This past May, we saw in the night sky what is called a Super Moon. I began wondering what this event might have meant to people in times long ago. Thus, my short story began...
The world was young, and the heavens were a mystery to human minds, especially the night skies. Strange lights seemed to twinkle, and on rare occasions, shoot through the sky. But there was one round globe, a constant non-twinkling fixture that changed shapes and colors as if by magic. Sometimes it looked like a fingernail, a crescent. Sometimes it was only half a globe. On some nights, it appeared to be a cold, grey stone. Other times, it chose to be the creamy color of fresh goat's milk. It was yellow too. Once, she had seen it slightly take on a blue tint as if it wanted to be a part of the sky at noon.
But one night, this globe she called the moon filled her with fear. As she sat in the open fields at the edge of the forest, she lifted her eyes toward the sky to greet her nightly friend. Where the earth meets the sky, she suddenly saw that her friend had become a giant! A monstrously huge, full, round, yellow-ish/orange moon was creeping up into the dark. As it rose, it seemed to swallow up the sky around it. There was no room for the small twinkling lights, only the moon. Larger and larger it grew like her eyes as fear gripped her stomach, and she sat frozen to the earth.
How much time was left in her life before this huge mass would crush her miniscule body into the ground? If she could move, she would flee to the forest behind her. But no tree, not the strongest oak or largest twisting, turning baobab could withstand the pressure of this fiery friend turned monstrous foe.
What to do? How to save herself? Or should she choose her method of death, take her own life instead of waiting silently and succumbing to the inevitable? What kind of force is so cruel that it lulls you into loving it and then, turns against you and would snuff out your life? What kind of sick, twisted forces were in the universe?
The lake was near. She calmed as she chose her own fate, and with that calm, she broke out of the iceberg surrounding her and ran faster than eagles can fly toward the lake. There was no time for goodbyes or tears. She would be crushed before making it back to her loved ones... and unable to have the peace of mind she now felt. The goodbyes were in her thoughts as she swum toward the deep center of the lake. Her hot tears mixed with the cool waters even as she slowly sank to the bottom.
Dare she just hold her breath... hide in the waters... hope that this angry moon would leave her watery hideout unharmed? Would she return to a world left with no one but herself? Why hide and live... alone? How could anyone, anything live after this monster attacks? Only halfway down, she could see the huge fiend as its image wiggled in the clear water above her eyes. It consumed the entire surface of the lake.
What to do? What to do? Sink... or swim to the top for one last breath of air and ask the night for a miracle? What to do?
