It was not just any evening. Everywhere, carpenters scrambled to complete preparations for the Carnival, dancers practiced their act, kids ran through the street, and in short everything was a supercharged hustle. Nevertheless, George was found in his usual spot, doing his usual thing.
"You got the one percent, right George?" the bartender asked.
"Nah, better make it two. The moon looks awfully large today," the guard replied.
The bartender chuckled as he poured George a glass of milk. "You know," he said, leaning on the counter and giving the man his drink, "If you've got worries, there's nothing to take it away like a bottle of Chateau Romani."
George stared straight at the bartender. "What makes you think I can afford Chateau Romani? Do you really think I'd still be here if I could?"
The bartender spread his arms wide. "Hey, where else would you go to? Ain't no city better than Clock Town."
"I don't know, maybe someplace that isn't about to be crushed by the damn moon?"
The bartender rolled his eyes. "Here we go again."
"No, listen." But before George could say what the other man was supposed to listen to, his captain barged in.
"George! My office, now."
Annoyed, the soldier dropped a few rupees on the bar and followed the captain out. He was running very fast, and George could hardly keep up. When they finally reached his office, Viscen shut the door and turned to George, not taking any time to sit down.
"This is highly confidential, but we believe there may be a threat of the moon falling."
"There may be a threat? Have you looked at the sky lately? At all? That thing's huge. It doesn't even have to be night for you to see it now."
Viscen ignored his subordinate's outburst and continued. "Mayor Dotour has ordered me to form a committee to investigate the veracity of this claim and to determine a place and time of impact."
"Okay, first of all, I don't do committees."
"You are the committee, George."
"I am not a committee."
"I don't care what you call yourself, just figure it out."
George paced the room, doing all he could not to punch his commander. "I'm a soldier. What do I know about astrology?"
"Well technically it's astronomy, so clearly not much. But you know people. You're resourceful. If anyone can find an expert and do the job, it's you."
George stood still for several minutes, trying to figure out what to do. Finally, "What the hell. At least it'll get me out of guard duty."
Captain Viscen shook his hand. "Thanks. I knew I could count on you. Where are you starting?"
"Milk bar. Got some contacts there that need resourcing."
George, of course, did not 'resource' any contacts once he got back to the Milk bar. Instead he continued his nightly routine of drinking himself into a stupor right where he had left off. The moon could wait. Knowing when it would fall wouldn't slow it down any.
George woke up at ten o'clock the next morning at went straight to work. Staying in bed because of a hangover was for wimps anyway. The first thing he did was try to get into the observatory on the edge of town. There was obviously someone in there, and he'd know more about planets and stuff than anyone.
Easier said than done. The observatory was about a mile into Termina Field. Now George was an ambitious man. He didn't just want to be good at his job, he wanted to be the best. As a result of this attitude, he had put himself through intense training to ensure that no one was better than him. Every morning that he didn't work, he ran three miles around the city in full armor so that no thief would ever get away from him. And that was just his warm up. His off-time was consumed with all kinds of exercise, from sprints to pull-ups. That, and drinking himself silly of course.
So running over to the observatory proved no challenge to him. However, the ability to do something did not necessarily mean he enjoyed it. The mid-morning sun beat down on him, causing sweat to fall into his eyes. With every step, his cuirass pounded into his shoulders. And of course his arms were stuck over on the left side of his body holding his spear.
Nevertheless, he arrived at the observatory without incident. He stopped to find a large fence twice his height completely surrounding it. The iron bars were too close to slip through, yet too far apart to help him climb up. He jogged around the perimeter, hoping to find a gate or some other way of entering, but there was no such thing.
How, then, did anyone get in or out? The building couldn't possibly be self-sustaining. Almost no sunlight was allowed in for starters. Surely, the inhabitants didn't vault the fence each time they needed food. Thus, he reasoned, there must be an underground entrance from Clock Town.
Cursing his misfortune, George set off on the trek back to town, wondering who might know how to enter. The first person he encountered after he entered the gate was the Postman. He was the town's sole delivery system, so George figured he would be very likely to know the way to the observatory. Changing his course to run alongside the postman, he hailed him.
"Excuse me, Mr. Postman?"
"Working," was his gruff reply. He didn't even turn his head in acknowledgement.
"Sorry, but this is important," George continued. "Do you know-"
"Working!" The other man cut him off. George immediately stopped, caught off guard by the rudeness. It made sense that didn't like to be disturbed while working, but he didn't understand how the postman was unable to spare a few words with a city guard. He was either dedicated far too much to his job, or he was actually completely innocent with nothing to hide. Either way indicated insanity.
George sighed and began to make his way to the postman's residence in West Clock Town. He had memorized the locations of the houses of several of the more important workers in the town in case they needed investigating, so it wasn't too much trouble to find his shack in the corner of town.
It was very small for a house, George could picture only one or two rooms inside, but it was immaculately kept. He could see straight through the window with no problem at all, and the exterior had been painted recently. George took a few seconds to admire it before going to hang with his buddy guarding the west entrance.
"You needin' to see the postman?" his friend asked.
"No, Fred, I'm just here to admire the real estate," George replied dryly.
"You know, you've been looking awful skittish lately, you know?"
George tried to grin. "No, I'd say you've been looking awful calm lately."
Fred raised his left shoulder in a one-armed shrug, his right hand still gripping his spear. "Well why shouldn't I be?
"Oh, I don't know, let me think." George stared at the sky in mock concentration. "How about the moon?"
Fred snorted. "Please. You don't actually think it's going to fall, do you?"
"No, I think it's falling right now. It's getting bigger, see. That means it's getting closer."
