The Rings of the Moon.

It was an autumn evening around nine o'clock, when I first noticed
that the moon had grown rings.

The moon had been full nearly a week before, so it was about 3 quarters
and tilting towards the horizon. The rings tilted with it, and because
of the angle, they were not quite side-on, otherwise I probably
wouldn't have noticed. Even with a limited grasp of astrophysics, I
couldn't see how such a phenomenon was possible.
I'd been noticing the moon throughout its most recent phase because it
was so large and bright. Harvest time. I swear that until that night,
apart from its increased luminosity there was nothing odd. The
appearance of the rings was as sudden as an April shower.
I rushed into the house for binoculars. Holding them up to my eyes, I
could see nothing but dancing sparks. My hands were shaking quite
badly. I dragged the ancient tripod outside and fixed the field
glasses.
The moon was always magnificent when magnified and I often viewed it
this way. The surface, mottled and shadowy, could be seen clearly. On
this night, so too could it's newly acquired accessory. There were two
distinct rings, the outer much wider than the inner, and both as opaque
as mushroom soup.

In the weeks and months that followed, the world was alight with
speculation. Modern, logical thought was confounded by a phenomenon
that had no scientific explanation. Cults and zealots enjoyed a
renaissance, during which they came by a great many more followers.
There were several weeks during which there was not a street corner in
the land that hadn't been occupied by a yelling, omen-fixated
harpy.

But the gains that the extremists made in those formative days were
lost as time showed that the rings had no holocaustic implications.
People became tired with not knowing or understanding, and regained
their sense of humour. It was even ruminated that some sort of
publicity stunt was the cause. A few, tentative explanations were put
forward by the physicists. These theorists were great deal less sure of
their hypotheses than the cultists were, but many clung to their
findings as one would a broken ship's hull in a stormy sea.

Before long, the media became the sole owner of the Moon's new
jewellery. Books, TV series' and blockbuster movies were spawned.
'Orbit me, baby' became the all time, best selling, number-one-hit EVER
at Christmas, performed by a newly appointed boy band, 'Ring'. Not a
day went by that some permutation of moon-ring spin-off made front-page
news.

As time went by, however, interest in the heavens dwindled as the
public were distracted by the more terrestrial concerns of presidential
scandals, celebrity marriages, wars and famine. As interest faded, I
became aware, during my nightly observations that so too were the
rings. Some other people noticed too and there was a half-page about it
on page 4 or 5 of most dailys. 'Scientists baffled yet again' ran the
by-line in my own paper.
The thick, cream soup consistency of those mighty discs had become,
over a short space of time, a thin, chicken broth. By March the smaller
of the two rings had gone completely.

It was a summer's morning when I turned to page 18 of The Independent
and read the tiny column about the disappearance of the final ring.