“Well then.”

We both stared out the window. I didn’t really care what he looked like, and he didn’t really care what I looked like. It wasn’t as though looks were going to matter anymore. We preferred to watch the moon explode like an over-ripe tomato, splitting along the seams at first as it outgrew itself, swelling ceaselessly.

The adults screamed and ran away, as if they could, and the toddlers ducked out from their parents’ arms, laughing, their button noses scrunched, their hands sticky from paints and applesauce and dried saliva. A few of them escaped from the swarms and made their way in the opposite direction toward the mushed, oozing moon. They joined hands, skipping and giggling together. No one stopped them.

The animals rushed to join them. Fierce beasts ambled in from forests and jungles, companions with what they would regularly consider prey. Fishes, whales, sharks, turtles, sea lions, and other unnamed creatures of the sea hauled themselves to the shores. Every animal I had ever heard of, and many more that I hadn’t, gathered there, with the children. They all sat together, spanning farther than I could see. They were all silent, except for the children, who continued to laugh; I now noticed a few teenagers mingled among them as well, intent on the terrifying beauty above them.

The adults were gone now. All the rest huddled together, expectant but serene. Even the trees leaned forward; the roots didn’t groan, as I had thought they would.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I heard him mutter. “You got your wish.”

I looked down at the broken piece of bone in my hand, shreds of turkey still clinging to it, the larger end of the wishbone.

“Yeah,” I said. “World peace.”

And then, soundlessly, without either of us noticing, the moon popped.

The children clapped; animals hooted and yowled and screeched. Trees and flowers moaned. The rivers stopped moving and the wind was voiceless.

We looked at each other, and began howling with uncontrollable laughter.