“Hey”, I said solemnly. “Hey”, Bobby replied in equal measure.
The well-lit streetlights of suburbia burned bright, but the full moon negated their purpose. Most families were staying in and praying or playing board games and trying to experience as many precious moments together as possible - just in case. A few were in backyards or joining their neighbors in the streets to look up at the blinding white full moon which hung perfectly high. It was a silent night. All of them had been silent nights for a month.
Bobby only lived a couple minutes away. I picked him up before driving over to pick up Rob. We arrived at Rob’s house and walked up to the door. Our knocks almost seemed to echo in the illuminated silence. Rob answered.
“Hey.” “Hey”, Bobby and I replied in unison.
We walked back to my car and drove to the golf course in silence. Radio and television airwaves were restricted to emergency broadcasts only. The seemingly endless anticipation of a broadcast caused me jaw pain from constantly grinding my teeth.
We had been hopping the fence of Shalimar Golf Course since freshman year of high school. The large grassy area was the easiest escape from the summer heat trapped in asphalt and concrete. The sprinklers ran at 9:45 every night. We would run through them and get soaked, but we always dried off quickly; it was still 99 degrees out after all.
The immediate cooling effect of the golf course was usually wonderful, but tonight I barely noticed. We had shared a lot of nights on the golf course and the fifth hole was our favorite location, right in the middle of our grassy oasis. The putting green was surrounded by a crescent shaped pond. It was the coolest part of the course at night. The green was always quiet, but tonight it was as if time had stopped. Even the sound of airplanes, which landed at the airport 6 miles away was missing. All flights had been cancelled. It was another night of deafening quiescence. Inside, I could feel my every muscle and bone screaming with anxiety. My heart still beat but felt like a stone in my chest. My stomach pained, but lately I hadn’t been able to tell if it was caused by hunger or stress.
We sat down on the grass, then laid down, our eyes fixed on the moon. Not a word had been spoken since we stopped at Robert’s house half an hour earlier. We had shared all our stories long before tonight. The only thing left to share was the green grass and cool air at Shalimar. I sat up a bit and looked at my friends. Where Bobby’s eyes had become almost mad with intensity, Robert’s stared at the night sky with deep sorrow. I think mine jumped and forth between both states.
Finally, a sound. We snapped out of the hypnotic moonlight and pulled out our phones. An alert was coming through. The President of the United States was about to make an immediate global address, there was a link to watch a live stream.
“I’ll open it”, said Bobby as he clicked the link. “FUUUUUCK!” Robert’s scream was the loudest sound I had heard in days and my ears began ringing.
Our eyes gravitated upwards. Several large cracks appeared across the surface of the moon. Cracks so large we were able to clearly watch them spread with our own eyes.
“And now, the President of the United States”, soberly declared the voice on Bobby’s phone. We huddled around Bobby’s phone and saw the President step heavily behind the podium. Cameras clicked and flashes highlighted the President. He was little more than a husk of the man who had campaigned last year. He promised to fix everything, but now he stared blankly into a void only he could see. His hair was disheveled, his jacket forgotten somewhere along the way to the press conference, his tie hung loosely and without confidence, his shirt half untucked and unbuttoned so low it barely stayed on his shoulders, and his eyes red and heavy.
“Jesus…”, I said at the sight. We looked back to the sky, back to the real horror. The moon appeared significantly larger. Not just the cracks, but the still solid parts of moon itself.
We continued to stare at the moon’s remnants as the President began his speech. There was no opening address.
“I…” he barely uttered the sound. His voice a hoarse whisper. “We’re sorry. We’re so sorry. We didn’t know, we didn’t know… We didn’t know.” That was all he could say. But the cameras had stopped clicking. It was now quieter in the press room than where we were. Distant screams and cries started to penetrate the stillness from the residences surrounding the golf course.
The moon’s fragments had taken up the entire night sky. The pieces were all various sizes and shapes. As they approached, we began to distinguish more features. More craters, valleys, and hills. An odd recognition of the true size of the moon filled my head. It was clear one piece, one massive immeasurable piece was our destiny. It was all we could see. More screams and cries poured in from the neighborhood.
“We need to go home”, Robert said, frantically but dutifully. The whole sky turned red, and I felt my skin begin to boil. “There isn’t time”, I said. “I love you guys.”