CZM Book Club: Moonkids, by Abbey Mei Otis, Part 1

Summary

It Could Happen Here – Cool Zone Media Book Club: Moonkids by Abbey Mei Otis, Part 1
Host: Margaret Killjoy
Date: May 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this Book Club episode, host Margaret Killjoy reads and reflects on "Moonkids," a stirring short story by Abbey Mei Otis from her acclaimed 2018 collection Alien Virus Love Disaster. The episode explores the lives of "Moon Kids," young people exiled from the Moon to a struggling Earth, forced to cope with yearning, rejection, disability, working menial jobs, and the challenges of acclimating to a new, harsher reality. Through Otis’ vivid storytelling, themes of belonging, exclusion, and resilience are laid bare, resonating with broader questions of social stratification and the consequences of collapse.

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Key Discussion Points & Story Highlights

1. Introduction and Story Context

[02:48]

• Margaret introduces Moonkids as a "brutal story" from Abbey Mei Otis’ award-nominated collection, noting its themes of "coping with rejection and yearning and disability and being a waitress for tourists and just how brutal it is acclimating to a new reality."
• The narrative concept: Moon Kids are born and raised on the Moon, physically changed by its lower gravity, then exiled to Earth if they fail academic or aptitude tests at 16.

2. Sandpoint: Life for the Exiled

[03:20]

• The story centers around Colleen, who moved to the seaside town of Sandpoint. She enjoys waitressing at Crabby Abbey’s, which is one of few restaurants that gives Moon Kids front-of-house roles.
• Social tension is highlighted: Many restaurants keep Moon Kids “kitchen side” due to customer prejudice, but Suzo, the owner, actively confronts discrimination ("At this point, I’d like to give you equal opportunity to get the fuck out of my dining room.").

3. Moon Kids’ Bodies and Challenges

[05:00]

• Descriptions explain how growing up in moon gravity stunts muscles and lightens bones, leading to disability and vulnerability on Earth.
• All Moon Kids bear identical incision scars from operations required to survive Earth’s gravity.
• "Your muscles learn differently in moon gravity. Your bones form light like a bird’s." (Margaret reading, [04:20])

4. Coping Mechanisms and Solidarity

[06:00]

• Margaret (as narrator) recounts Colleen’s progress coping, contrasting her with her friend Tesla, who struggles with anxiety, sensory overload, and self-harm, especially during busy shifts.
• After tough days, they decompress on the boardwalk, supporting each other against constant public scrutiny and microaggressions.

5. Alienation and Exclusion

[08:00]

• Moon Kids face open stares and whispers from locals and tourists. They’re often mistaken for "Lunarians," a term reserved for the elite who still live on the Moon.
• The bureaucracy of Moon exile is illustrated: "'With this piece of paper, we divest you of your homeland, where you were born. It doesn’t want you anymore.'” ([09:00])

6. Flashbacks: Arrival on Earth and Early Friendship

[13:31]

• Tesla and Colleen meet only after their simultaneous expulsion from Luna. Their friendship is born through shared hardship, navigating Earth’s open hostility and the failure of moon education to prepare them for survival below.
• Intimate moments show adaptation, regret, and learning to find joy amid adversity.

7. Character Study: Trespass

[15:20]

• Tesla’s younger brother Trespass is introduced as a rebellious, self-named, sharp-tongued Moon Kid, both defensive and vulnerable.
• His backstory underscores the thin line between Lunar "success" and banishment: “His score was 0.6 points away from being a passing grade...What Trespass won’t tell you is that for the first three weeks after he came down to Earth, he sat on a bathroom floor in Colleen’s apartment and shivered.” ([17:30])

8. Earth’s Collapsing Future and Economic Context

[24:15]

• A world in decline: Earth is depicted as environmentally and economically degraded, dependent on Luna’s exports and technological advances.
• Margaret reflects on the Moon’s elite, drawing parallels with real-world class divides:
  • “Moon kids are lucky enough to get screwed two ways. Inferior to the Lunarians because of cold hard calculation...Inferior to Earth people because, well, just look at them. Limbs so breakable...” ([25:00])

