FOR A SUN: THERE IS NO PLANET B

it's all over. it has ended. there is no new beginning. it doesn't work like that. if there is to be a new start, they have to make it. not an imaginary ice-cream man who wore many hats and had a penchant for handing out penny popsicles to poor and undeserving children.

there is a science in waking up and yet no one senses it. they only feel the rapture of entering back into the world and its problems inside a universe that's even more problematic. it starts as the tide, rolling lolicking three heads to rest down. except there is no more water. the waves are in space. three women are floating in the space. they feel the rain on their white cheeks. but there is no more falling water. the hurricanes which made it out have dispersed into droplets in space which shoot out in all tangents never hitting them. like the stars which you can see but never touch. they are not directionless like space is, they have each other. they huddle in the cockpit of the craft like seasoned veterans of the game. they are lost but not unbowed, the rocket has a bow. they are hungry but Carmen is looking into that. they are afraid but not the way anybody has ever been before, for they are the first humans to experience existence without a planet Earth.

Herlina fiddles around in her seat made from the wood of Puzzlewood with her dino cube and square one and Calvin's puzzle. she doesn't eat her packet of Lifesavers gummies for dinner like the other two broads cos she wants to hold on to a modicum of security. she tries to get a signal on her bitten Apple Watch but the damn thing's useless. no more waves. she gets the faint glimmer of a game...

Harfi: prolly just static. we outchere!

Harfi feigns taking a selfie.

Herlina: i swear i saw a football. it was nice and big and inflated. we outchea!

Herlina takes an actual selfie with an actual cameraphone but of course nothing happens.

Herlina: got a name picked out? i got mine. when we vote?

Harfi: after dinner. after Carmen decides. looks like it's gonna be Sandpiper. cos the vessel is shaped like a curved beak.

Herlina: oh that's nice...mine was...never mind...Domhnall...cos that's where i'm from...cos i have a crush on him...nevermind...

Harfi: what?

Herlina: nevermind.

Herlina is hungry tho, she can't escape that. she searches her backpack like a frantic schoolgirl who didn't study her organic chemistry plus misplaced her pregnancy test. Herlina finds a wrapped box with a note stickytaped on.

Harfi: could be a bomb.

Herlina: it is. it's a Banquet frozen dinner. it's salisbury steak with gravy. peas. mashed potatoes. all frozen mind you. you have to be braver than an astronaut to eat this. but i'm gonna do it. it even warns you on the box that the grill marks on the meat are for show, they're not real. look at this note attached...

Harfi: *with her eagle eyes* god rest his soul. god, not Codrus.

Herlina: from our Dr. Lysander. bless. he drew an emoji of his face wih hair tufts coming out of his ears. and glasses though he never wore glasses. but he always said it made him more distinguished. to believe he wore glasses.

Herlina mumbles his words aloud to keep Harfi from hearing:

Lysander: to Herlina, my favorite patient. well one of them. put this steak to good use. i hate them. it'll make you lose weight. remember my dear, it's not that you're dumb or a loser or meek. the meek shall inherit the earth but there is no more earth. it's that you have a real bad case of anxiety. that's all.

Herlina: *eating the meat* oh my god the texture of this is alien! it's like a very tasty shoe.

the cargo door swooshes open like an Enterprise door then clangs back closed like a Falcon door. Carmen makes the duet a trio all wrapped up snugly in storage in the

ONE BIG WARM COLORFUL AZTEC QUILT, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

Carmen: who made this quilt? me, right? in my botteghe. i had a lot of free time to shoot the shit in my shoppe.

Harfi: if memory serves as hard as i served, i found it in the East somewhere. war trophy of some conquered peoples. or no wait, it came from your heritage, Herlina?

Herlina: um, yeah, sure. dinner almost ready? i'm sorry we had to scrap off all our onboard weapons to sell for food and to make weight for the ship to be viable for spacefaring. that's my fault.

Harfi: soup?

Carmen: dinner is done. as in no dinner. dinner is cancelled.

______________________

Tom Brady stretches his head out a hole in the moon. he creaks his battered body to the surface. he can breathe cos his helmet is so big covering his big head. which is mostly shampoo'd hair.

Brady: ow ow ow. i hurt worse than when Gronk tossed me around like a ragdoll at his bachelor party on his boat. that's when Gronk thought i was his friend. lesson: make an enemy of Gronk, save your life.

Brady: no one here. i'm the last human on earth. fitting. good choice. but i'm already bored.

on the first day, Brady did drills on the moon. by the first week, he was getting his mediocre strength back by pushing down on an inflatable football. he tied himself to a big moonrock, a moon boulder, and ran in the opposite direction. he wanted to jump as high as he could but got scared that he'd just float off the moon into space.

Brady: and on the first month i'm bored as fuck. or bored af. anybody wanna play? they say every franchise needs two beings to win a Super Bowl: a quarterback and a kicker. so i'll be the kicker, too. i'll be Adam Vino, too. and be doubly loved. i'll get another model girlfriend. Gisele will let me finally meet her sister.

Brady makes his first kick at 35. then one at 50. and his first try at 100 is good. and he makes 200 just for fun. cos it's the moon.

