The short answer just might be “yes.”

Last night I went to bed after falling asleep watching 3rd Rock from the Sun and drinking whiskey called “Black Velvet.” When I woke up, I read my Twitter and something like the apocalypse had happened. 100 people in a boat at Disneyland Japan had been swept away by the sea. The rest of the country was on fire or breathing things they should not be. Alaska and Hawaii were shaking like misplaced body parts in a game of Operation. After all those dead animals on New Years, the apocalypse seemed likely.

I got to work and read some stories about why the apocalypse might be happening. Turns out it is because of something called a Supermoon, which is when the moon gets really close to the earth. Last time there was a Supermoon, Hurricane Katrina happened. All the articles talking about the phenomenon were like, “Seriously, don’t worry.” They were in Q&A, like:

Should I Be Worried About the Supermoon?
No. There’s no proof it causes natural disasters that kill people and ruin countries.

But I think now we know that yes, Supermoons do kill people and make Kanye West get mad at George Bush.

The whole image reminded me of this story by Italo Calvino called “The Distance of the Moon,” where the moon is really close to the earth and sometimes people just hop onto it for the ride and it is all full of garbage and candy and muck. Or at least that’s how I remember the story. I haven’t read it for awhile. But it makes the whole concept extra creepy. What if you’re just hanging out with your kickboard in the middle of the ocean and you end up sticking to the moon, and then the earth is full of hurricanes and earthquakes and society ends?

We know that an end to life as we know it is possible, but we thought it would be because of something like Jesus and his wrath, or Runaway Greenhouse Effect. We didn’t think it could be the moon. But maybe it could.

This makes me want to personify the moon and think about why it would want to destroy the earth. It’s a true underdog scenario. In my astronomy class, I learned that the moon used to be part of the earth until something crashed into it, cracking off its outer shell. Those space bits formed a ball due to gravity, and that ball became the moon. Then the moon caused all this gravity on the earth that made things like the tide and girl periods happen, things that cause all of life.

This isn’t necessarily a “scientific” essay, with real “facts” or “authority.”

But the moon and the earth have this weird quasi Oedipal relationship, where the moon is like the earth’s offspring, and it can help the earth have a sweet life, but maybe it also wants to kill it. The “evening of the extreme supermoon” as its being called, is going to happen March 19th. Are we all going to die? Should everyone take a trip to the midwest to avoid horrendous shaky, floody coasts?

Have you hired someone to care for your pet after you ascend into heaven?

–Becky Lang