A place on the moon
a 15-minute fiction exercise, inspired by three words
My sister was generous enough to provide me with the following three words for inspo: Crater / Lipstick / Fart.
Sometimes, someone will say, there’s a special place in hell for you. I’m not sure if it’s a threat or a promise, but it doesn’t sound too bad to me. If there’s a special place in hell for me, that means they’re expecting me. Maybe they’ve already made the bed, and there’s freshly cleaned towels waiting at the foot of it. Perhaps the host has left a guidebook on the nightstand, with recommendations for local eats and night life to explore. In any case, if someone is expecting me somewhere, I know that I’ll feel right at home. With my life, I often feel I’d rather be in hell than stuck where I am.
No one ever says there’s a special place for them on the moon. They tell you to shoot for the moon and be with the stars. They’ll use the moon to let you know how much they love you – that, in fact, the distance of their love reaches from the earth to the moon and back, whatever that means. The moon is a faraway place, and thus, is a great benchmark to determine how long love can travel.
I live in a condo, situated in a crater of land. The crater’s walls are about 5-6 feet tall, so it’s my picket fence that everyone on earth dreams of. I have a little yard, and a little alien dog, Alexander, that roams around in the air, his neck leashed with a tight knot to a pole I installed. I can watch his silhouette from my one window in my condo, sitting at my vanity. Waking up for the darkness of the day, I feel for a lipstick that doubles as a lip balm in a drawer and smudge it on my lips. I turn on a digital candle and place it on the windowsill. I clap my hands, and a warm glow fills the corners of my room.
I watch Alexander circling the pole, his legs swimming in invisible water in the air. He’s wearing a sweater I’ve knitted him – red, white, and blue – and his tongue hangs out happily.
There’s a strange electricity in the air, and Alexander can sense it too. He stops circling. I tighten the helmet around my head, and step outside. My boot hits the ground in slow motion. I make soft glissades across the yard and catch the pole alongside Alexander. The air continues to breathe in a weird pattern. Then, a bang behind us. We both turn over our shoulders. A rocket.
“Hey!” A man in a big space suit comes barreling toward us, waving his hands above his head. I scoop Alexander into my hands, holding him under my armpit like a football.
“Hey! Uh, I come in peace!”
Alexander begins to growl under his breath. I pet him with calming strokes, feeling his body shaking underneath the red, white, and blue threads hugging his chest.
I clear my dry throat. “Uh, no, you’re trespassing, man. I think you’ve got the wrong…moon,” I yell.
The man stops right beneath the pole, hopping gently in place up and down.
“Wait, wait - this is perfect. So, you come in peace, too?” He says, motioning to Alexander. We stare at each other, the stars blinking in awkward silence above our heads and below our feet. I turn my head slightly to where he’s gesturing, then back to him, in confusion. He shrugs his shoulders a bit matter-of-factly.
“American.” I look at Alexander with slight realization, eye the red, white, and blueness of his outfit, and then feel a slight flash of panic.
“Look, now, no one move…” the man pulls out a big box, with what appears to be a camera inside. “Boss is going to love this.”
I shield Alexander behind my back slightly and shake my head, “You know, Alexander doesn’t like bright lights, for…” I motion around us at the dark universe. “For obvious reasons.”
The man hesitates with his camera. I give sort of an explanatory shrug. “It triggers him. You know, I rescued him, and - ”
The man snaps his photo anyways, the flash indefinitely brighter than the sun. Alexander promptly lets out a nervous, resonant fart that propels him into space. The leash snaps, and he spirals away. The man and I watch in horror as Alexander fades into the stars.
“I… I still, come in… peace.” The man gulps and lowers his camera.
I slide down the pole and make my way up the steps back to my condo.
“Peace?” The man weakly offers, with a nervous chuckle, extending his hand out, symbolically.
I turn back to him.
“Go to hell.” He gestured with his hand, swatting me away like a fly, and headed back toward his rocket.
“And I hope they’re not expecting you,” I mutter under my breath, slamming the door behind me.