of like in a car crash, the car stops but you don't so you fly through the window. Or get stopped by a seat belt or popped in the face with an airbag.

But we aren't strapped on to the Earth so when it stops spinning we will all fly off.

Or not off. Gravity will still be in effect, but we will all get thrown around pretty seriously.

Of course that's assuming that it just stops and doesn't slow down first. If that's how it happens, and it happens slowly enough we won't go flying off. We'll just start realizing that time isn't moving. That the sun isn't coming up like it used to. Or setting when we thought it should. Until eventually we are just stuck where ever it stops. Constant sun. Constant dark. Maybe a little twilight or dawn space.

But that depends entirely on if we can even sustain life that way. Obviously there would be massive issues with agriculture. And there would be flooding. And animals would die. And parts of the world would just bake in the sun until they turned to dust. 

So which would be preferable? Dying in a tragic accident as you are flung forward when the Earth just stops or freezing to death because the sun never comes up again or slowly dying of hunger or thirst because the sun never sets?

Of course all of this is just what she is coming up with off the top of her head, maybe none of it would be the way it happens. Maybe she doesn't understand that science at all. That wouldn't be all that surprising. As she's aged she has realized more and more that she actually understands very little about how the world works. Even knowing what is happening she still doesn't always understand what is happening. 

The world standing still would not change that. 

She's thought about just moving to the coast. When the world stops spinning and the people and animals all go flying the water will come too. A giant wave will crash over the beach as it sloshes in the tub that is the ocean. If the impact of the wave crushed her she wouldn't even have the momentary panic while she drowned. Though drowning is supposed to be pleasant. You feel warm and relaxed. Or is that hypothermia? Probably hypothermia.

Which then leads her to thinking she should just head for the dark side of the Earth.

But if the spinning slows to a stop she'd have to guess as to where the darkness would land. And how would she get there? Planes are all designed to work with a world that spins. Would they even be able to take off if the world stopped? Would that work? Would anything work?

She knew it didn't really matter. The world would stop spinning and they would all die. There was no amount of worry that could stop it. She would just live her life like everyone else. 

Of course knowing that as soon as the aliens unplugged her from their machines and put her back in to her bed she would forget all of this until the next time they picked her up for further observation of the dying planet and its inhabitants, made that a lot easier. She had thought about telling them she could understand what they were saying and ask them if they understood the concept that observation actually changes outcome but she didn't think it was a good idea. Any species that could tell a planet was about to die and was only concerned with collecting observations instead of helping the inhabitants probably wouldn't take kindly to her figuring out their language and eavesdropping on them. 

So she'd just wait for the moment she woke tomorrow not remembering any of this. 

Or at least not consciously. 

Her subconscious would try to reach her but so far had only managed to consistently put that Modern English song in her head as an earworm. 

Three days of "I'll stop the world and melt with you." 

At least it was a fun song.