The Moon
I couldn't quite believe it; the radio at the Nomad Trust said the moon had gone. I went to the door and squinted up at the sky; it's true it wasn't there when I looked but on this narrow wind blown side street, there's not a lot of sky to be seen in between the two lines of houses and second hand shops. I looked beyond the street lamps and all I could see was a muddy dark blue, no stars, no moon, no comets, no black holes, no astral oddities at all. Maybe whoever stole the moon had got the rest of the galaxy as well.
Wow.
I wandered out into the road and decided to go to the arboretum where I'd be able to see more of God's great creation. I turned into the main road past the tattoo shop and looked about. Trixie my dog came with me. I was glad she was there, not only is she my best friend but a dog her size is a deterrent to any one thinking of messing with me. A girl went missing on this very street a few weeks ago and they still haven't found her. The police are treating it as a murder investigation someone said.
There was some traffic about but not much, it was getting quite late. I stepped into the road to cross over and this guy honked his horn soooo f**king loud. I jumped but quickly regained my cool - who duz he think he is? I yelled at his tailgate lights, in fact I yelled at the next few cars that went by. People started locking their car doors as they passed, I don't blame them, I wouldn't want me talking to me either. Trixie was pulling on her lead, she'd sussed where we were going, she loves being able to run in the arboretum. With a last angry look at those stoopid cars, I pushed the gate of the arboretum open and let Trixie go free.
She galloped off into the gloom and I started looking up again as I walked. I wasn't really following the path as I was staring up, my mouth agape. The street lamps from the road were giving off enough light to see where I was going but I still couldn't see the moon. After a while, "Oi!" someone said. I stopped. "Look where you're going you daft bint!"
"Sorry George" I'm looking for the moon". It was George. George is OK; he brings me food for Trixie, I don't ask where he got it or whether he paid for it.
"What the f**k for? Oh, I geddit, you wanna know if it's time for you to turn into a warewolf". He laughed at his own joke.
"They said the moon is gone on the radio. Do you suppose someone nicked it?"
"Weren't me". George looked up as well. He had a huge jacket on far too big for him to cover up all the layers that were keeping him warm. One day he might have been really good looking. I didn't know how old he was, forty five? The lines on his friendly face were carved pretty deep and furrowed his forehead and cheeks. Maybe he was sixty. Dunno, who cares. He never tried it on did George, sometimes I imagined he was my father. I wish he was, maybe with him as a father, I would be living a different life, we could've saved each other if we'd been father and daughter.
Trixie came bounding up, they were great mates, George found something out of his pocket for her and ruffled her head affectionately as she scoffed it. Trixie went back to exploring in the undergrowth when she realised George didn't have any more treats. George looked up again and seriously studied the sky from one side to the other turning round as he checked out all the sky we could see.
"I can't see it either", he said.
We sat down briefly on a bench whilst George rolled up a joint. His hands were shaking a bit out of their gloves, from the cold night air. I got first toke, he's a gent like that is George. We smoked for a while in the quiet calm gloom and carried on walking deeper into the parkland. I could hear Trixie in and about amongst the shrubs, the trees were whispering gently and I swear they were talking to me. I just had to listen hard enough to hear what they were saying, the harder I listened, the whispering intensified to unintelligible chatter.
Suddenly George interrupted the trees and they quietened down really quick to listen too "You know if the moon is missing, there'd be problems with the sea, it controls the tide you know. If we went to the sea, I bet there'd be no waves, cos the sea wouldn't know what to do." I hadn't been to the sea for years, suddenly I yearned for it, specially if it wasn't going to be there any more.
Next thing you know, we're at the sea, OK so there's a lake in the arboretum, but it's big enough to be a sea, and now we're further away from the street it's darker too, especially with no moon, we can't see across to the other side. The sea was calm with no waves. It was true, the moon must be missing. "I bet that space took tourist it - he'll come back and hold the government of the world to ransom if they want it back".
I started giggling cos it was really weird that someone so rich would pull off a scam like that. The trees started softly laughing with me too. It was infectious. I went up to one and pretty soon we were all laughing so hard at what George said. I pressed my cheek against the rough bark, with tears from the laughing running down my cheek. I was still chuckling but calming down as I became aware of the tree living and breathing underneath my clasp; I held it like a lover. I stopped laughing altogether and began stroking it up and down with my hands. It's solid unyielding, hard body was as near to mine as my clothes would allow. I hadn't been this close to a person for a long time, the intimacy became important and significant. My heart started beating faster and I felt a little dizzy, I didn't want anything to happen to the tree.
"Won't there be tidal waves and stuff if the moon doesn't come back" I mumbled into the tree a little breathlessly, "The end of the world - apocalypse?"
"Yeh" said George. "We'd better do something to get it back". So we quickly sat down on the cold grass and bowed our heads solemnly. Even the trees joined in whilst we said prayers to the Lord asking Him to get the moon back from the space tourist and make the sea do it's thing again.
Next time we looked up, the moon was back. There she was just above the dark shadowy outline of treetops, stalking her way haughtily across the night sky looking down on us as if she had never been anywhere.
And that's how me 'n George saved the world.
The radio at the Trust never did report the reappearance of the moon the next day because it was full of stuff about the local council election results. Funny that the outgoing guy was called Moon, he was gone now instead of the real one.