Episode One: The Bar a short cosmic comedy The Sun had been throwing the same neighborhood barbecue for four and a half billion years, and at this point everyone mostly came for the leftovers. ✦ ✦ ✦ The Spread Mercury arrived first, because Mercury arrived first to everything, vibrating slightly even when standing still. He circled the table twice before anyone else had shown up. Mercury: Is the food out? Is it out yet? I could've done this lap eighty-eight times by now. Venu

GALACTIC HOA Episode One: Greg Lets One Go a short cosmic comedy The Local Group is a quiet neighborhood, as these things go. A few dozen galaxies, give or take, drifting in loose formation across a few million light-years of nothing in particular. Nobody's in a hurry. Nobody needs to be. When your neighbors are measured in millions of light-years away and your conversations take place over geological epochs, you learn to let things happen at their own pace. Greg Galaxy had n