When men first arrived on the moon, one of the astronauts found a strange creature crouched behind a rise, deeply invested in a game of crater hide-and-seek, though when it caught sight of him, it was happy to abandon its frivolities in the name of a new friend. The white-suited astronaut raised the space pistol he’d been secretly told to carry for just such an occasion, but he lowered it as he heard its voice in his mind, saying, “Hi, I’m Wilyheart. What’s your name?” Then it hugged his knee, which was as high as it could reach.

Citing the scientific need to study an unknown species and the fact that it was so darned cute, the astronaut carried this little multicolored furball back to his capsule, where his crewmates confirmed that it was, in fact, a fascinating and adorable discovery.

Back on Earth, this creature so bizarre to the men volunteered no shortage of information about its own people, revealing an entire society living on the dark side of the moon, needing neither air, nor water, nor sunlight to live. Wilyheart explained that they existed on diets of pure imagination, friendship, and happiness.

The scientists nonetheless rigorously tested and prodded Wilyheart, although all it seemed to do was make it giggle and poke them back in an attempt to return their game of tag. No matter the battery of tests given to it, Wilyheart seemed impenetrable and indestructible. So they gave it to a child.

The son of the first man to walk on the moon took home what he immediately dubbed a Moonie, and they became inseparable pals. It proved to be an untiring engine of fun, which would never waver in its love for the boy. Astronauts were soon sent back to retrieve as many of the enrapturing creatures as they could, to be sold to the children of the world as the perfect pet and toy, all in one package.

But worldwide, governments worried about the Moonies’ seeming immortality, and they gambled that they might check that unlimited power by destroying its origin. And that is why there is no moon today, because the silly humans blew it up.