the day the earth sat stale

after 10,000 years of supposed civilization, the selfish bipedals that roamed the earth like a metastacized tumor had funally met their match. there was nothing left to do. all the science had been done. art had been rendered meaningless in light of this fact, and civic responsibilities mere tourism. and people were all out of cameras. one hadn't been bought or sold in hundreds of years. there was simply nothing left to see, no new way of filtering light, no means to an end all right. the lights never went out, the night was passed out in a dark alley.

think of all the starry nights that we missed. think of the girls we could've kissed. philip glass would be proud of us. ira glass, not so much.

there is no 13th floor in space

the line had to be taut. the whole time. if one end cut loose, the other would flap in the distant space, awaiting a reconnection that would never come. these connections are so like humans. so fragile. the need to be taught. to love.

the craft had made a narrow escape from the atmosphere, the rusty aft thrusters trustworthy on this day. and she was free. free from the friction that ran through the fiction of earth. no longer. she would pursue a life among the stars.

the day would come when she would, like all things, pass into the night sky, a glittery reminder of what once was. like the stars in the sky, how many years already dead unknown, the distances between friends measured astronomically.