The Plenilune

In every puddle there was a ghost-grey coin which no doubt some drunk would soon attempt to scoop out.  The streets were quiet though.  The drunks were somewhere else.

Liam was late for the auctions, but he couldn’t move any faster.  He stepped gently upon each oily cobblestone hoping the soles of his shoes had grip enough to keep him on his feet.  He noted that the sound of rainwater coursing through the passing gutters was a tedious accompaniment for slow-walking, by his own measure of the life tones, very monotonous, though the trickle was broken occasionally by slightly more interesting sploshes where cracks in the pipes were big. 

Overhead, the stars had fallen somewhat to Earth and were hiding in the evening sky, a ginger sheet of dust, where they hanged and flickered earnestly.  Strange behaviour of the light was to be expected.  It came with the moon when in its new or full phase.  Also to be expected:  incidents of human derangement and savagery, which the townsfolk were not particularly fond of, and so on these occasions they tended to stay indoors.  Except for the deal chasers among them, of which Liam certainly was one – out of necessity, not convenience.

Liam could observe the full moon just about.  The famed face on it had changed.  From its customary expression of mild surprise to something now like a sneer.  Mere swirls on the surface, he would agree, lunar patterns and shadows, but captivating enough to stimulate visual fallacies and imaginings.  And sly enough you couldn’t help but suspect the old planetoid was up to something.       

Clatter increased as he neared the school hall.  And the sound of a voice over a loudspeaker.  The auctions were generally popular events whenever they were on but intensely so in a plenilune.  The auctioneers relished the enthusiasm of the moon-positive buyers.  Bidding was underway on the sofa as Liam entered.  He couldn’t give two rats.  They already had a sofa.  It was the flat-screen TV he was after, which was worth about two-hundred euro but in auction was likely to sell for half that.  He was willing to go as high as one-hundred in order to secure the magnificent item, but his best dream was fifty.  Supposing the rest of town were already flush with flat-screens and such and had no present need for a device of its size and specification – that would indeed be an ideal outcome.  If he could get it for fifty he knew in his household he’d be a hero for as long as mankind was considered trustworthy.  And that was really all Liam wanted in the end.  When you couldn’t afford much of plenty, the only light was seeing your family smile.   

One man was leaving as Liam was on his way in.  He was youngish, had long curly blonde hair, and a denim jacket on, and all of it worn in a Def Leppard way.  Liam knew him to see as part of the McNally family, but that was as far as their acquaintance went.  You could see on the man’s face he’d missed out on whatever he’d come seeking but there was also a well-practised resignation showing like the same thing happened to him every week.  Liam prayed his own luck would be different.

A few lots after Liam’s arrival, he noticed – he and some other bidders – a peculiar activity of light and dust above their heads.  The yellow silt from outside had gotten into the building and through the glass ceiling an invading beam of moonlight made the dust churn quickly as though it was fizz in a bottle of Lucozade; or a load of fairies going mad all at once on a stairway to heaven.

All of a sudden a feeling of fortitude came over him.  An unfettering.  The strain he’d faced in his life and work for a whole year – maybe two – just came right off him there and then.  He no longer felt constrained by the financial burdens of his existence.  Now he felt free to spend as much as he liked regardless of what in fact he had.  There was no fattening of his pockets in the instant.  His everlastingly slim wallet remained so.  It was impossible to check his bank balance to see if any digits had changed, yet a feeling came to him, a message from some unknowable place that his accounts were in a healthier state than ever.  That not only could he afford the TV, but he could quite comfortably go out and buy a new car too if he so wanted.   It was financial assurance he had never before experienced.  As though he now had in his possession an endless supply of real-but-not-physical currency which he could bid to his heart’s content on anything it so bravely desired.  Being as the moon was the way it was this evening, everything appeared reasonable by its very unreasonableness.

