When the Moon Was Mine.
SHORT STORY BY RACHELLE SUMMERS.
When I was two, the Moon was mine.
Don’t ask me how it came to be in my possession — I’m not sure. But the glowing light in the night sky, 384,400 km away, belonged to me. I knew that for certain.
It was night, and we were driving home. I was in my booster seat, my head swinging from left to right, annoyed because it made it harder to watch my Moon.
I had to make sure that my Moon was following me — floating above me — trailing after the car.
Looking after us.
We were sometimes too fast for the Moon, or we would take a turn that the Moon didn’t expect. My Moon would disappear from sight, getting stuck behind tree silhouettes, dark grey clouds and gloomy blue mountains. I would make distressed sounds when I couldn’t see my Moon. If I couldn’t see it, then it couldn’t see me.
It made me worry that I wouldn’t ever see it again
I would imagine it encased in vicious shadows, sad, as it was unable to see me, the shadows suffocating it until it couldn’t shine anymore.
It’s darker without the Moon’s glow. Even now, I’m still afraid of the dark and all the sinister shapes that it brings.
In the car with me were my two older sisters. They never believed me when I said that the Moon was mine. They would disagree, or just to wind me up, saying that it was actually theirs. I would shout, flail my limbs, and cry, forcing my mother to intervene and attempt to calm me down. She would tell my sisters to “just let her have her Moon!”
I’m not sure how long the Moon was mine. Gradually, over time, I forgot that it was.
I think I lost it when the rules and impossibilities of life were forced upon me. Of course the Moon wasn’t mine! Who could believe something like that?
I think that’s when I lost a bit of myself as well.
When I look to my future, I see the dark gloomy clouds that used to swallow my Moon.
I’m afraid they’ll swallow me too.
Now, I’m driving my car. Twenty years old instead of only two.
I know my car is mine — I have a depleted bank account to prove it.
I make the last turn off the main road onto my driveway, the turn that always woke me up from my half-asleep state when I was younger. My driveway is longer than most. The sky is a mixture of purple, orange and blue. Each colour bleeds into the other, swirling in dreamy patterns, surrounding the Moon as it peeks over the hill.
It looks bigger than normal, closer to me than it usually seems when the sky turns black, and it’s too high to reach.
I have grown, and I understand that the Moon is probably not mine. That the impossible is impossible. Dreams are harder to acquire than just wishing on stars.
But, who’s to say?
I have proof from my memories of the Moon that I believed was mine. I don’t think the Moon I look at with my twenty-year-old eyes is mine. But the Moon when I was younger? When the traffic signals, glowing road reflective markers, and the too bright lights from cars coming toward us, all paled in comparison to the light emanating from my Moon in the sky. It didn’t sway — even though the wind attacked our car with a mighty force and shook the tree’s branches. It was steady as it continued to follow us home.
That Moon will always be mine.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2023.