Moonfall

“I think it’s closer,” he said. “It looks closer.” He let the curtain fall against the now almost blinding glow of the rapidly engorging moon. It still shone through the thin fabric, silvering the dark bedroom.

“Well, come back to bed,” she answered. Her long, bare arms beckoned, pale and ghostly in the moonlight.

They had turned off the TV hours ago (wouldn’t be useful much longer anyway, the electrical interference, the satellites going mad in the weird gravity). The newscasts were thick with riots of disaster: tidal waves devouring coastal cities, leaving nothing but the broken teeth of shattered skyscrapers and bloated bodies clogging the streets, while fires and looting turned the inland cities to smoking ruins. And it just kept getting closer, drawn like a calamitous lover into Earth’s fatal embrace.

He lay beside her, feeling his passion rise again, and reached for the small packets on the bedside table. She held his arm, and took the condom in its small metallic wrapper from his hand, letting it fall to the floor. “Don’t bother,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”