Fred wrapped his arm around his friend's shoulder. "George, you worry too much. If it really was falling, Mayor Dotour would've ordered everyone to evacuate a long time ago."
"So why's it so big then?" George shifted uncomfortably under his friend's arm. Fred was being far more companionable, and stupid, than George usually liked to tolerate without several bottles of milk.
Fred did his one-armed shrug again. "Probably some cool new attraction for the Carnival. Nothing to worry."
Fortunately, at that moment George spied the postman returning to his house and disentangled himself to conduct his business. He asked the postman if he could come in and got a gruff "Yeah," in response. Smiling at his refreshing terseness, George followed him inside and carefully shut the door behind him.
"You've got a really nice house here."
"What d'ya want?"
George immediately dropped the small talk and moved to his business. "I need to get into the Astral Observatory, but I can't find the entrance."
"Look, it's called customer privacy. They let me in 'cause they need their mail. In return, I don't tell nosy outsiders the secret."
George tried to adopt his most official tone. "Look, this is really serious."
The postman scoffed. "Yeah, I'm sure it is, but my orders are from Madame Dotour herself."
"And mine are from Mayor Dotour. How do I get in?"
"Don't play stupid, everyone knows that guards are under Captain Viscen."
George leaned in conspiratorially. "Well, I'm not exactly a guard right now."
"What?"
George used his surprise to grasp the man by his lapels and hoist him over his head. "Nope. My orders are from the Mayor himself, so you're going to tell how to get into that observatory, or someone's going to have to explain to him why someone's putting lives at risk by withholding information."
"Okay, okay I get it. Put me down." George simply let go and the postman fell to the ground. "Just go to East Clock Town. There'll be a kid with a blue hat standing in front of an alley. Behind him there's a sewer. You can follow that to the observatory. Tell the kid "31425" and he'll move for you."
"That some kind of code."
"Of course it's a code, you idiot. Don't you know about the Bombers?"
George narrowed his eyes. "There's bombers lose in town and you didn't tell anyone?"
"Not actual bombers. It's a group of kids that go around trying to help people."
"By blowing stuff up."
"No one's blowing anything up!"
George just sighed and left. Whatever this terrorist cell was, he could deal with it later. Right now, he had a moon problem.
George stood completely frozen in the small room of guards, not willing to believe what he had just heard. "What?"
"I'm sorry, was I not clear?" Captain Viscen replied, his voice cold. "We are evacuating. Leaving. Now, before the moon kills us."
"And leave all the citizens to die?" He had sprinted almost an entire mile just to ensure that they'd have time to get the civilians out. The guard was not willing to stand by and let them die after that.
"What makes them so important that we should stick around?" Fred asked. "We got a right to live too, you know."
"Shut up and run away!" Viscen yelled.
George was the first one away, determined to warn as many as possible before the night ended. He charged into the nearby inn, looking for anyone who may have stayed behind. Some stairs led to a narrow corridor where the rooms were located, and the guard entered the first one he saw. A red-haired mother and her son were inside, clinging to each other.
"The moon is falling. It will impact before dawn. Run. There is still time to find shelter in Romani Ranch."
The mother smiled weakly at him. "No. Thank you for your kindness, but there is no safety. Not from this."
"No. I've talked to experts, and there is a chance at the ranch. A very small one, but a chance nonetheless."
"We are tired of running," the child said. George was struck by the calm maturity of his voice. He couldn't be more than ten years old. "We shall stay here and greet the morning. Together."
The fools. They were choosing certain death over the chance at life, and for what? To be together a few more hours? To spend quality time? But what he said was "I understand. I can't force you." He calmly turned and left before sprinting to all the other rooms – thankfully unoccupied.
He had encountered the same attitude with the astronomer too. Coming out of a filthy trek through sewage, he found out the old man had known where and when the moon would fall for several days. He didn't care because he said he was about to die anyway, and it might as well be when he was doing something he loved. Fine, but why make the rest of the town suffer? Why did the mother make her son stay with her?
The guard decided to go to the postman's house. Maybe he'd see reason. George found the man curled up on his bed, tears falling down his face.
"Leave," George told him. "We have the order to evacuate."
"My orders are from Madame Dotour. Tomorrow's delivery is still scheduled."
"So what would it take to get you out of here?"
"An official order, that comes from Madame Dotour."
George ground his teeth in frustration. Was it going to be this difficult for everyone? Why didn't anyone want to live? But then he had an idea. Leaving the postman he strode directly for the Clock Tower. Before he could get there however, Viscen stepped in front of him.
"It's not too late. Get out of here, now," the captain said.
"Get out of my way, sir." George replied.
"Why? What are you going to do? Try and sacrifice yourself for anyone too stupid to have left already? Save yourself!"
In response, George simply launched his fist at the captain's jaw, knocking him to the ground. George stepped over him.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, soldier?"
"My job," George replied without looking back, and he entered the Clock Tower.
He grabbed the rope in front of him and pulled. He wasn't prepared for the recoil as the huge bell sounded, and nearly lost his grip. He pulled again, harder this time, and the bell rang out again. He pulled and pulled, until his arms were too tired and his ears were numb, but he still kept going. Someone had to warn everyone. Someone had to stay behind and evacuate the city. And there was no one else to do it.
The warning bell had been sounding for hours when it finally happened. At first it was just a few stones that fell from the ceiling. George ignored them and kept pulling. Then the entire structure started to tremble as the moon was lowered onto it. George could only laugh. No one would forget this. He had never been the best soldier, but all his friends who lived would remember that it had taken and entire moon to take him out.
"Come and get me then, moon. I am ready for you."