I cannot recall, today, when exactly I began to wake up on the moon. I’m sure I wrote it off as a dream the first few times it happened and hastened back to sleep. Eventually the regularity of the occurrence, as well as a dash of insomnia, had me examine my surroundings. I would awaken each night in the small hours of the morning for one or two hours and I would find myself, along with my bed, on the moon.
It took me months to grasp the peculiarity and reality of the situation and to realize that I was truly being transported, in my sheets and pyjamas on a nightly basis, to the moon. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that it took me months to actually drag myself out of bed, and even then, only to relieve myself.
Every dream, at its base, is composed of a set of known experiences and emotions. You cannot create an entirely new face, new colour, new emotion purely within your dreams. It was that reasoning that led me to conclude, as soon as my feet touched the sand upon the face of the moon, that I had never felt this before and was, without a doubt, awake. A sharp shock of pain from my feet did not discourage this opinion. Although I did not panic, as I figured that if I were going to die on the moon I would have done so already, I reconsidered relieving myself and went back to sleep with the assumption that everything would be fine the next morning. With the exception of some cuts on my feet, as the sand upon the moon is quite sharp, my estimation was correct. I thus resolved to sleep with boots tied to my bedpost for the following night.
That night I awoke to find my footprints at the side of my bed. They appeared a carved photograph in the sand, immortal, unchanging, yet material. They would outlive me. I wiped the prints off with my boots, then put them on and began exploring the surface of the moon.
I should mention that I was unaware, up to that point, of my location, but a short walk away from my bed was a small hill which looked out upon the Earth, with its slow-moving clouds and tiny people. I sat down to look at it, scraping my palms and buttocks on the sharp sand, and remained there for a while. I followed my footsteps back to my bed, standing out starkly against the glistening pale surface of the moon and the black starry sky, removed my boots, and slept.
It became a routine of mine to watch the Earth from afar, with gloves and two pairs of trousers, until the day that I saw another pair of footprints. I’m not certain what compelled me to view the moon as my own. As private and personal. The set of footprints was an imposition, an invasion.
“Have they always been there?”
“Why didn’t I notice them before?”
“How dare they exist?”
Upon seeing the footprints, I returned to my bed, but the rage remained, burning and festering. I resolved that night to follow the footprints. To what end I have no idea; it may be the same thought process which compels dogs to chase cars, or cats to climb trees. That night, I set off for the footprints but noticed that they had not multiplied. As I strode across the hills and crags and dunes of the empty unchanging desert of white eternal night, I began to wonder what I would do once I encountered the bearer of the feet which left the prints. Maybe they knew why we were being transferred to the moon. Maybe they were not there.
I crested a hill in my pursuit of the prints and saw before me a massive field, as far as the eye could see in every direction starting at the base of the hill, of soft purple. When I came closer I realized that the moon smelled of tin and old blood but the field smelled of lavender. I entered the field of lavender, set against the white sand and the speckled black sky, and found the ground to be gentle and welcoming. I laid among the soft flowers and slept.
I awoke on the moon covered in purple petals. I began to run, dread building with each step that my bed would not be where I left it. The gravity of the moon sent me flying with each bound and when I arrived at the many immortal footprints that were my own, I found four holes in the ground for each of the legs of my bed. I began to pace, purposelessly marring the perfect countenance of the moon and began to walk to my Earthwatching area. I watched as the light of the Sun drenched the part of the world I called my home. So, I waited.
The Sun’s light began to wane and I saw the tiny orange glow of thousands upon millions of lights emerge from the darkness of my home. When I walked back, I saw my bed; first translucent and immaterial, then slowly building substance like a photo developing under the black light of the moon. I crawled into my bed and slept.
In the coming weeks I seldom left my bed. Although I had proven to myself that I could return if only I had the patience, I had no desire to repeat that harrowing experience. I went to my Earthwatching area a few times, and each times I saw only three sets of tracks, one alien to me, and two my own. Over time, I managed to convince myself that whatever the case, if I could find my bed, I could return.
I brought with me pouches of gaudy coloured pebbles and began to walk towards the field of lavender, away from my bed, my hill, and the smell of tin and old blood. I marked the path, arrived at the field of lavender, and began to explore within it. The different bright colours of the small pebbles shone against the white of the moon and between the stalks of soft unswaying lavender, for there was no breeze. I walked until I reached a point where there was only lavender and a dark sky. I turned my back to the pebbles which now disgusted me, a tether and an imposition upon the purple and black. It was then, while I looked at nothing, that I noticed a bleached white within the field. I walked to the bleached white between the stalks of lavender and found a skeleton, the lavender growing within it, between the bones of the ribcage and inside the eye-holes. In the skeleton’s hand which read:
“For Marina”
Although I continue to wake up on the moon every night, I do not return to the field of lavender growing alone upon the moon.