Man from the moon
On a night over a borough where the moon seemed to tuck the stars into the night sky, a figure loomed in the sky among the darkness.
“Wow… the clouds are dark today,” I remarked.
I tilted my head to the side and caught a glimpse of what seemed to form a smiley face in the clouds.
"Heh… that’s neat."
The whipping wind seemed to be performing for an audience this evening.
Leaves were falling off of trees as if they were never attached.
I began to cover my ears.
Parked vehicles swayed in rhythm with the trees.
The wind seemed to sing with angst because it thought I was the only one listening.
The wind’s soliloquy pierced my ears and the pressure caused me to crumple to my bedroom floor.
A crescendo caused my ears to bleed and just as I thought the chorus couldn’t perform any louder… it all stopped.
Even time seemed to have come to a halt.
I managed to get my feet under me and walked towards the window.
Tendrils from the dark clouds blanketed across the dimly lit streets.
It was as if I was looking into a murky lake teeming with fireflies on their last few breaths.
The only figure that could be clearly seen was the glow of the moon and what seemed to be the silhouette of a man extending his arms for an embrace.
I retreated from my glass at the sight of him and he was in my hemisphere within seconds.
"WHAT the fuck? What THE fuck? What the FUCK?"
He was missing an eye and wore a monocle over where his 2nd should've been, amplifying his imperfection. He was pale in the face and seemed to be scarred all over, highlighting what was already readily visible on his skin. He was an imposing being but spoke with a hushed tone, giving a sense of dread with every syllable uttered.
I turned over, forgetting to close the blinds to my room in my haste.
I heard two more knocks on the window before the hushed voice seemed to speak up again.
“Your back is turned to what you perceive to be a threat and pray tell if I seem to be of animalistic nature... It may not make sense and you have a right to be fearful of what you don't understand but you've already shown your curiosity,” he pauses again for a moment, seeming to gauge my response,
“And frankly, while I'm not a cat…. Looks can kill and you've already had a good one of those... What's another two or three? You've already seen me anyways.”
He leaves me with my thoughts before breaking the silence.
“Whatever idea of me persists in the future, you'll probably rationalize within your brain to calm down your head just to keep slipping into tomorrow… from there, you’ll probably make up a name for it that nobody would be able to fact check you upon, giving you a sense of control over your circumstance… you’ll lock it into a compartment in the back of your brain and pray it doesn’t have the strength to release itself from the shackles you’ve given as its birthright…and hopefully forget about it…” He pauses for a moment before knocking on the window again, “But you, my friend, have a very important hand in choosing how that future plays out. We could liberate ourselves right here or you can refuse to acknowledge what is right in front of you until it goes away… but if you sit with your fear, we'll never have the pleasure of understanding objective truth,” he says.
I suppose so but what is there to understand? This creature isn't human. What could I stand to learn?
I shout from the comfort of my cotton-lain fortress, “If you're a sleep-paralysis demon, this'll wear off in a bit.”
He hums bemusingly to himself, “are you asleep?”
I take my time before responding, “...yes.”
He sighs, “Okay. That means I can't hurt you, right?”
I mull the thought over, “I've heard stories about people who die in their dreams dying in real life when they wake up.”
“So it seems that they only die after they wake up,” He plainly stated.
“No- erm they die- you know what I mean,” I mutter under my breath.
He knocks on the window again, “why do you think they die?”
I debated sitting up before turning back over to be intimately close with my wall, “They probably thought it was real and their body responded in kind.”
“Interesting,” he remarks.
I stay silent for a moment before choosing my next words carefully, “Look… whatever it is that's going on, I've got a busy schedule tomorrow and you should just kill me if you're gonna kill me. If it's not a dream, then I'll be where I was supposed to be and if it is… I'll see you another time.”
“Well… as tempting as that would be, I don't think you've given me a reason yet. Do you enjoy killing things that fear you?” He asked.
He gets me to sit up and face him for the first time, “Well, I'm not a monster.”
My fear seemed to subside as he tested my resolve.
His pale skin seemed to accentuate every wrinkle in his face that showed with his confusion and while his face didn't seem painted on, the layers of detail made him seem like a kaleidoscope of minor flaws adding to the topography of his mug.
Where his eye and where his other should've been seemed too far apart.
His nose had an upward turn with a crook.
His eyebrows were uneven.
And he only ever seemed to muster a half-smile, even when fully amused.
It almost seemed glued on.
He looked at me bemusingly and held my gaze, “What a strange thing to say… Have you seen any monsters recently?”
His words came with a challenge of sorts, daring me to press the issue in his direction.
