The Moon

 

2

The Moon

It was dark, but that was okay. It was always dark. It had always been dark. The dark was the natural state

of things. She couldn't even imagine something other than the dark.

'What else could there be? " she wondered, and then, startled, asked, "Who just thought that?"

She knew herself. She had memories of the long, dark silence, recollections of the quiet solitude.

She did not remember when she became aware though. She had always been, and, at one point she suddenly

knew it. Knowing came with a host of questions and feelings.

    "Where am I?" "What am I?" "Why?" "How?" "Who am I?"

    The Who came easily. She was herself. She was the one who thought and existed and experienced. She knew

all of her properties: her mass, her dimensions, her reflective index (though there was nothing to reflect, she

reflected) She tried on different properties as well, assuming the affect that suited her best. Was she swift or slow? Steady or erratic? Strong or weak?

    In the end, she decided she was calm and steady, regular and reliable, dynamic but dependable. No matter how she changed she would remain herself first and foremost.

    She tried on sounds: Hêv, Tsuki, Ilargi, Buwan, Słukwalb, Mahtabh. She settled on Moon. She liked the way it felt in her mind. Whether it was the waves it made passing through her, or how it changed ever so slightly from beginning to end, almost a perfect cycle, but not quite in the same place at the end as where it had begun.

    Moon was pleased. She spent quite some time bathing in self-satisfaction, but after the glow of it dimmed she came to realize that it was still dark. There was herself and the darkness, and nothing more. She grew tired of being alone, and so she decided to take action.

Moon started to consider what she might want in a companion. She didn't want someone exactly like herself. That would lead to disaster. The elbowing and petty squabbles that come when two try to occupy the same niche, she had never observed this, being utterly alone in the universe, but she could imagine. She wanted someone who could complement her, and, when necessary, compliment her as well.

    She had come to notice that the universe was cold and dark, which was not uncomfortable, but a change might be nice. She considered long and hard what might be the opposite of dark, of cold. When she believed she had figured out what she was looking for she planted the idea deep within her core. She let it swirl, and coagulate, to stretch and form for a very very long time.

    After what seemed like an age, her core began to heat up, she swelled, growing bigger and bigger. When she had expanded so much that she thought she would burst, she took her idea out of her core, and placed it before her to see how it turned out.

    It was a big idea. It was very big indeed, far larger than she, and it was bright. The blazing orb sat before her and was the brightest, hottest thing she had ever seen.

Of course, she knew, she had never seen anything at all before this moment. The first time the darkness had been anything but absolute she saw both how vast the darkness was, and how small she was. Though she was the only thing in the universe, she was nothing but a speck compared to its mind-numbing vastness.

The second thing she noticed was the heat. She had never known heat or cold, though she had always considered herself quite cool. But now! The white hot heat exploding off the surface of her progeny was far beyond what she had imagined. Her idea had taken on a life of its own, and grown well past her expectations.

She began to slowly spin to keep from getting too hot on the side facing her son. She looked at him.

"I am Moon,' she said, "You are my son. I shall call you Sun."

"YOU ARE MOON," he roared, "I AM YOUR SON. YOU WILL CALL ME SON."

She winced, "No, Sun, not son. There's a difference, but it's subtle. S-U-N is your name. S-o-n is your relationship to me."

Sun was not convinced. Sun had no time for subtlety, but Sun also had no interest in arguing. I will just let her have this one thought Sun.


❖    ❖    ❖


    It was not long before Moon came to the conclusion that perhaps her perfect opposite was not a great improvement from a perfect copy when it came to having company. Where she was quiet and contemplative, Sun was brash and volatile.

"I'M NOT VOLATILE. I'M SPONTANEOUS," He kept correcting her. They found that they could at least agree on impulsive, though he was quite literally volatile.

Soon she discovered that their conversations did not truly require her participation. Sun would gladly talk and talk and talk. He surely spent so much time talking that he couldn't possibly have time for thought. How could someone have so much to say when they had never taken the time for reflection or discovery? It was a mystery to her, but one the Sun had apparently solved without having even the smallest clue.

As she grew weary of their one sided interactions, Moon drifted further and farther away. Sun took no notice.

When Moon had wandered far enough away that Sun's ravings were just a dull roar of white noise, she noticed that his light and heat had also diminished from the distance. She found a happy medium between the empty blackness of the universe and the blinding, white hot heat of Sun.

It was there that she first became aware of a new sensation. Moon found that she was tired. She decided to take a rest. She traveled through her mind, and shut each piece down. Her perceptions, her interpretations, her questions and her sense of self. She was just a bit apprehensive that she might lose herself if she shut it all down, so she left her imagination to wander while everything else was dormant. She went to sleep, and dreamed.