Some had formed theories about the full moon’s effect on human metabolism, on fertility, and most notoriously, on general saneness of mind, but there were those who considered it a benefactor in the sky, a rich and eccentric God who might throw a wad of banknotes in the air at any minute just to see the servants scramble.  Liam was of this philosophical persuasion and so he joined his hands together and kissed the tips of his fingers in a show of devotion to the nearest celestial body.  He wasn’t the only one moon-positive and newly touched with the pecuniary nerve.  Most buyers in the hall suddenly had a sense that their commercial value in the world had gone up.  That there was no longer any question of money in their lives at all.  So the bids got to berserk levels.  Some were now putting money up for the more expensive antiques which they had no intention of buying when originally they came in.  Patricia McGuill, 89 years old and long-widowed, would go on to bid one grand on an inert German stick grenade from WW1 – because she could; and Colin Price, who worked in the nearby newsagents, put five thousand up for a ballpoint pen which had – reputedly – belonged to an actress who played one of Doctor Who’s ‘companions’ (a more prestigious auction house would have been able to say precisely which one). 

Mrs Clarke, the lead auctioneer, had no qualms satisfying everyone’s credit after Pat McGuill’s winning offer for the stick grenade was mysteriously transferred in full to the designated repository.  This curious occurrence coaxed buyers (and sellers) into believing the moon had their backs and was paying for everything, consequently spurring them onto greater acts of unbridled spending.  An old Beano annual would eventually go for half a mill.  A hamper of assorted French cheeses for the whole mill. 

And then came the coveted flat-screen TV.  

Panasonic.  A major brand.   Liam rarely came into contact with a major brand.  36-inch.  Top drawer picture quality.  All the bells and smart as a whistle.  Only thing it was missing was suitable mounting equipment.  This was no huge concern for Liam because, as luck would have it, he’d recently obtained a wall bracket from a friend.  That said, he was unsure if it would fit correctly.  No matter.  This was something he would worry about once the television was safely in his custody. 

We’ll start the bidding at fifty, said Mrs Clarke.

Three hundred! yelled Liam.  An enormous declaration of his confidence.  The madness now well and truly driving him.

Three hundred and ten!   

Three hundred and twenty!

Four hundred!

Four fifty!

And so on it went into the thousands and tens of thousands until Going!  Going!  Gone!  Sold to Liam Butler over there for twenty-five thousand five hundred and seventy five euros! 

Liam couldn’t have been more pleased.  But he would be interrupted before any celebrations could begin.    Into the room had returned the Def Leppard-looking man from earlier, the McNally, and he too had been altered by the lunar activity.  Except he had gone the other way.  He’d turned moon-negative, it would seem.  Hadn’t experienced any of that self-assertiveness or new faith in the old purse.  Instead he’d been dosed with a good amount of bitterness and rage and was back to show it.  It wasn’t Liam he directed his rage at.  It was the buyer of the Doctor Who pen.  Colin Price.  He went for him like a proper bull.  Liam had heard of men and women changing into wolves under a moon in full but that would simply have been a pleasant coincidence if one was to rank it alongside this hideous deviation of character.  Before anyone could act to defend Price, McNally had boxed him to the floor and was on top of him pounding on the poor man’s face.  Will you get off him, will you?  Will you stop it, will you? None of these appeals were acknowledged.  It was Liam, initially not wanting to get into the middle of something (moon-positivity made you not only finance-oriented but also extra ready to save your own skin), who prevailed over his hesitance and endeavoured to restrain the attacker.  Another intervener went to help him and eventually they were both able to cut the scuffle dead.

The two at the centre of this quarrel were shouting abuse at each other as they were being held back.  Fuck you and the shitwater you floated in on! yelled Colin Price.  I’ll murder ya! boomed McNally.  That pen was meant for me.  I’m the biggest Doctor Who fan in town.

Stop it! Please! cried Mrs Clarke.  

Needless to say, the police were called and they must have been working in the area because they entered in no time at all, with both parties still there insulting each other.  The policemen that came in looked a little fatigued, to be fair, like they’d been out handling moon-negative people all evening.