I open my mouth but stop from speaking to try and figure out the intentions of what is on the other side of this glass pane.
He slowly picks his fingers up and balls his fist, causing me to flinch, but his index finger unclasps itself toward the lock on my window and he seems to mouth the word “Open?”
I snap out of my trance, “Why?”
He takes his hands to hold his chin up, “you seem to have a lot on your mind and I thought it'd be fun to talk.”
I scowl at him, “how could you possibly know that I have a lot on my mind?”
“It's a peaceful night and you're staring at the moon instead of joining the rest of your hemisphere in peaceful slumber,” he almost looks through me, “but don't be alarmed… I only visit the ones that try to avoid me.”
“I don't have an answer for your riddle if that's what you're looking for… plus we're talking just fine without having to open a window,” I stammer without breaking its gaze.
He leans his head sideways in his arms, “We're doing this all wrong. If you don't want to acknowledge me, you can close the curtain and try to forget I was ever here.”
I look at my blinds.
He cuts me off before I could say anything, “...but… I think you're more afraid of being given power than giving it up.”
He seizes his opportunity to further his narrative while I try to affirm any self-belief I had known, “surely this isn't how you would approach love, right?”
I look at him with a mounting anger, “what could you possibly know about love?”
“Oh? I've always been fascinated by the concept. It seems that human beings are ingrained with an understanding of it even though they don't know what it truly is…” He trails off before he takes the opportunity to dig into my psyche, “What is love to you?”
I drop my guard before answering, “Well… love is when you put something above yourself.”
He turns around and plucks a leaf off of the tree before turning around and placing it on his head and chuckles to himself, “I do love nature and especially this leaf… It lives a fickle life and by taking it into my arms, I have cut off its ability to thrive and have instead offered it solace and an early casket in exchange for a warm embrace from the heart… is this the highest form of demonstrative adulation to you?”
“Well, wh-”
He rolls his eye while cutting me off, “I'm growing tired of your penchant to answer my question with a question. Typically, we ask questions to seek further understanding but yours only seem to try to diminish the meaning of where they come from.”
“You make baseless assumptions,” I scoff.
“And you have done nothing to help me bridge that gap that I have taken the courtesy, care, and effort to build my half of,” He states matter-of-factly before continuing, “I'm only here because I have something to gain with people like you and what that may be is entirely dependent on how this conversation goes.”
I gulp.
“But unfortunately, I do have a code of ethics I swear by…” He sighs, “Call it respect, call it an honor system, call it fate, call it Karma. It’s brain-numbing to regurgitate to anyone on a different page but they do help make everything more interesting. All that I really care about is getting people to see me for who I am not what they think I might be.”
I dote for a second, “Well, what are you?”
He chastised my inquiry, “It's odd that you heard what I said trying to humanize myself and you still speak with such casual disdain. There's a name for what's at stake here…”
He pauses and brings a finger up and scratches his nail directly on his eyeball before taking it out of his head to inspect it.
“What do you call them? Feelings? What if you hurt mine?”
I initially went to gag but, to my surprise, there weren't any muscles or veins attached to his ocular lens, “Well you're not answering the question.”
The tendrils from the outside world seemed to sleep in through the window and the room felt like it was closing in.
As the air got more scarce, his broken grin appeared in full force across his visage, “I'd rather not spoil the surprise.”
I swallow my pride before realizing that I can no longer look away. His gaze seemed to mirror my own and his features scattered like roaches being exposed to daylight.
His mouth moved to the top of his head.
His other eye socket disappeared into his face.
His nose anchored itself to his chin and his scars disappeared for a moment before flickering into a different configuration.
“Since you’re so quick to judge, how about I show you something?”
He phases through the window and presses his fist to my lips.
He pauses for a moment before extending his pointer finger and letting his nail rest right beside the bridge on my nose.
He looks at me with a newfound sadness in his eye that hadn’t been present since we started talking, “I really hope that somewhere along the corridor of time that you decide to stop…close your eyes and well-” he softly chuckles to himself, “well… maybe you’ll be able to see things the way I do.”
He takes his nail and rakes it upwards as hard as he could.
The excruciating pain leaves me on the floor but I manage to catch a glimpse of him inspecting the differences between my eye and his own.
He sets my eye into a freshly opened socket and tosses me his prized pupil, “The pain may exist now but it will all numb itself eventually… and while you spend the course of that time to find the words to describe what you’re experiencing… you will have come to see the world the exact same way they see you.”
I manage to stammer, "you’re a sick fucking bastard,” between heaps of bile and tears of blood.
He chuckles to himself before disappearing, “yeah… well you’ll get used to it.”
Y
Man from the moon
