Dear Ruby

I have just given you an iclicker to play with. There is a sharpie around here somewhere too. Perhaps your mother would rather you not play with that. You are underfoot in my office as I type, content to explore the pleasant shape of the clicker, and test its endurance by throwing it on the tile floor. I approve. This world here is like a run-down version of the cities I imagined to populate the moon, in distant 2009, as a boy, entranced by science fiction illustrations featuring rocket ships, fuel tanks bulbous and engines flaring. I warned you about the absence of Titanotheres earlier, but earlier in the day, I was able to show you fancy guppies and ball pythons, bichirs and society finches. I never got to go to the moon and visit those cities. It turns out that the resources necessary to colonize that airless orb would have demanded cooperation on a scale that our species is not capable of yet, Maybe your generation will get to that.