9. New Arrivals: Ibitha’s Introduction

[26:43]

• A new Moon Kid, Ibitha, starts at the restaurant. She’s fiercely independent and ambitious—the opposite of many freshly exiled Moon Kids.
• Dialogue exchange:
  • Ibitha: "I’m happy to have a job, but I don’t want to be taken care of. It’s important to blend in. I get that. I’m going to work hard."
  • Margaret/Colleen’s view: “You don’t need to do that...We’ll take care of you.” ([27:00])

10. Moon Kid Parties: Defiance and Hope

[29:30]

• At a beach bonfire, Moon Kids use their intelligence and marginalized status to create their own exuberant subculture—music machines, designer drugs, and camaraderie.
• Ibitha shines as a self-proclaimed queen among outcasts, fiercely determined to remake herself through body modification—a manifestation of hope and defiance:
  • Ibitha: "Just wait. I’m going to get my bones scraped straight...gonna get jewels set into my kneecaps...Why would I ever sit around looking like an ugly lump? Fuck that." ([31:30])

11. Emotional Climax: Confronting Grief

[34:00]

• The gathering turns somber as Tesla arrives, emotionally overwhelmed by the moonrise—an agonizing reminder of their exile and loss.
• Tender moment:
  • Colleen: “Hey, honey. Shh.”
  • Narrator: “Tesla leans so that her tears fall on Colleen’s shirt. One of the Kite Dudes starts singing Buffalo Gals. And Colleen hears Trespass growl, ‘Buffalo motherfucker. You want buffalo? Buffalo fucking stampede.’” ([35:00])
• A brawl breaks out, underlining the ever-present volatility beneath the Moon Kids’ attempts at normalcy.

12. Reflections & Closing Thoughts

[36:30]

• Margaret shares a behind-the-scenes note from Hazel on how “Moonkids” flips the typical “should I leave Earth for the Moon?” sci-fi trope, focusing instead on those forced to leave the Moon and grapple with exclusion and disenfranchisement.
• Margaret connects the story to broader sci-fi and real-world themes:
  • “Science fiction is the fiction of ideas more than tropes. And so this idea can mean so many different things in different authors’ hands and different ways of thinking about it. I don’t know. I like it. That’s what I have to say about it.” ([37:20])

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Notable Quotes

• “Her writing, you might say, has more humanity than a lot of the humans I know.” – Margaret Killjoy ([02:56])
• “At this point, I’d like to give you equal opportunity to get the fuck out of my dining room.” – Suzo (as narrated by Margaret, [04:30])
• “Bones too frail for all the muscle. Mind too frail for all the grief.” – On Tesla ([07:30])
• “You sucked the Moon’s tit for 16 years and had the gall to turn out stupid. The Moon never even looks back.” – Narration, ([25:50])
• “I’m happy to have a job, but I don’t want to be taken care of. It’s important to blend in.” – Ibitha ([27:10])
• “If this dude can get body modded for fucking surfing, why would I ever sit around looking like an ugly lump? Fuck that.” – Ibitha ([31:45])
• “Maybe there are other kinds of hope.” – Colleen, reflecting on new forms of resilience ([33:10])

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 02:48 — Margaret’s introduction and story’s thematic preview
• 04:20-07:00 — Physicality, social prejudice, acclimatization struggles
• 08:00-10:26 — Alienation and bureaucracy of exile
• 13:31-15:20 — Early friendship, life post-exile, Trespass’s introduction
• 17:30 — Trespass’s near-miss with Lunar acceptance and trauma
• 24:15 — Global context: Earth’s collapse and dependence on Luna
• 27:00 — Ibitha’s debut and ambitions
• 31:30 — Party scene, Ibitha’s yearning for transformation
• 34:00-36:30 — Moonrise, Tesla’s grief, party chaos, emotional fallout
• 36:30-37:30 — Reflections on sci-fi tropes, message from Hazel

