Moon: Another Monkey Story
Monkey has spun the wheel and her great machine of fantasy, fairytale and heartbreak is whirring into action to provide another short story. Here is how it begins and I can’t wait to learn more.
Moon
“You would hear the story as I saw it? I must confess, I do not understand why. You with your own eyes have seen it, Mother-Maiden, and they are not yet dim with age. But still, I will acquiesce.”
I watch languidly as a man and girl step forth into the cool night air. With a laugh, the man sweeps the child onto his shoulders, where she clings with all her tiny might. “You see the moon, shining there?” He asks, and she nods, too occupied with holding tight to speak.
“Would you like to hear her story?” Again she nods, her fascination laid plain in moonlight.
“Every month she turns her face, and every month she turns to us again. When her face is turned to us, the dusk and dawn are long, and when she turns away, they shorten.”
“But why does she turn away?”
“Moon, dear, weaves her cloth of night throughout the month. But she sometimes runs short of thread, and then she must turn away to fetch more, and we cannot see her face. So then, she can’t weave the dawn so wide, and day comes all the more quickly.”
I smile, as I watch them from my window. Such fanciful stories, my people tell! I envy them.
I take up my ice-cold brush as I watch, and draw it down through my hair, leaving streaks of shining green and violet. My hair, ocean-dark, stretches past my feet and beyond, coiling round every shadowed thing. I take up a handful of my gilded ornaments, and scatter them throughout. Though one might think I cast them randomly, I place them with great care. To miss one would be to do many a sailor grave disservice, and I could never bear that burden.
I turn my eyes to another family now, far off from that first. I have watched them for many a month now. The mother takes her pale, sickly child on her knee. His eyes are wide as stars, bright with illness.
“I won’t be gone so long,” she says “And then we’ll play again.” He frowns, but tears come little to this one.
“Wife!” comes her husband’s voice from within. “You won’t go before I have my supper.” She frowns, but does as she is bid. When I suppose he has at last finished, she emerges again, and walks tiredly down the hill. But now comes the dawn, and I must turn my eyes away for a time, and again refresh my brilliance. I have no light of my own, after all, and I must guide this woman’s steps brightly.
As dusk falls, I turn my eyes again to the woman. She has slept the day through beneath a tree, and now she begins her journey again. The shoes on her feet are made of stone, I see now.
