1) "Halley's Comet" by Stanley Bunitz
This passage is meant to demonstrate the excitement and joy that young boys feel at the exciting and the new - the boy does not quite understand that his life and the lives of everyone else would end. All he knows is that "there'd be no school tomorrow." The way Halley's Comet is described in the beginning evokes exciting things that boys love, including train tracks and high speeds. This visceral language makes the whole affair sound thrilling, and this appeals to the boy.
In the passage itself, he is telling God where ...