Episode 2 The Boy Who Cried Supernova

GALACTIC HOA

Episode Two: The Boy Who Cried Supernova

a short cosmic comedy

There is, in every neighborhood, one resident who has been about to do something dramatic for so long that nobody quite believes it anymore. In the Local Group, that resident was Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse was not, strictly speaking, a member of the Local Group HOA. Betelgeuse was a single red supergiant star sitting in the Milky Way's own shoulder, a relatively short eight hundred or so light-years away — close enough to be a constant, blaring presence in everyone's business, and dramatic enough that distance had never once stopped him from making himself heard.

Betelgeuse: I COULD GO ANY DAY NOW.

Milky Way: You've been saying that for a hundred thousand years.

Betelgeuse: AND I MEAN IT EVERY TIME.

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An Aside, For The Record

This part, annoyingly, was true. Betelgeuse really was a red supergiant nearing the end of its life, the kind of star that, when it finally did detonate, would be visible in broad daylight from Earth and would briefly outshine the moon. Astronomers had been watching it nervously for generations, ever since it had dimmed unexpectedly and then brightened back up, like a man clearing his throat before a speech he kept failing to give.

Nobody in the neighborhood doubted that Betelgeuse would, eventually, go supernova. They had simply stopped organizing their lives around the announcement.

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The Group Chat

Betelgeuse: TONIGHT MIGHT BE THE NIGHT.

Andromeda: You said that ten thousand years ago.

Betelgeuse: AND I WAS BUILDING TO IT.

Greg: Some of us actually retired, Bel. You're just loud.

Betelgeuse: RETIREMENT IS A CHOICE. MINE IS DESTINY.

Milky Way: Your destiny has had the same ETA since before I had spiral arms.

Betelgeuse: STELLAR EVOLUTION DOESN'T RUSH FOR ANYONE.

Andromeda: Neither do I, and I still showed up.

Betelgeuse: THAT WAS DIFFERENT, YOU ACTUALLY ARRIVED.

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A Brief, Unwelcome Dimming

There came a stretch of several centuries — nothing, on these timescales, more than a long weekend — when Betelgeuse dimmed noticeably, and the entire neighborhood held what passed, at galactic scale, for a breath.

Milky Way: Bel. Bel, are you okay.

Betelgeuse: I'M FINE.

Milky Way: You got dimmer. Visibly dimmer. Astronomers wrote papers.

Betelgeuse: I WAS JUST CLEARING MY THROAT.

Greg: You don't have a throat.

Betelgeuse: METAPHORICALLY.

Andromeda: So you're not going.

Betelgeuse: I NEVER SAID I WASN'T GOING. I SAID I WAS CLEARING MY THROAT.

Milky Way: It's been four hundred years, Bel.

Betelgeuse: GREAT THINGS TAKE TIME.

And then, with no further ceremony, Betelgeuse brightened right back up to his usual obnoxious self, and the neighborhood quietly stopped holding its breath, the way you stop flinching at a smoke alarm that's been chirping a low-battery warning for three straight years.

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Greg Has Seen This Before

Greg: You know what your problem is, Bel?

Betelgeuse: I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM. I HAVE A TIMELINE.

Greg: Your problem is you've been announcing your big finale so long, nobody's gonna be looking when you actually do it.

Betelgeuse: EVERYONE WILL BE LOOKING. I WILL BE VISIBLE IN DAYLIGHT.

Greg: I'm just saying. I had my incident quietly and it still got written up by every astronomer in three galaxies. You're out here doing centuries of promotional work for an event that hasn't happened.

Betelgeuse: IT'S CALLED BUILDING ANTICIPATION.

Milky Way: It's called crying wolf for a hundred thousand years.

Betelgeuse: THE WOLF WAS ALSO REAL, IN THAT STORY. THAT'S USUALLY LEFT OUT.

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Where We Leave Things

By the end of the evening — which, in this neighborhood, meant by the end of several thousand years — Betelgeuse had not exploded. Betelgeuse had, instead, simply continued, the way he had continued for as long as anyone could remember, loud and looming and perpetually one bad night away from becoming the brightest thing in everybody's sky.

Andromeda: For what it's worth, Bel, I believe you. You will go eventually.

Betelgeuse: THANK YOU. FINALLY. SOME RESPECT.

Andromeda: I just don't think either of us will still be talking about it by then.

Betelgeuse: ...THAT'S A LITTLE BLEAK, ANDY.

Greg: Welcome to the neighborhood, kid.

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END OF EPISODE TWO

Next time on Galactic HOA: a black hole goes through a midlife crisis, and nobody is prepared for the car it buys.