Raymond Fleck sat up and groped for his laptop.

The dream was already fading but a few sentences remained. And those sentences held the key to getting rid of the vampires forever.

The Earth Day wallpaper appeared, but the old laptop would take two more minutes before he could do anything. Raymond repeated the sentences, fingers twitching on the keys. The words were vaguely familiar …

There! The word processor showed a blank page. With trembling fingers, he typed, “How like a man. The earth is not a spaceship.”

He stared bleakly at the useless words. Some vital piece was missing. It had been implied in the dream, something to do with ecology. The words meant nothing!

He got up and walked angrily to the window. He’d seen Charla Thorpe’s viral video; the vampires kept out of sight of his windows but still swarmed over the house of Sam, his Luddite neighbor who couldn’t go online to save his life. (If Sam hadn’t been such an asshole, Raymond might have told him all he had to do was declare, as Charla had, “The sanctity of our home includes our view!”)

What had been in the dream? His mother had faced an old man with horn rim glasses, holding a dimpled ball. She shook her head and told him he was just like a man to say that the earth was a spaceship. Raymond, watching, had nodded, knowing that ecology meant he could get rid of the vampires…

The words were familiar because his mother had really said them, years ago. She’d said them to him but they were about that old man, whoever he was. “How like a man!” she’d snorted. “The earth is not a spaceship!”

And then she’d said something more, something that had to do with ecology. What? It seemed like the key to everything.

There was no teasing the memory out. Like shy cats or stars you must look away from to see, it might come if he ignored it. He climbed back into bed, thinking instead about the vampires and their damn logistic curve growth. They’d made more and more vampires until they choked the world, an awful lot like humans had. But if you were in a home you were safe, unless you invited them in. And the dream had told him something about that…

The thought still hadn’t come at noon as he stood at the window of his office in the Earth Sciences Building, watching earnest young people stride through the sun, daypacks hanging off their shoulders. He’d led seminars on global warming until the vampires put an end to that problem. Nobody drove at night anymore; carbon emissions were thus cut in half and for five years there’d been no measurable change in climate.

He watched the busy quad, trying not to think of the dream. No more global warming. An ecologist’s dream.

Of course, if the dream really held the key and humanity did rid the earth of vampires, then people would drive more than ever, would start destroying spaceship earth all over again.

Spaceship Earth?

Buckminster Fuller!

That was the old man with glasses and the dimpled ball (a geodesic ball made of small triangles!). He was the philosopher, designer and dreamer who had used the term Spaceship Earth to encourage everyone to treat the planet with the respect you’d give a spaceship if you were its crew. Margaret Fleck had heard him speak back in the 70s or 80s. Afterwards, she’d told her teenage son in her stern Oxford accent, “How like a man. The earth is not a spaceship.”

He almost had it then. She had said something else, something to do with ecology and it was the key.

The lunch rush slowed as he struggled. The radiant midday light poured like liquid honey on the people basking in the sculpture garden, stretched on the grass which tonight would crawl with vampires.

If he did snag the elusive idea, how would he convince anybody else? Post something online? Start a blog, tweet the news? He had to face it, nobody ever paid attention to anything he put online. The day dragged on.

Lonely and despairing at 5 pm he called Cindy. “Stay with me tonight?”

“Sure baby,” she answered easily. They were casual friends with benefits. “I won’t have time to do anything and still get there.” Before sunset, neither of them needed to add. “Do you have food, everything we’ll need?”

“Baby, I got everything we need,” he answered suavely, and she chuckled. “Good oh, then. See ya half hour before.” Before sunset.

Everything in our lives revolves around sunset.

As he rode the train home a knot built in his stomach; for the first time in months he read the big red emergency instructions. “In the event of a breakdown near sunset, a conductor in your car will ask for the verbal agreement of all passengers that the train is a home for the night. Respond ‘This is my home tonight’ when asked to do so. Do not venture outside until after the sun has risen. Do not under any circumstances say words indicating welcome to the circulating exterior non-living entities.” (How like a bureaucrat…)

If nobody fucked up (a big if) the train became a temporary home, like a motel. Months later, Malcolm Donald would make an unenclosed plaza his home by promising to live there for a year; Sally and Lavinia would make a moving vehicle their home by promising to live in it indefinitely. But for a completely enclosed, unmoving vehicle, a single night’s promise seemed to be enough. If nobody said the W word…

The train got to Park West station with no delays and he started the 20-minute drive to his house with the sun an hour from setting. Things were easy in summer; in winter everyone left for home at 4 and any nightlife was online (which meant he had no nightlife).

He was almost home when from his pocket his phone announced, “Call from Cindy Rella.” (He’d never told her how she was entered in his address book.) He pulled quickly over and answered it just before it cut off.

“Baby, don’t panic,” she said with a tense quaver. “But my car broke down.”

Raymond started guiltily, as if he’d caused this by thinking too hard about breakdowns. “I’ve pulled to the side of the freeway and I’m fine--” She said it too harshly. “I’ll just declare the car my home and stay in it tonight.”

“But it’s still, um, 45 minutes, won’t somebody come?”

“I already called Triple A. All drivers are heading back to the garage by state law. Unless some good Samaritan stops, Jesus, I’m, I’ll be fine, I’ll be, I’ll just stay here.”

“I’ve got plenty of gas,” he almost barked into the phone. “I’ll come get you. Where are you?” He wasn’t a brave man but he had to prove to himself that he could do something.

She sobbed with relief, even as she made herself say, “I can’t ask you to, no...”

“Share your position with me,” he snapped, more firmly than ever before. Quickly he pulled up directions. 16 minutes. It would be close. “I’ll be there within 20 minutes,” he told her. “Hang tight.”

“Don’t hang up!” She’d never been that vulnerable. More calmly, sounding ashamed, she continued, “Can you, if you can just keep the phone connected …”

“I’ll keep the connection live.” He put the phone on speaker in his lap.

43 minutes to sunset, 16 minutes there, maybe 20 minutes to his house, plenty of time. His palms started to sweat.