Nothing Should Happen

The moon is in pieces. Space station Exodus drilled towards the core of the white orb and hit something. Like a gas pocket. But the moon is dead. Something went wrong and now everything is going down the toilet.
[media-credit name=”Image courtesy Joshua Pearson” align=”alignright” width=”400″][/media-credit]I stared long and hard at my basketball, the Nike symbol stared back. “How could something that is a fossilized satellite just fall to pieces?” The answer alluded all reason. I tried to understand the problem the whole world was now faced with. If I take a needle and stick it into my basketball and push into the center nothing should happen. What are the odds of it exploding? My basketball is dead, just like the moon, right? Then why is it in pieces?

I wonder if NASA is having the same trouble as I am. I wonder how bad this is going to affect the world. I’ve read those books about asteroids hitting the moon and stuff, knocking it out of orbit and whatnot. But that’s just out of orbit—this is in pieces—like lots of little pieces.

I looked towards the sky; I could see the moon (or now moons). It looked as if someone was breaking a white dinner plate in slow motion, and now everything was just expanding out into space. If pieces of the moon were expanding in all directions, doesn’t that mean it was expanding towards earth too? Just yesterday I was worrying about getting a girlfriend, and now the moon is in pieces. I never would have thought that when I woke up this morning the whole world was going to be in jeopardy. Things haven’t been all that great in the world lately, but at least we blew up the moon and not ourselves.

He said this was going to happen, that goofy guy on the news channel. He always said that drilling towards the center of something we know almost nothing about was probably a bad idea. “It’s like walking into a cave where you can’t see anything but you can hear a beast inside,,” he’d said. What I don’t think the media or that goofy guy realized, is that the government isn’t afraid of anything. It’s as if they were throwing pebbles at the Washington monument in hopes of bringing it to the ground.
[media-credit name=”Image courtesy Joshua Trottier” align=”aligncenter” width=”560″][/media-credit]I rolled off the curb and forced myself to stand up. Sweat dripped down my face. I readied myself to shoot the ball. I tried to concentrate, but my thoughts made it hard to focus. I bent my knees, and took my shot—jumping as I pushed the ball skyward . Air ball. It didn’t even hit the backboard.

With the feeling of failure in my throat I walked towards the front door. I left the basketball in the neighbor’s bushes where it landed. I sort of stumbled through the front door, walked upstairs to my room, jumped and landed face first into my bed.

Story by Tyler Raskin

As always the HOWL PODCAST available free to your device via our iTUNES account.