JUST THEN a couple of Putin's Russian KGB mobsters climb into screen. that throws the whole atmosphere in whack, Brady's huge helmet comes off and he goes barreling into space, swirling so hard his cup gives his penis a swirlie. Brady tries to hang on by his fingertips on the last moonboulder on the edge but his fingers aren't long enough.

Brady: this is wack! you guys! it was you all along! you were the real enemy. why didn't we see that? there's never anything new. it's always just the old repackaged. it wasn't about ISIS. it was much colder. what the goober is going on?

KGB: didn't you go to school, American Superman? didn't your beloved Belichicken coach with the hood like Batman teach you science? we deflated your balls. we are wearing shoes of cement in preparation. in order to defeat an enemy you must know not just his battle tactics but his art and sports. we are foremost art experts. we are Russian after all. we claim the moon for Mother. Mother Moon, has a nice ring, like Saturn which we claim for Stalin.

Brady: no, Bill tossed his tablet to the floor in disgust everytime he got to the moon science. we know inflation science by heart, though. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

and Brady slips into the vortex of space.

the KGB pick up Brady's helmet and flip it around. look at its back. it says Bump 2016.

KGB: oh my god. oh wow. he was one of us all along. pity. see nobody ever saw the back of his helmet cos he never got sacked. who's in the mood for a match?

the group play a couple of downs but it gets boring pretty easily since they're all on one side. they instead turn to their spy watches, they still get wifi and the game. they look at their old Fight Night club videos and see all the videos of natural and man-made disasters on Earth and weep openly. they see spectacular terrorist attacks mixed in with houseboat crashes and earthquakes splitting apart tables and destructive dirt and lava mixing with tsunamis and long for a time when these things still existed.

____________________

Harfi: come on, man.

Carmen: nope. i tried to toss the salad with our one remaining salad package but the thing blew up in my face when i tried to open it, tore at the bottom and spilled all over the ceiling.

Herlina: i'll lick your carpets clean. that meat is not agreeing with me.

Herlina asks to be excused and leaves with her hand covering her ass.

Carmen: the more we out here the more i have to hold on to something. superstition, that's how it starts, right? well we can't move forward now.

Harfi takes Carmen by the shoulder and the two fly into the kitchen.

Harfi: come on.

Carmen looks around and sees her wire egg basket hanging from the floor. she pops up an egg and cracks it on her frying pan edge.

Carmen: double yolk! *sighs relievedly*

Harfi: *smiles* we still know.

*BOOM*

the entire starship shakes like a bowlful of jelly.

Harfi: *checking the sensors* captain, we've taken a direct hit! shields up?

Carmen: huh? why i'm the captain?

Harfi: you are a C.

Captain Carmen: how dare you. sure, sounds good.

Harfi: enemy transmission. onscreen?

Carmen: you seem to know. hello? is anybody out there? we out here.

a Klingon ship decloaks. the Klingon commander Pu speaks on screen.

Pu: you may win in the long run, earthling. but not today. *everyone onboard the Klingon vessel laughs sneakily through their long hairs* hey what is this? an all-female crew? blasphemy! *Pu scratches the ridges on his forehead* and where are your tits showing in front of your uniforms?

Carmen: we come in peace, sir. please. give us a chance. we'll do anything for food.

Pu: *raised ridge* anything? we've got a tractor beam on you. invisible, as all good things are. yes you are our slaves but you will be treated well cos you are our slaves. we all start off as slaves. guards! ready two capture ships.

MEANWHILE Herlina is in the head. the bathroom. Pu doesn't realize it's a three-man crew. Herlina is having a very difficult time going. she spots the aquamarine gem next to the plunger. the hanging wire plunger.

Herlina: my stomach is in knots. not from anxiety. the aquamarine looks like a urinal cake.

she places the gem in the upper toilet-bowl water and it glows beautifully.

Herlina: the gem is everything. our mother. our protector. our life. she makes us all clean again. pure. ready. calm. happy. humble. our center round.

Herlina: it's like when you finally go to the bathroom. the release. it comes out whether you want it or not. i have to be like that. when the moment emerges, it happens. i have to happen.

Herlina pulls down on the plunger chain and the entire toilet goes down out a port at the stern of the hull, out of the sensors of the Klingon ship. nobody is searching for Herlina. the toilet flies in a swirl and lands like a suction cup on the bow of the hull of the Klingon vessel. the toilet explodes along with the Klingon ship.

Herlina: it was a bomb. i was a martyr...

the Sandpiper uses its tractor beam to beam Herlina back into the rocket. just in the nick of time.

Herlina: oh...

*triple-hug*

Carmen: so happy you're home safe, my sister. where's the aquamarine?

Herlina: uh............oh no, i lost it! i was focused on dying.

Harfi: macha doesn't do anything she doesn't want. we love you, sister. but did it glow finally?

Herlina: *smiles* yes, she glowed.

all three fold their hands and sigh and look out the port window. they are watching nothing in the black of space but their inner worlds are full.

Herlina: we suddenly have a tractor beam now?

Harfi: simple reverse engineering. know thy enemy. to the victor go the spoils in this universe.

Carmen: if you can't know thyself. yes, manipulation. easy for us. i think we're gonna be okay, guys.



Herlina: the stars are glowing tonight.