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Memorable Moments & Tone

• The episode is suffused with raw empathy, humor, and resilience in the face of marginalization. Margaret’s narration deftly blends Otis’s lyric, sometimes brutal prose with realtime reactions and observations rooted in solidarity and leftist sensibility.
• Recurring humor: The tongue-in-cheek riffing on bodily awkwardness (“Her arms startlingly long and a look on her face like she was moving pebbles with her mind.” [14:00]), biting quips from characters (“Guy McAdams is a human Pap smear...” [16:00]), and jabs at class pretension permeate the dialogue.
• Margaret frequently addresses listeners directly—validating their feelings, extending solidarity (“We, dear listeners at Cool Zone Media, love and cherish our listeners who wear colostomy bags and hope the best for you.” [20:47]), and interjecting with sociopolitical commentary.

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Concluding Notes

Moonkids, Part 1 is a poignant, darkly funny, and deeply human exploration of outsiderhood, mutual aid, and adaptation amid forces of exclusion. Margaret underlines the relevance of Otis’s story to current collapse and class dynamics, and invites listeners to reflect on science fiction as a space for probing and living through big ideas.

Next Episode Teaser

The host previews that Part 2 will further examine the “Earth left behind” and promises more discussion of the story’s layered themes.

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Speaker Attribution:
All narrative and commentary by Margaret Killjoy unless otherwise attributed. Readings from Moonkids by Abbey Mei Otis.

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Homework:
“Do art that you’re no good at. That’s your homework.” – Margaret Killjoy ([38:22])

Transcript

[Margaret Killjoy]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Margaret Killjoy]

