Through the window Carl watched his mother stand outside in her nightgown. Her bare feet pressed down upon the black grass beneath her as beads of sweat grew heavy enough to fall down the hollows of her cheeks. Despite the frigid night air, she continued to pull an invisible rope that only she could see. A rope that bound the moon, keeping it in Earth’s orbit. A rope that, by her account, if it were not wrapped around the moon, the celestial body would disappear from Earth’s