The One Percenters...Pffft...

The midnight moon, when the clouds drift across it like sulphuric hellsmoke and the luminescent yellow turns French Vanilla behind the gray veil of it, I always think of that first murderous scene in An American Werewolf in London, where the two dudes are walking across the English moors in their puffy, 1980’s ski jackets and they hear the werewolf in the distance closing in before they get gashed.

The full moon, as described, is the shot the camera goes to in order to let the viewer know it’s time to hold your breath because the jump-scare violence is coming. Those special effects were great for that era, and with Landis throwing Van Morrison and CCR into the soundtrack, damn, that was a helluva fun movie. And everyone loves a vampire or werewolf story where we can conduct that reverse anthropomorphism that makes it comfortable to think of men being monstrous because they’ve been transformed into monsters compared to the very uncomfortable reality of men being monsters without having been transformed into anything other than men.

Anyway, that’s how the moon is this breezeless night, staring down at me over the night-still, broccoli-topped trees across the street, and I can’t help but imagine myself standing way up there on the surface of it like those dozen humans have.

Of the 108 billion humans that have ever lived, about 8 billion of us—or about 7%—are still living, and of that 7%, 4 living individuals have walked on the moon. Or, said another way: 0.000000037% of all humans that ever lived have walked on the moon and still breathe. And, I, personally—also still breathing—represent 0.000000009% of all humans that ever lived. Sort of impressive, actually. Statistically speaking, I’ve walked on the moon as much as Neil Armstrong has. Just One Small Step behind him. Statistically speaking.

And even with the clouds drifting by, the moon just stares and never blinks and pours its irresistible light down on all 8-something billion of us as it has for the other 100 or so billion that used to live here but don’t anymore and the only ones noticing are the werewolves like me, the 0.0000000009 Percenters.