Coal Zone Media. Book Club Book Club Book Club Book club Book club Book club. Wonder how long I can do this book. But no, I don't actually want to do it all that long. Hello and welcome to Cool Zone Media Book Club, the only book club where you don't have to do the reading because I do it for you. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy, and we are back to our usual business this week. I've got the first of two parts for you today of an absolutely brutal story by my friend and co conspirator Abby Mae Otis. This is from her 2018 collection from small Beer Press called Alien Virus, Love Disaster. And this collection has all kinds of accolades like the Newcomb Institute Debut Literary Arts Award Shortlist and Philip K. Dick Award finalist. And it shows that Abby's writing is just entrancing. Her writing, you might say, has more humanity than a lot of the humans I know. And I'm excited to read you this story called Moon Kids. Why is it called Moon Kids? Because it's about some Moon Kids. It's also about coping with rejection and yearning and disability and being a waitress for tourists and just how brutal it is acclimating to a new reality. And Moon Kids. So here it is. Moon Kids by Abby Mae Otis. Suzo says Moon Kids find their way to Sandpoint because they're drawn to the tides. They like to be around something else that's ruled by the pull of the moon. Colleen thought she came to Sandpoint because Crabby Abbeys was hiring and Soft Shell didn't seem like such a bad thing to eat for lunch every day. But she's willing to concede that maybe Suzo has a point. At any rate, there are a lot of Moon Kids in town, which mostly Colleen likes, though every so often it makes her crazy. She's been here a year. She likes that Suza lets her wait tables instead of keeping her kitchen side. Plenty other restaurants keep Moon Kid's kitchen side on account of the odd asshole customer who makes a snide comment about Moonies putting him off as food. Suza's into jumping on stuff like that. This is an equal opportunity place of employment, he'll say. And at this point, I'd like To give you equal opportunity to get the fuck out of my dining room. No denying it though. Moon kids. They're kind of stubby on account of them growing up on the moon. Your muscles learn differently in moon gravity. Your bones form light like a bird's. Used to not even be possible to make the transition. You'd touch down into Earth pole and collapse like fast melting candles. Too many fractures for all the king's horses and all the king's men. We way, way too many for Earth doctors to deal with. Earth doctors are known for not giving a shit now though they've got ways around it. They've got operations and stuff. Every moon kid's got incision scars in the same places. Colleen likes that. Her friend Tesla works for Suzo too. Tesla got promoted to assistant manager a couple weeks ago because she's so bomb with the business side of things. Encouragement is good for Tesla. The people side of things she has more trouble with. The restaurant is hopping today. Some obscure holiday, some excuse for money bags to wallow in. A day at the shore. Big well fed families sit around the tables and snork down crab bisque and get a total kick out of summoning waiter, oh waiter. The air droops with fish smells and sweaty fervor of over tipping. Everyone likes reliving the golden consumer boom. Once in a while, Colleen sloops between tables like a freaking old school roller skatress. Shrimp poppers here, cod basket there. She can recommend the most expensive thing on the menu in a way that doesn't feel sleazy. She takes orders without a pad. The food is grody, but the money bags pay for service for the anachronistic privilege of getting served. And the tips are spinning out like cotton candy. And Colleen's feeling on top of the world. It's been a year since she last stumbled and spilled someone's calamari. A year since she overthought the business of walking an earth pole and smashed down and had to have two people haul her upright. A year since anyone watched her failing and tittered and edged away. Colleen. You'd look at her today and you'd say, now there's a moon girl who's coping. Mostly. You'd be right. Tesla isn't doing as well. The customer rush today, it means big tips but also big noise. And they've got a sous chef out sick and 15 other things. And all Tesla wants is to get the purchase order in. But instead she's smudging the E paper with her elbows, biting eight of her fingernails at once Tesla feels people staring even when they're not. She starts to twitch. She picks her lips until they bleed, and then people ogle the chick with blood down her mouth, and then she picks more frantically, and a feedback loop gears up. Stop. Tesla, sweetheart, hush. Moon girl par excellence. Bones too frail for all the muscle. Mind too frail for all the grief. After work they go down to the boardwalk, horking up salt air to swab the deep fryer smell out of their nostrils. Tourists are sparse here, their enthusiasm thinned by sparser raindrops. Tesla digs her nails into the sag of Colleen's upper arm, pushes her nose into Colleen's shoulder. Colleen imagines she smells like sweat but doesn't pull away. Earth Pole is fickle, like a trickster gnome. Sometimes, even after months and months, it sneaks up behind you and punches you in your knees. A mother with a whole flock of kidlets snotting behind her passes the two of them. Every single head in the flock turns. Eyes swell up with the witnessing of something other. Mama swats their heads. They're Lunarian, honey. You keep walking. You know what Lunarians do. Colleen appreciates how mom tries to keep her voice low, but she could polish up the explanations. Excuse me, ma'. Am. We're Moon kids, she could say. Don't let real Lunarians catch you mixing us up. Lunarian Fancy word reserved for the fancy few who claim residence up on the cheese ball. I haven't been Lunarian for three years and seven months. Want to see my certificate of dismissal? Signed by the head of the exam board and the council chairman and the CEO himself. That one's probably a stamp. With this piece of paper, we divest you of your homeland, where you were born. It doesn't want you anymore. As the kidlets trot away, Tesla whimpers and Colleen nips two fingers on the rough of her elbow. Fuck em, Tess, you know, she whispers. Just keep saying it in your head. Fuck em, fuck em. Fuck em. Moon kids. Every now and then they treat themselves to a little rage. Just like you, dear listener, can treat yourself to a little products and services that support this podcast or Rage. Rage works too.

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[Margaret Killjoy]

