A monolith has surfaced in Utah. In Romania. In Times Square. In the Chevron station at the corner of Downing and 18th. A monolith has surfaced in your anti-vaxx sister’s apartment but it is neither large nor chrome. The local news station describes its appearance as more like a pink wet tongue, similar to the monoliths found in Dallas or that nightclub in Osaka where they dress the bouncers in cowboy couture. Similar to the monolith found on an oil rig, circling the Arctic: pink and wet, sure, but not freezing. There is a pink monolith in the Arctic and there is the pink monolith at your sister’s place but there are also dissolving monoliths. Edible monoliths. Monoliths that will spontaneously combust. Monoliths engraved with hieroglyphics. Monoliths that have begun to move to the suburbs and raise families and complain about the young girls who cry at their daughter’s sleepover and probably shouldn’t have been invited in the first place. There is a monolith working on its skincare regimen. There is a monolith who has an inexplicable fondness for Rick Perry. There is a monolith that has surfaced on your lower ribcage; it’s dark and irregularly shaped. Your wife thinks you should probably get it looked at by the doctor if it grows any bigger, and, of course, it does. It looks like a deformity within days. On the drive to the hospital, you pass a row of monoliths decorated for the holiday season, strewn with Christmas lights or dressed like polar bears, and singing a chirpy carol on repeat. The road ahead is dusted with snow. The lower half of your torso aches. An orange streetlamp casts its glow through the windshield and it’s the soft kind of light that should make you want to look forward to something. But the sky is dark and the windshield is frosted. There’s no looking forward. Not today, at least.