Halloween Story Challenge: Jeff Hickmott

Moon

Nobody ever really felt the same after the moon had gone.

The moon hadn't been destroyed or spontaneously exploded. No enormous lunar anomaly. Nobody had shot a rocket at the moon.

Everyone had gone to bed as normal, and when dawn broke and the world's eyes opened, the moon was no longer up there.

The newspapers and TV networks couldn't say how an object so large could just evaporate. Nor could the major colleges and schools, or governments around the globe. What they all knew was that people would have to get used to extremes of weather, but after the poles had both melted, extreme weather was old news.

Even so, nobody really got used to the concept of a moonless Earth and all that that encompassed.

-------------------------

Jurgen wasn't one hundred percent sure that the Moon had actually gone for good. "Merely AWOL," he would tell the fellas at the pub, after a couple of jars. "Someone's taken the Moon somewhere."

"You're drunk," they would reply. "Or crazy. Who would steal the bloody Moon? And why?"

He would just shrug.

"Go home, Jurgen."

He had to accept that the theory sounded wacky, but he couldn't shake the sense that everyone else was wrong.

-------------------------------

Towards the end of March, Jurgen was on the way home after yet another drunken speech at the Coach and Horses. He was wobbly, but the effect was worsened by the lack of moonglow. Shops had pretty much sold out of torches, and those people that already had torches couldn't buy a battery for love or money.

Suddenly he began to feel unwell - not bad, just a general unpleasant ache. He took an Alka-Seltzer and went to bed, and slept half an hour here, an hour there and so forth. He woke early and felt lousy. He stepped over to the bathroom for a glance at the old face. Puffy, for sure. Paler than he thought was normal. An outbreak of spots on the left cheek, but generally okay. He carefully thought about whether to go to work. He played eeny-meeny with the empty beer cans that sat on the floor by the bed.
Damn.

Work at the call centre was dull, and generally nobody spoke to Jurgen much. They just weren't the chatty type. Today, however, between comments on the moon's whereabouts, everyone seemed to have a crack about the way he looked. He was bloated, he looked pale, and someone rudely commented that perhaps he should try Zumba.

Jurgen told the boss that he was unwell, needed to go home and wouldn't be back all week. She nodded. Jurgen guessed correctly that he wasn't her most valuable employee.

On the way home he began to feel trapped by the clothes he wore, and as soon as he got back to the flat he tore them off pronto and took to bed.

----------------------------

Several days of bed later, he was woken by a lone sunbeam that seemed to have a vendetta. Groggy, he lolled out of bed and ventured another peek at the wardrobe's full-length glass. Shocked was not a strong enough word. He could not even tell who that person was. Extremely swollen and so, so pale. A funny thought occurred and a wry look flashed across Jurgen's face for a nanosecond.
"Beyond the pale..."
Not only that, but the spots were now huge pockmarks. Craters, even.

He was now beyond bloated too. Most people would have labelled Jurgen as fat. Very fat. To tell the truth, he appeared grossly obese. He'd only worn a bathrobe all week and was unaware of how large he'd become. He tottered to the bathroom, past the front door where newspapers had collected. They all declared the same news in large font - nobody knew what had happened to the moon. "Same old story," he muttered. 

He gently stepped onto the creaky, rusty old bathroom scale that he'd had from college days.

"What the hell?" He had actually LOST poundage.

Too much. He needed to breathe. As he passed the TV on the way to the door, he caught a few of the weather presenter's words.

"...as storms worsen, experts are stuck for answers as to the whereabouts of the moon..."

He walked, or rather waddled up to the roof of the tower block. He often went up there to clear the cobwebs. The sky was overcast, full of portent. As he stood to watch the town below, Jurgen could feel the bathrobe stretch as he expanded, and suddenly, he knew what he had to do. "The moon hasn't gone, he murmured, "the moon's been replaced." There was a small breeze, but that was enough to make Jurgen sway back and forth. He removed the robe and let the breeze take hold, arms outstretched. There he was - naked, afloat on the breeze and most assuredly larger by the moment. Anyone on the ground below would have seen what appeared to be a large pale grey balloon that had a small head and feet, apparently broken free from a tether and now skyward.

Up, up, up...

At last, hours later, Jurgen came to a halt. He had become rotund, feet and hands no longer seen. Just a humongous grey, pockmarked sphere of a face.
A moon face.


He felt strange. Strangely happy. Happy because he knew that he had saved the world.



Jeff Hickmott