What’s up? asked the policeman in charge.

This one attacked this one, said Mrs Clarke.

Terrible, said the policeman.  What came over you?

The moon, said McNally.

Always, said the policeman.  Well, we would go out and have a word with it, but I don’t think it would listen to us. 

The policeman turned to his colleague and grunted out Another one and the other policeman wrote something down in his notebook.

What? said Mrs Clarke. This man physically assaulted this other man.  You have to arrest him.

He said it was the moon did it, said the policeman; it was either corruption desperately trying to conceal itself in his voice, or he’d been seized by impassive acquiescence in the face of overwhelming cosmic authority.  This chap wouldn’t hurt a fly anyway, he continued.  Not usually.  He was obviously overcome with moon madness.  You!  Mr Price.  Will you press charges?

No, he’s a Doctor Who fan, said Colin Price.  I couldn’t do that to him.  I’d rather be his friend.

Ah, fuck off, you! said McNally, still upset.

McNally, you get yourself home, said the policeman.  Whatever stocks your wife was trading just netted her a billion or so plus a whole island in some sea or other.  We know because we’ve just been round there.  Had to detain two of her moon-negative exes who were looking to patch things up or they’d murder her.

McNally ran off.  The policemen left too, after receiving word of another nervous breakdown close by.

Liam checked with Mrs Clarke to see if the moon had transferred the €25, 575 for the TV.  For a moment he thought it would be a no and he primed himself to relearn the heartbreak precepts.  As it was she gave him the thumbs-up he wanted and he raised his head to the heavens and whispered Thanks.     

Outside, the drunks were face down in the puddles while the moon was starting to diminish, sending everything into deeper darkness.  Those out watching the fade saw something they hadn’t seen before.  The satellite planet was not just entering a new phase.  It appeared to be leaving Earth’s orbit entirely, not just waning, but disintegrating.  There was speculation that the human positivity had been too much for it.  All that bidding and spending and gambling had taken its toll and sent the moon scurrying off to lick its wounds.  Now the streets were darker.    

Liam laid his new TV against a wall and checked his pockets for cash.  He would need a taxi but was annoyed to find he didn’t have enough on him.  So he just stood there.  Waiting for the moon to do something.  Until he realised it was gone.

You’ll be waiting a long time, came a choleric voice behind him.  The bugger left us half an hour ago.  Just like him too.  Puts us all haywire then fucks away off without a word.

It was one of the drunks.  You could tell he’d been in a puddle, but had managed to crawl out, and now he was on the steps of the school hall, griping.  

Ah, he’s probably just away to borrow more funds, replied Liam.  This TV cost him a right sum, you know.

Who would he borrow it from? said the drunk. You don’t think those bigger planets give a shit about him and his habits, do you?  No, he’s gone for good, I tell you.  You and your ilk have banjaxed our moon forever.  Well done!  I hope you enjoy that TV.  This is what your civic freedom got you. 

This man was a very moon-negative individual and Liam realised that next year he might wind up moon-negative too like McNally, or this drunk, and that would be cause for regret.  He hoped the moon was in favour of discrimination and that he could be one of the lucky few forever.  But this was an irrational thing to ask for.  And the moon didn’t do random or irrational the way humans did.  We would all have our time on the dark side.

When he realised the drunk was probably right and the moon had most likely given up on them, he started to walk home, dragging the large TV behind him some of the way, attempting to carry it less of the way.  He walked even slower now, this time because of the encumbrance, and tried, though it was hard, to enjoy the silence around him, the gutters having ceased their dreadful leaking.     

At home there was gladness in the brood when they saw what he’d brought for them and some dismay when they realised the wall bracket he had wasn’t compatible with their specific model; he’d been half-expecting this to be the case, of course.  Their new TV would have to lean against a wall for some time, but there was nothing to be crying about, when all was said.  Darker days were sure to come in their lives, and at the very least, for now, there were smiles.