And we're back. Tesla and Colleen, bestest friends, didn't meet on Luna. Sat for the exams in the same hall, rode the same bus down to Earth. Didn't lay eyes on each other until they were poured onto the asphalt with 15 other fresh chucked Moon kids blinking in the alien sunlight, bus seat patterns still printed on their thighs with their heavy torsos and brittle spider limbs. Tesla was tallest, Colleen remembers, arms startlingly long and a look on her face like she was moving pebbles with her mind. They met. Their skin shivered. Sixteen sterile years now stamped with hotness. How about you? Colleen spoke first. What's your plan? Oh, we have the same shirt. Tesla flapped her spider arms awkward. They all had the same standard issue shirt draped over their bodies like towels flung on spilled drinks, but Colleen didn't catch the joke until Tesla had already begun to laugh. They hiked the beaten down Maryland countryside, figuring out step by step just how much jack shit 10 years of moon education did for you. Tesla can solve fifth order partial differentials in her head. Colleen can recite a hundred pieces of pie like a bedtime story. But could either of them get hired as a sales clerk? You're not really the image we look for in retail. Variations of that line droned out ad an infinitum. Maybe if your legs weren't bowed, if your spine didn't crook, if your body wasn't running down itself like hot wax and your eyes didn't bore straight into the back of my skull. In so many hack hostels clinging to plugged in towns, they lay on cotton comforters crusted to a shine. They discovered wine and how it improved their impressions of the assholes they'd met that day. Yo chica, tell me. Colleen polished her Earth drawl. Is it really made of cheese? Man or rabbit? Tesla snorted and smeared the nano paint she was dabbing on her cheeks. Man or rabbit? Man or rabbit? In the late night, Colleen listened to the tiny noises Tesla made in her sleep, whimpers from a tongue and lips newborn. They never said anything about heading for the coast. Never talked much about any direction at all. Until one day they got off a bus and threw their heads back and inhaled weedy brine. Salt fingered wind started thinning through the air. A jewelryman on Sandy street clacked his tongue booted them on their way with pale, bruising eyes. But in a few blocks they found the restaurant, flat roofed crabbies crusted with pre aged kitsch. Suzo picked a red mole on his neck and looked Colleen up and down. You can do weekends, girl thought the question was rhetorical. Took her three minutes before she remembered to answer. Yeah. Yes. In the gray mornings and clouded nights they put on those loose clothes and go down to the beaches. They learn what it's like to regret little things. They track sand through sublet rooms and wake up with tooth sweaters and crud in their eye. This thing, Colleen wonders, does it count as a kind of living? Feels more like yanking free driftwood that waves have buried under sand. But what else could you call it? Today Trespass joins them on the boardwalk. Trespass is Tesla's younger brother with the ignoble honor of being the second in a family to flunk off the moon. Trespass is kind of a bamf he named himself. He shaves the crown of his head and paints his face in bright white segments. He insults people in loud, clinical terms. He carries his moon balk like a bounty from a hunt and swings his fist often enough that no one's fooled by the whisper squeak of his voice. And at moonrise he sits on the sand and sobs like a girl. He comes up behind them as they lean on the railing and claps a hand on each one's shoulder. Ladies, how does it shake? Colleen laughs and shoves him away, but Tesla doesn't move at all. She has her chin on her palm and her elbow propped on the boardwalk railing. As she slides her elbow out so that her whole upper body sinks lower, she purses her lips and stares out at the ocean. The moon is out in the sky this afternoon, soft as an exhalation on a cold window. None of them ever look up at the sky, but they can all feel it, feel the finger it brushes along the backs of their necks. Trespass whistles a seagull trill. Oh, big sister, you still sweating? Guy McAdams Guy McAdams is a riot shield of an Earth born dude who slides his body through two small waves with two big flash. Guy McAdams wears a state of the art rappelling suit when the water is 72 degrees, but that's perfectly Tesla, who has always liked falling in love with shiny outsides. Her crushes rail like silent storms and then dissipate so fast that Colleen doesn't even argue anymore, just stocks up canned goods and tries to ride them out. Trespass though, can't resist a few digs. Guy McAdams, that dude's a human Pap smear. If Guy McAdams was a snow cone flavor, he'd be strawberries and shit. Trespass, if you couldn't tell, is hell bent on milking every last drop out of his teenaged years. Dude, I spent 16 years in front of a screen, he tells anyone who listens. 16 years I got force fed science like one of those faux gras ducks. And now I'm free. Failing those exams, I swear. Best thing that ever happened to me. What Trespass won't tell you is that his score was 0.6 points away from being a passing grade one corrected formula. One fewer stray pen mark and he could have made it. Could have gotten the gold confetti and a hand drawn banner over his pod door. Welcome scholar of the Lunarian Research Academy, pillar of our scientific society, jewel of our education system, mom and Daddy's golden boy. Welcome, welcome. What Trespass won't tell you is that for the first three weeks after he came down to Earth, he sat on a bathroom floor in Colleen's apartment and shivered. Turned the shower head on and off. Dawn. Tesla's curled up inside her funk and not coming out to play. So Trespass turns to Colleen instead. Here, there's a new girl turned up out of Station 65. I think I heard she went around to Suzo's looking for work. Colleen snorts a seal. Could get work with Suzo. She stretches her arms out and pokes Tesla's shoulder. Two middle aged women mince past and gawk out of the corners of their eyes. Their lips purse into little bouquets of. Well, isn't that unfortunate? Trespass rounds on them. What are you looking at? Colostomy bags. Yeah, I thought so. Get the fuck away. But we dear listeners here at coolzone Media of course love and cherish our listeners who wear colostomy bags and hope the best for you. Also, here's Ads.

