Solar System HOA Episode 1

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.

Venus drifted in next, somehow making “arriving at a barbecue” look like an event people should have RSVP'd

to more formally.

Venus: Mercury. Sweetheart. Breathe.

Mercury: I don't have time to breathe.

Venus: You have negative time. That's worse.

Mars showed up dragging a cooler that was, generously, two-thirds empty.

MarsI brought ice.

Saturn: You brought potential ice. Historically.

MarsI used to have WAY more ice than this.

Saturn: We know, Mars.

Mars: I'm just saying, the polar caps were thicker.

Saturn: We KNOW, Mars.

✦ ✦ ✦

The Bulking

Jupiter was already three plates deep by the time anyone thought to count, working through a tray of asteroids like a man with something to prove to nobody in particular.

Jupiter: I'm bulking.

Saturn: You're always bulking.

Jupiter: It's a lifestyle, Saturn.

Earth showed up mid-sentence, the way Earth showed up to everything, already talking.

Earth—and I'm telling you, the little surface things have invented the wheel four separate times and somehow keep forgetting they did it, which is either inspiring or deeply concerning, I haven't decided—

Saturn: Earth.

Earth: WHAT.

Saturn: Nothing. Carry on.

Earth: That's what I thought.

✦ ✦ ✦

An Aside, For The Record

This part happens to be true: Jupiter's gravitational influence really is strong enough to capture, redirect, or outright destroy small bodies — comets, asteroids, the occasional unlucky chunk of rock — that wander too close. Astronomers sometimes credit Jupiter with a kind of cosmic bodyguard duty, sweeping up debris that might otherwise threaten the inner solar system.

Jupiter has never once described it that way.

✦ ✦ ✦

The Disappearance

Milky Way, doing a slow lap of the gathering the way a host does when they're technically not in charge of this barbecue but feel responsible for it anyway, stopped near the dessert table and frowned.

Milky Way: Has anyone seen Comet Ricky?

Silence. The kind that has a temperature.

Jupiter...

Milky Way: Jupiter.

Jupiter...

Milky Way: JUPITER.

Jupiter: There is no proof.

Milky WayI didn't accuse you of anything.

Jupiter: I'm aware of my rights.

Saturn, polishing one ring with the corner of his sleeve, did not look up.

Saturn: He had seconds. Possibly thirds. There's a tail in his teeth.

Jupiter: That's garnish.

Saturn: Comets don't garnish.

Jupiter: This one did.

✦ ✦ ✦

Quietly Correct

Pluto arrived the way Pluto always arrived — late, technically uninvited, and somehow more composed than anyone who'd been there from the start. Charon trailed a respectful half-step behind, surveying the scene like a man taking notes for later.

Earth: Pluto! Hey — didn't think you'd—

Pluto: I wasn't invited. I came anyway. It's tradition at this point.

Saturn: Nobody updated the list.

Pluto: Nobody ever does. That's how I get in.

Venus drifted past with a plate she had no intention of finishing.

Venus: Pluto, you know you don't have to keep proving a point.

Pluto: I'm not proving anything. I'm just accurate. There's a difference, and most of you have never had to learn it.

Charon, unprompted:

Charon: He brought the paperwork. In case anyone asks.

Pluto: Nobody's going to ask, Charon.

Charon: I know. I just like having it.

✦ ✦ ✦

The Heat

Mars, still nursing his disappointing cooler, sidled up next to Venus with the air of a man about to say something he'd clearly rehearsed.

Mars: You know, I used to have water. Canals, even. Real ones. Some scientists still argue about it.

Venus: That's nice, Mars.

Mars: I'm just saying. I had POTENTIAL.

Venus: I'm the hottest planet in the solar system and I'm not even the closest one to the Sun. Some of us don't need to bring up the past.

Mars...wait, what?

Venus: Runaway greenhouse effect. Look it up.

Mars: That doesn't seem fair.

Venus: Few things are, Mars.

✦ ✦ ✦

An Aside, For The Record

Also true: Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, despite Mercury orbiting closer to the Sun. Venus's thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide traps heat so efficiently — a runaway greenhouse effect — that surface temperatures reach roughly 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt lead. Mercury, with no real atmosphere to speak of, just bakes during the day and freezes at night.

Venus has never once let anyone forget this.

✦ ✦ ✦

The Neighbor Nobody's Met

Someone, eventually, glanced toward the edge of the gathering, where a chair sat conspicuously, perfectly empty.

Earth: Did Neptune say he was coming?

Saturn: Neptune never says anything.

Mercury: I heard he's not even real. I heard it's just a rumor that became a planet.

Saturn: He's real. We've got the one photo.

Mercury: From the one flyby. Decades ago. That's it. That's all the evidence we have.

Earth: ’He's probably out there right now, having a perfectly normal day, completely unaware we're talking about him.

Saturn: That tracks.

Nobody saw Neptune that day. Nobody really expected to.

✦ ✦ ✦

The One Who's Tired Of It

Uranus said nothing the entire barbecue. This was, by now, understood to be a mercy to everyone involved, Uranus most of all.

Saturn: You good?

Uranus...

Saturn: Fair enough.

✦ ✦ ✦

Greg

Greg had set up his lawn chair at a distance that was, by any reasonable measure, absurd for a barbecue this size, and was watching the whole thing unfold with the specific contentment of someone who used to host these and was very glad he didn't anymore.

Andromeda, passing through on her way to nowhere in particular, paused beside him.

Andromeda: You're not going to get a plate?

Greg: I've got stars older than this entire buffet.

Andromeda: That's not an answer.

Greg: Retirement's got perks.

Across the yard, Jupiter dropped a comet tail behind his back like a man hiding evidence.

Greg: Different weight class, kid.

Jupiter, ten thousand miles away, somehow heard him anyway.

Jupiter: I HEARD THAT.

Greg: Good.

✦ ✦ ✦

Closing Out

The Sun eventually dimmed the lights — a process that, observed from any reasonable distance, simply looked like evening — and the neighborhood began the long, slow drift back to their respective orbits.

Milky Way did one last lap, checking that nobody had been eaten, set on fire, or left behind. Satisfied, mostly, he found Earth still muttering to himself near the gate.

Milky Way: You good?

Earth: The surface things have started arguing about whether the barbecue itself is real.

Milky Way...What?

Earth: Don't ask. I didn't.

Milky Way decided, as he often did with Earth, not to ask.

Behind them, Saturn was already composing the full version of his goodbye.

Saturn: Lord Saturn, Keeper of the Rings, Master of Moons, Jewel of the—

Earth: Night, Saturn.

Saturn...Night, Earth.

And that, as far as anyone could tell, was a perfectly normal barbecue — apart from the comet, the heat, the empty chair, and whatever Uranus was still not saying.

✦ ✦ ✦

END OF EPISODE ONE

Next time on Solar System HOA: Pluto formally requests reinstatement, the board says no on a technicality, and nobody is surprised less than Pluto.