"Its 3am. An official alert wakes you up. It says 'Do Not Look at the Moon'. You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending, 'Its beautiful tonight. Look outside.' "
And I wrote a short little story blurb on the train in response:
It is almost 3am. My phone is playing part of the Muppets song on repeat. It has fallen between my bed and the wall. Mah Na Mah Na can be heard faintly every few minutes. Is it worth the search? Surely the texts will stop?
But they don’t. I roll over and grope blindly feeling the cold wall against my knuckles. I say a silent prayer along the lines of “dear god, please don’t let a spider crawl out.” Finally I find it and look to see who is dying or is losing a friend.
It isn’t one text, but many. None of the numbers are associated with names. I have a new number. The owner of the old number told no one it wasn’t his number anymore. His car is ready for service.
His friends must be texting him. All the texts are the same, “It’s a beautiful night. Look outside.”
There are so many messages. It must really be beautiful. It is supposed to be a full moon tonight. I put my phone on silent and close my eyes to go back to sleep.
But I can’t. I’m too curious. And all I have to do is get out of bed and open the curtains and I can see for myself if the moon is out and full.
I throw off the covers and get up. I trip over my desk chair on the way before grabbing my phone and putting on the flashlight.
Just as I reach the window I receive an emergency alert: “Do Not Look at the Moon.”
I look up at the window. The last thing I see before darkness overtakes the room is my hand on the curtain illuminated by my phone’s flashlight, it has switched to camera mode. The room is dark. I am going back to bed. I have to be up for work in two hours. It is Monday.
