There was a time we made predictions that in the year 2000 we'd be having picnics on the moon. Our technologies didn't match up to our dreams when we rang in the second millennium. The spread of paranoia about the so-called millennium bug is evidence of that in itself. Now I'm fitting together a forecast for 2020 when we'll not be able to spread our picnic blankets on the preferred ground because lunar rovers have pulled it all up, and I can't see the Great Wall from here (maybe it's a new pair of spectacles I need, I haven't had a prescription filled for five years, I remember I got these in 2015 in Specsavers, when I used to get those ocular migraines, remember?). But you can see Berlin and where it's split to east and west. On one side, the lights all glow brilliant white. The other is dimmer, yellowing, almost like an old light bulb about to break. Look very careful at the black spot in the middle and you can see the park where Christiane F was turning tricks to get her next heroin fix. Thinking of earth-bound things like that, I feel the ground again, and that's a good feeling when I've been on the moon awhile and I'm starting to miss the stillness that comes with a greater gravitational pull.
