The local forum fills with questions about the crash, about how the Moon fell, frightening the dogs, and how the rash decisions of minority governments shrink everything, so that by this time next week all our clothes will no longer fit. Someone suggests swap meets, a term we only know from TV imports, but the world is shrinking, so that by this time next month we’ll be able to wave across the Atlantic and refugees will hop over the Channel each time the last guard in actual paid employment is distracted by his phone. I exchange my Turkish dressing gown for a guard’s uniform in order to re-establish my sense of self, and my wife acquires a space suit that belonged to the last astronaut when the Moon fell, as she believes it will offer protection when the next wave hits and the universe has shrunk so much that the whole world will be squeezed inside a five-mile radius. We’re going to the dogs, says Goodneighbour666, but my frame of reference has shrunk so small that the dogs are already in my head, worrying at the Moon’s carcase like it’s the last meal they’ll ever taste.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor