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“I’m soooo bored,” Bertram said, stretched across one of the chairs in the starship’s lounge.

“Me too,” Helena said.

“Remember when zero-g sex was exciting?” Bertram said.

“Yeah,” Helena replied.

“Want to do it again?”

“Eh. I’d have to walk all the way down the hall to the control center to deactive the artificial gravity.”

“I could do it,” Bertram said, not sounding particularly motivated. “It’s disgusting how uninteresting that is. Remember why we volunteered for this? Because we never had any time alone?”

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“I’m so glad that we finally closed on this house,” Kevin said, stretching his feet out past a box of books as he sat on the couch. He turned and looked at his yard in the light of the full moon.

“Definitely,” Kelly said, “but it’s a little creepy in here.”

“Nonsense,” Kevin said. “The only downside to this place is that the television is straight across from the sunset so we’ll have to buy blackout curtains or something.” He jiggled his empty can of beer. “I’m going to get another, would you care for one?”

“No, just – just hurry back, okay?”

“Babe, there’s nothing to worry about.” Kevin got up and walked into the kitchen. Down the hallway that led to the bedrooms stood a man-shaped shadow. Kevin’s blood ran cold and he froze. It was a silhouette of a man in a coat and cat. A shadowy hand reached out towards Kevin, and only the scream of his wife shook him out of his fright. He ran into the living room, where another black figure of a man in coat and hat was approaching Kelly.

“Ghosts!” Kevin yelled.

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Logan attempted, unsuccessfully, to push past the wall of old people that a bus had just ejected onto the sidewalk in front of him. He tried to hustle around them, only to be arrested by a couple with a stroller coming the other way. Then he stepped into the street and a taxi gave him an earful of horn and expletives.

“Goddammit, old people just get in the way,” Logan muttered.

He worked with them extensively in his position as Chief Meteorologist at the Midwest Weather Monitoring Station, or MWMS. When he arrived, sweaty and twenty minutes late to find one of his subordinate meteorologists waiting for him, Logan unloaded.

“All these geriatrics do is get in my way, slow me down, and complain.”

The unlucky meteorologist gulped.

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Milton sat on cushions on a wide window ledge, his fingers pressed against the cool glass. He could feel the tiny tremors of the rain sliding down the sheet glass. It drummed on the roof of his mansion and spilled out of the mouths of gargoyles like lies out of the mouths of the doctors who’d promised that he’d get his sight back.

The doorbell rang. Milton got up and glided between tables, chairs and other obstacles with the grace of a ninja in his own home, until he got to the door and opened it up. He heard the water dripping off of the delivery man onto the rubberized carpet of the mudroom.

“Good afternoon, Henry,” Milton said, “sorry to hear that you had to come through the rain.” He knew it was Henry because the house sat in an old lakebed, and the road into and out of the property became slick with mud in the lightest drizzle. Henry owned an all-wheel drive truck.

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“And here we are, trapped on this asteroid, hurtling through the uncaring, unfeeling void of space, devoid of warmth, devoid of home or hearth,” Johnny the Poet whispered into the microphone. The crowd of disaffected urbanites that had crammed themselves into the bookstore on their two-hour lunch breaks clapped.

“Thank you,” Johnny the Poet said, “although remember that the echoes of your hands are but flutters against the lifeless crush of the galaxy.”

“GREETINGS, IT IS MY PLEASURE TO ANNOUNCE THE OPENING OF THE NEWEST ATTRACTION ON THIS SIDE OF THE OORT CLOUD,” the loudspeakers roared. The voice was completely unlike any sound before heard on Earth. The voice spoke crisp, completely unaccented English to the ear of each listener. “YES, THAT’S RIGHT, THE UNIVERSALLY-KNOWN EIGHT COMETS OVER EAGLE NEBULA PARK IS COMING TO YOUR SOLAR SYSTEM.”

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