Carina Brought Down the Moon

Photo by Zach Dischner (copied from Flickr)

Carina brought down the moon. It wasn’t so hard. It was just a matter of thinking, because if you think about something hard enough then it’s almost as if it’s real. She’d been thinking it very hard because she couldn’t sleep. Her bedroom was lit moon-silver, and her sleepless eyes felt heavy and itchy like woollen stones, and there was no point in looking out of the window at the constellations Grampa showed her because the stars couldn’t get past the sky and that bright, bold moon. But that wasn’t why she didn’t sleep.

Carina brought down the moon while trying not to dream. Lying in bed, frowning and restless, she saw the moon’s light shudder down at the bottom of her garden. That might have been a dream, but dreams were usually scarier, and anyway she could smell it: fizzy pop, and muddy potatoes, and Grampa’s fresh-washed hankies all mixed together. She’d never smelled in a dream, so it must be real. Tiptoeing downstairs, she shushed Biscuit before he yapped and stood barefoot on the doorstep, looking at it. It seemed a bit sad there, alone among the dandelions. The stars stayed hidden because; the moon was still bright, even low in the garden. She wished she’d put on her shoes.

Carina brought down the moon while trying not to dream on the shortest day of the year, where outside her far-north house the sun hardly shows the top of its burning head, and the moon and stars rule the sky. Except not the stars, because of the moon. And didn’t it know that she needed the stars, so she could find the way to Grampa? They’d all come from the stars, he said, and that was where he’d go. Where he’d gone. She dreamed about him every night, up there in the sky, burning and blinded by the moon’s unblinking eye.

Carina brought down the moon. Ten minutes later, she smashed it to dust with her bare feet. In the darkened garden, she lay on the grass and waited for the stars.