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[Margaret Killjoy]

And we're back. Here's the deal. The Earth isn't fit for much anymore. Everyone's given up growth cold turkey, which means they seize on development like an ex smoker chewing pencils. The Moon helps out with that Luna. Her airtight city is full with scuttling hordes of washed out researchers working like spastic cogs and the breakthrough machine hacking away at the mystery forest while they wait for the real trees to grow back. Except no one's yet figured out a way to get people to work so hard they don't have time to screw. Even the mondo geeks get the pole in the hole every now and then. Plenty of those Poindexter fetuses end up down the chutes where they belong. But sometimes someone gets a B in their bonnet about being parental, having a family. So you end up with moon kids. You can keep your moon kid, super fun pet that it is, until it turns 16. Then they give out tests. The ones who pass get fitted into the machine, a nerdalicious parent and child cog set. How adorable. The ones who don't, who choke during the multiple choice or blank out during the neural net scan, or just maybe admit during the oral exam that there's a part of them that's uncertain, that wonders they're out. The population board picks you up by the scruff of your neck and dropkicks you the 200,000 mile ride down to Earth. The Moon doesn't give a shit where you go after that. You sucked the moon's tit for 16 years and had the gall to turn out stupid. The Moon never even looks back. Moon kids are lucky enough to get screwed two ways. Inferior to the Lunarians because of cold hard calculation. And no one knows better than Lunarians that numbers don't lie. Inferior to Earth people because, well, just look at them. Limbs so breakable, veins popping out fat pulling their torsos and thighs. The real Lunarians, when they come to Earth, they get on this high horse of sure, I'm ugly, but I invented those cosmets you're sucking down your interfaces, your gen modding. Where do you think that comes from, huh? Moon kids don't even get that. Moon kids get the illustrious task of trucking out slabs of beer battered cod to shiny tourists who look at them like they're furniture. Yes, ma'.

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[Margaret Killjoy]

