That night, Audrey crawled into bed without thinking once about the moon, all dull gray acne scars on a blank white canvas, all dead dust and not nearly as interesting as the poem she had written for English class about Post-Industrial Classism. Not as interesting as her latest TikTok, captioned “This Dog Never Ate My Homework.” Not as interesting as her CapCuts, Snapchat, or Insta. I never knew what she was talking about. And not near as interesting as the robot she was building for extra credit—a metallic creation modeled after a gerbil that would serve as class pet for the remainder of the year.

She, along with the rest of the students, had been heartbroken when their class guinea pig Nibbles died over winter break. Had no one fed him? Had the heat been turned off? We never got a straight answer. So when she proposed a pet that would never die, everyone thought it was a good idea, though she said her teacher rolled his eyes, maybe imagining a sock puppet, a salamander built of Legos, or something with scribbled teeth on lined notebook paper. But if such a thing was possible, he said, go for it.

Audrey showed him her prototype—metallic whiskers, eyes like drops of crude oil, a square sample of industrial carpet for fur. It ran out of the open cage door on tiny spider tines of steel. Extra credit galore.

And that’s when I stepped in and blasted him to the principal, shutting the whole thing down. I’m not one for confrontation, but what a thing to teach our kids—for fear of loss, replace everything in your life with a shiny, automated, sterile approximation of existence. Teach them: go to sleep quickly. Then sleep with a face lacking emotion, good or bad, just like the moon, so far away, trapped so far away in blackness.