She gazed up into the night sky
with intensity
and pondered the immensity
of the observable universe.

Space seemed so spacious,
forty-six billion light years in radius,
with recent astronomical analyses
suggesting one hundred billion galaxies
and stars numbering
three hundred sextillion
(give or take a few thousand billion).

Even if she set off soon,
a walk to the moon
would take three thousand days
which, to coin a phrase,
would be sheer lunacy.

The universe held her spellbound
in its unimaginable boundlessness
until the phone rang
and she went back inside
her cramped one-bedroom flat in Croydon
to answer it.