Thank you, ma' AM Would you like fries with that? At night they get the pain of watching the moon rise. The next morning, when Colleen gets to Crabby Abbey's, there's the New Girl up front, getting the tour from Suzo, wild long hair cascading down her back and apple cheeks that force her eyes into a squint. Her body jiggles, quavers all the time, and Colleen bites her lip in sympathy. She remembers how it was holding every muscle tense, Earth pull like an anvil dropped on your shoulders. When New Girl sticks out her blue veined hand, though, Colleen reconsiders, there's a flash in the girl's eyes like spoon from a motorboat. Ibitha, she introduces herself. Glad to be here. Colleen is bemused. New Girl's voice is deeper than she expected, raspy. Most moon kids their first year don't speak above a squeak. Ibitha must be screaming to make herself heard. You don't need to do that, Colleen thinks. We get it here. We'll take care of you. I'm happy to have a job, ibitha says, but I don't want to be taken care of. It's important to blend in. I get that. I'm going to work hard. Suzo says, damn straight you are, and leads New Girl away. Before Colleen can figure out if her mind got red. She shakes herself and follows. New Girl is harsh on the customers and harsher on herself when she makes mistakes. Colleen says over and over, it's okay. That's how you learn. And Ibitha snaps, no patronizing. I'll do better. By the end of the night, she can recite the whole appetizer menu from memory, and when her shift ends, she pulls a fistful of tips from her apron. The moneybags think it's a hoot to pay with cash and kisses the bills check it. I'm rich. It's only as the two of them exit into the evening that Colleen realizes Tesla never showed up for work. Ibitha smokes behind the restaurant, cupping her hands around the sticker at I can't stay here for long, you know. Hot brightness in her eyes as she looks at Colleen. I want to do something. Politics. Law. Back there, they never told who was making decisions for us. I want people to listen to me. The certainty in her voice is startling. Politics. Law. Colleen tries not to laugh. But come on, who does that drunk anymore? The earth doesn't know law. The earth knows pleasure pouring out of the fountain, and as soon as you get close enough to dip your cup, you drink down enough to ignore the people who can't get a sip. Politicians are sad gray people turned on by drudgery. Colleen tries to picture new girl like that. Ibitha slides her fingers over her forehead and flips her long hair away from her face, tosses the stickerette away. Course I gotta stop looking like a gob of mud first. This job isn't so bad for that. I'm gonna get rich quick if they keep making me cover shifts for that other Moony. What's her name? Edison? What's wrong with her? Colleen knows she should defend Tesla. She bites her lip. She watches the dark strands of Ibiza's hair settle around her shoulders, forces her eyes to move to the sidewalk where the stickerette is dying like a star. It's a new cycle. Colleen shrugs. Luna's waxing sometimes that she doesn't feel so good, you know? Waxing, huh? Ibitha rolls her eyes skyward in consideration. Never thought of that. Bam chicka bam bam. Party on the beach. Not a cool party, obviously, because it's Moon Kids, but party nonetheless. Moon Kids in bargain bin clothes that curtain their heavy bodies. Stick limbs emerging coated in nanopaint. Body snakes glowing like so many anemones in the dark night water on the outskirts, a few drunk body kite dudes whose standards don't go much narrower than bipedal cool or no, Moon kids didn't spend 16 years getting educated for nothing. They spend their surplus smarts with abandon. They build music machines that wail like electric banshees. They synthesize party pills that sing you up into the clouds. Colleen weaves through bodies, searching for Tesla. People call out to her, pat her shoulders. Hey, Kali, my girl. How goes it? I owe you one. You owe her one? I owe her three. Most any Moon kid who's gotten here in the last three years. They've cried on Colleen's shoulder. They've knocked on her door at midnight and been let in. Colleen half smiles, slides out of their grasp. She likes watching people braid together. Trespass lurches up, his round face painted half white, half black. He pushes a beer into her hand. Cold condensation shocks her palm, makes her smile. Thanks, T. Seen big sister? His nose scrunches and paint flakes onto his shirt. Not tonight. She's in a dark phase, isn't she? Tesla lives her life too raw, thinks Colleen. It makes her easy to love and hard to protect. One time she sat on the beach for two straight days, let the tide wash in and over her up to the neck, then out again, leaving her seaweed strewn and quaking. Then in, then out. Ibiza has been crowned queen of a circle of sand. Boys hold her hands and she swoops and bobs between them. Fuck this pole. She crows. I've got an appointment next week. Just wait. I'm going to get my bones scraped straight. I'm going to get this bulk shaved off. Someone hoots. Yeah, like you got the credit for that. Ibitha bends an ear to a shoulder so that all her hair flows to one side. Her eyes are blade sharp. I've got ways. Just wait. I'm gonna get drools set into my kneecaps. I'm gonna get chimes in my ears so when you go blah. All I hear is music. Girl wrenches herself away from the boys and collars one of the Kite dudes. If this