When the Moon Hits Your Eye

by John Scalzi

The diameter of the moon is almost 2,200 miles: That’s close to the distance between San Diego and Washington, DC! The moon’s surface area is even larger—about as big as all of Africa!

Virgil got in close to the display and breathed deeply. The odor was neither the burnt charcoal that astronauts claimed the moon smelled like,

The moon is rock that has the general reflective qualities of asphalt, it only seems bright because of the amount of light the sun bounces off it. Last night sure didn’t look like asphalt.

I have a briefing with the president in exactly half an hour, and because we all know he doesn’t bother to read the daily intelligence briefing, it will fall to me to explain what the hell is going on. So explain it to me. Use small words on me so I can use smaller words on him.

“Cheese food product,” Dave repeated. “Like Kraft American Singles or Cheez Whiz. Technically not cheese. It’s why Cheez Whiz is spelled with a z.” “Two zs,” Alton pointed out. “It has two zs but only one of them relates to cheese specifically,” Dave clarified.

“Wait, you’re gay?” Dave said to Alton. “Not only am I gay, I dated your brother,” Alton informed Dave. “Why would you do that? He’s a terrible person.”

“A comedy, you say.” “Yes. Like Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead.” “I … think you might have a minority view about that movie being a comedy.”

“So, no. It’s not fair. But it’s the world that we’ve made for ourselves, isn’t it. Or at least, the world that we let those who we elected decide was the one we should have.”

“What’s that poem? The one about the end of the world.” “That’s about half of them.”

“The world will not end in fire, or in ice. It’ll end in cheese. Suck on that, Robert Frost.”