When the moon fell to earth many were surprised to find it no bigger than a garbage truck. It rotated slowly over Manhattan, emitting a dull, ominous hum, occasionally pausing over Central Park, or Fifth Avenue, seemingly intent on touring the entire city.

“This,” people agreed, “is just a little bit odd. We expected the moon to be bigger. Grander. That is what we were taught in school, at least.”

In the end, they had no choice but to shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, I guess we were wrong. It is a strange universe we live in, no doubt.” And they went on with their lives and the whole business with the moon was added to the long-neglected pile of ‘things we need to figure out eventually.’

When the sun fell to earth, no bigger than a basketball, people were more concerned. It pulsed with an uneasy glow, as if it contained a beating heart, and at night stray cats warmed themselves under its dull, yellow light.

“Now this,” we said, “isn’t right. There is supposed to be a system in place here, one we quite literally set our watches to.” They hemmed and hawed and kicked at the dirt and worked themselves up into a huff. “We don’t think we’re wrong about this one. We need to get to the bottom of this.”

The mystery of the sun was placed at the top of the list of things that needed to be figured out. Someone rubber-stamped it, with large red letters that spelled out ‘high-priority.’ This, we decided, was satisfactory.

When the stars fell to earth, each a tiny, fragile firefly, we became rather annoyed. They danced endlessly over the city, never slowing, never stopping.

“We’ve had quite enough of this now, thankyouverymuch,” we said. “We get it, it’s a good joke, can we move on? We all have work tomorrow. We’re really quite busy and don’t have time for this nonsense. Do you see how big our pile is now? That’s your fault, you know.”