dude. She jabs his chest. If this dude can get body modded for fucking surfing, why would I ever sit around looking like an ugly lump? Fuck that. Kite dude looks bewitched. He is touching a moon Girl and somehow it's not disgusting. He traces a finger along Ibitha's face and she smirks and snaps her teeth at him. You know, on Luna, I was four inches taller. Now I'm squashed down. She grabs Kite Dude's hand and runs it along the lumpy flesh below her armpit. All this. These are compressional folds. Colleen looks on with weird feelings, beating moth wings in her chest. She thinks she should calm Ibitha down. She thinks she should inform her, those body mods, they're for money bags, not us. It doesn't do any good calling people ugly. What does good is keeping your head down, making it from one day to the next. But she can't make herself step in. Watching a moon Girl crow like that, some deep part of her grows honey warm. It makes her think maybe all these years she's been aiming at the wrong target. Maybe there are other kinds of hope. When Ibiza lurches forward and grabs Colleen's shoulders and hollers, how about you see Be a movie star with me? Colleen grins and blows kisses to pretend paparazzi. And then someone is yelling, here. She's here. All heads turn waterward. It's Tesla bawling, pointing with both hands over the ocean. A half moon is rising. Laughter simmers down. No one touches the volume, but the music fades to a background. Lub. Lub. Oh. Oh. Hey, Luna. Fancy seeing you here. What a small world. Colleen walks over and puts an arm around Tesla. Hey, honey. Shh. Tesla leans so that her tears fall on Colleen's shirt. One of the Kite Dudes starts singing buffalo Gals. And Colleen hears Trespass growl, buffalo motherfucker. You want buffalo? Buffalo fucking stampede. She turns in time to see Trespass haul out and clock a dude in the face. And then the brawl is on. And of course Trespass will win, though he will end it wheezing and choking on the sand. Ibiza has disappeared. Colleen scans the shore and finally catches a minifigure, hiking up into the dunes, long hair trailing behind, her back turned to the moon. Dun dun dun. That's where we're going to leave it for today. Hazel, who helps with the scripts behind the scenes, says this about this story. I've read a lot of stories about people deciding whether or not they're going to get on the rocket ship to leave Earth to live on the moon or Mars or a generation ship, but this is the first one I've read about people who are forced back onto Earth. Abby takes that trope and really masterfully excises the bitter underbelly, exclusion, elitism, grief, refugee narrative even. This story is so super smart and I'm excited for you all to hear more about the Earth Left behind next week. As for me, what do I want to say about it? I like when we do things that kind of flow with each other. Like I like that we read a story from decades ago about the rich people, go live elsewhere and do all of the thinking for the people who stay behind and just kind of have fun with sports and have an underbelly even under them. And so it's cool to see that idea, I don't know, decades later. I guess it's a trope, but I think of it more of as an idea. Like what does this mean? Science fiction is the fiction of ideas more than tropes. And so this idea can mean so many different things in different authors hands and different ways of thinking about it. I don't know. I like it. That's what I have to say about it. As for what I have to say about Abby Mae Otis, I'm going to say her bio Abby Mae Otis is a writer, a teaching artist, a storyteller, and a fire starter. Raised in the woods of North Carolina, she loves people and art forms on the margins. Her story collection, Alien Virus Love Disaster from Small Beer Press was named one of the best Science Fiction books of the Year by the Washington Post and was a finalist for the 2018 Philip K. Dick Award. She studied creative writing at the Michener center for Writers, Oberlin College, and the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Currently, she is making a living as an artist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in West Philly, where her favorite days are spent walking her dogs in the woods, overstaying her welcome in coffee shops, chipping away at a novel, and dismantling the state. And I'm Margaret Killjoy and you can find me nowhere. Except, I guess you can find me most places under my name. Margaret Killjoy Anyway, until next week, take care of each other, fuck ice and do something you're bad at. Do art that you're no good at. That's your homework. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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[Osvaloshin from Tech Stuff]

is Oz Velocin from Tech Stuff and I want to tell you about Keeper Security because unlike built in password managers, Keeper works across platforms which allows you to securely share information with your family, with your colleagues, with your friends. And I personally store things like passport and credit card details so I'm not scrambling every time I travel, which makes my life more efficient. And when you're busy but also focused on security like I am, that is absolutely critical. Keeper is offering a 50% discount on personal or family subscriptions using the promo code tech [e-mail] at checkout if you're

[Margaret Killjoy]

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