---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Farewell to Seafaring” Down in the Dirt, v153 (the January 2018 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book At Midnight the Down in the Dirt Jan.-Apr. 2018 collection book		get the 418 page Jan.-Apr. 2018 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

My Melancholy Moonboy

Robert C. Weissenberg

    She stood waist-deep in the lunar lake, luminous water streaming down her star-bright strands of hair.
    The prince watched her from the white sand shore. He had the dreary chore of cataloguing every item, creature, and person in the kingdom, and though he had made some progress, the work remained as infinite as it would a century hence, a youngest child’s busywork. Even if he could record everything, wasn’t it just an unnecessary duplication? For the database comprising everything in the entire universe already existed – the universe itself. He was writing her entry, and having a hell of a time of it. Though looking at her brightened his mood.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
    “No, you don’t,” he said, but he knew she did.
    “To speak it would be needless repetition. The thought already exists in you. Am I correct in guessing your weariness?” she said.
    “Your discernment is ever on target,” he said.
    “That’s what I was made for,” she replied, flicking her hair back.
    The prince of the moon stared at this astonishing girl. She walked out of the water and onto the shore, her white hair and pink gown miraculously dry. Behind her, children splashed in the lake and built miniature moon-castles in the sand. She stared at them and then at the prince.
    “Say something,” she said.
    “I fear I would bore you,” he said, “I mean that quite literally. Talking to you terrifies me. Whatever light I shine on you is divided through you like a prism, to radiate in a veritable rainbow of responses. You’re more than I can bear.”
    She stifled a laugh.
    “Now you have me afraid to speak,” she said, “I don’t want to fill you with any more fear.”
    She looked up at the star-filled sky. That’s what you’ll become, the prince thought, that infinite darkness, infinite light. She was a budding cosmos, and would soon vanish from this world to become a world of her own.
    “Let’s go to the palace,” she said, “I’m sleepy.”
    “As you wish,” he replied, and stood up with some effort, picking up his scattered books.
    Together they plodded up the pallid dunes. Ahead loomed the lunar palace, its pale towers twined above the white walls like clustered coral, submerged in the sea of night.
    “When you...,” the prince said.
    She looked at him.
    “When you become what you will,” he continued, “what will happen to you? Will you fade...”
    She smiled.
    “Is this for my entry?” she asked.
    “No,” he replied, “I just want to know.”
    “Everything in this world was once united in a single entity,” she said. “But then that being dispersed, in the act of creation, into these myriad separate parts. They are still one thing, what you call a universe, but with space between them. I am everything that will emerge in that world, and they are all within me now. I will still exist, but not in the same way.”
    She stared at the prince, and that burden of books he carried.
    “You know all this. You’ve surely read...,” she said.
    “I’ve read some things,” the prince replied, “but I wondered if you knew – know – what’s coming?”
    “Of course I know,” she said, with a coy smile, “but how I can I possibly tell you, in this universe, what the next one – what I – will become? That world will be nothing like this one in the least, otherwise, it would be here, among us, now. Stars, planets, moons, and moonboys like you – these are all aspects of this world, none of which will exist there. I can speak no further. There are no words for a world in which no words will even exist.”
    They had both come to a stop.
    “And yet,” she continued, “I am the link. What does not exist here has chosen me to be its vessel, and I can feel it in me, reaching out...”
    The prince felt something at these words, but could not name it. Suddenly this kingdom, this moon, and all its minor satellites seemed diminished, as insignificant as himself. He stared at her and felt the warmth of her presence, in defiance of these distant thoughts, a presence that was slipping away.
    “Leave my entry blank,” she said.
    “That seems about all I can do,” he said, a little sadly.
    “Write something about me,” she said, resuming her walk, “a poem or a song, and forget that stupid catalogue. No one will read it, and your father won’t know the difference if the pages are blank or stained with your lousy handwriting.”
    The prince smirked and followed her up the hill, walking in her shadow.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...