Shoot the moon from the Sky

It all started as bit of an ironic joke…

I was disillusioned with my local M.P and made up my mind to stand against her in the general election.

My party was called “Shoot the Moon from The Sky” and my only policy was exactly that, to shoot the moon from the sky. (Really I was just giving local constituents somewhere to place their protest votes).

Due to the unusual name of my party, the local rag took some interest and organised an interview with me, where I defended my only policy to the hilt, and left the local journalist in no doubt, that the moon must come down!!

Before I knew it, this led to national coverage. Suddenly I found I had a candidate prepared to stand in every seat in the country, also a major financial backer, based on the single policy of destroying the moon, and frighteningly many of my candidates did genuinely want the moon gone!

I played along with the whole thing and went on a national tour giving speeches, declaring the moon was an unnecessary anchor, holding the earth back from bigger and better things.

I always finished a speech ready to duck from the rotten eggs, or any other pieces of over ripe fruit and veg, that may be thrown at me but instead people were giving rapturous applause!

I was glad when the general election finally came, so that I could give up this farcical charade and return to my normal life.

You can imagine my surprise, to find myself reading a hastily prepared acceptance speech, standing outside Number 10 Downing Street, in front of the world’s media.

Things seemed to gather a pace from there. A minister was appointed in charge of "moon destruction" and he set about building an enormous rocket, with all the leading scientists and engineers in the country assisting.

Other countries turned against our little Island and imposed sanctions. However, all this seemed to do was galvanise our country. People stood strong together, with a clear common goal.

My last hope of stopping this madness was the environmental campaigners. I knew they would not like to see our beloved Moon bashed to dust! However, to my horror, when they discovered that without the moon wind speeds would increase, due to the faster rotation of the earth, which would no longer be hampered by the moon’s gravitational pull, they declared we should build more wind farms. Add to that, the fact that, the minister for "moon destruction" had convinced them that we were going to use all the country’s nuclear waste to power the rocket, and all the land fill would be put in the rocket, they became one of the most vocal pro-moon destruction groups!

The moon soon became the object of everyone's loathing and frustrations. School children wrote messages of hate towards the moon, to be put aboard the rocket; bands wrote songs, mocking the ugly rock in the sky.

So here I am now, smiling at the cameras (through gritted teeth), my hand hovering above a big red button, whilst the nation completed a count down. I could see, on a TV monitor in front of me, the most enormous rocket that we had built together as a country, based on our detest for the moon. It even had “Farewell Moon” written down the side in enormous lettering. The countdown finished, I hit the button, and the thrusters fired up, and off it flew. The whole nation was glued to their TV sets for the next 2 hours, as the rocket closed in on its victim, arrowing towards its target

I could not look. What had I done? I was actually quite fond of the moon!

By Martin Fields