How To Lay Sod in 5 Easy Steps

“Look up there, the moon is green tonight.”

I looked up to the muddy grey sky, at the off-white moon that floated in the middle of the smog and the light pollution. It looked just the same as always to me.

            “Woah, it is really green!” I said incredulously. Lance nodded with a solemn wisdom. We sat in silence for a while longer.

            “Its because the lawns are really coming in.”

            “Huh?”

            “The lawns. On the moon. They tried to put down sod at first but it didn’t take and it all died. The moon got really yellow around then. But then they tried over with seeds, and it looks like the lawns are finally really coming in.”

            That made sense to me. The moon seems like it could really do with some grass, the videos from the moon landings and stuff always looked really bleak. I squinted intensely at the little bright oval and tried as hard as I could to see it as green, but nothing. 

            “Yeah, they must be,” I agreed. “Really green tonight.”

            After a while we got up and started walking back home. I couldn’t look up at the green moon while we walked because I had to keep my attention on my feet. I had to time each step perfectly, and sometimes I’d have to take a big jump once I fell behind, making sure each foot landed squarely in the middle of each concrete block of sidewalk. I peeked over at Lance who was walking in the same way. When I looked back down, I froze. My right sneaker was stuck to the ground, the white oval of the toe breaking the clean black line between two slabs of concrete.

            “Lance.” I was terrified. He stopped and looked at me, and then followed my gaze down to my shoe. He looked back up at my eyes.

            “Oh shit,” he said. “Mom.” Then he took off down the block, running back to where our mother would be collapsed across the living room floor, broken. I stepped off the sidewalk into the street and walked home, shamefully, through the green moonlight.