Satellite Story

a mother teaches her daughter the constellations of 2092 and they are all made by human fists pounding computer terminals telling robots how to manifest needs and desires and cravings as airless blinking panels marketing illusions in the sky.

and the mother will tell her daughter that the shapes of tonight won't last, will flicker out and perish into shooting stars as costs exceed returns and new protocols replace old and the bacteria of Io stagnate, promising evolution that never delivers.

and the daughter will grow and see the dying power, the collapse of the clouded sun, the day the outlets go dry and the lights fall from the sky and are replaced by stars who have forgotten us, and whom we have forgotten.

and the world will see, at least for one night clouds that part and depart and reveal the sublime novas unseen for years by flesh foretelling this and every end of us.