Outside

They said protective shield. That is a late mouth. I will not use it.

The bubble the solar wind keeps was pressed smaller than Earth's orbit at least three times in the last fourteen million years.

About two to three. Six to seven. Thirteen to fourteen.

Cold clouds. Earth sat outside. The bubble was still there, only smaller.

Markers of interstellar dust in deep-sea sediment, Antarctic snow, Moon samples line up with the same stretches.

Lost the shield is a job put in a mouth. The leftover is the arrangement: Earth outside, taking what the galaxy was doing while the bubble kept its work closer in.