The Man on the Moon, Chapter Two: A Fiery Idea

When night falls upon the moon, it is a most spectacular stupefaction, as of course you, my moon children, know. You know the marvelous nature of the new moon having experienced it quite a few times already, but I shall describe it to you as Cosmo saw it that most, though you don’t know it yet, life-changing day.
All the crystal fields had been picked and not a single crystal flower gave its light to the black beauty of space. All the flowers had been harvested, thanks to the diligent and attentive farmers, and were nestled safely within the moon rabbits’ holes where the peculiar creatures utilized them to create the immortality potions. After all, nothing goes to waste, and rabbits are very assiduous workers.
With the absence of the crops, darkness settled upon the moon. But nighttime does not bring fear and apprehension as it does for the people of Earth; no, the dimness creates peace and tranquility within the Moon Kingdom. Another lunar month was completed, and it was time to relax and celebrate a job well-done.
On this extraordinary night, Cosmo was sitting quite alone from atop a gray mountain, overlooking the barren crystal fields and the kingdom below. Now, there was nothing unique about the mountain itself, for it was dotted with the common, white trees of the moon and various, stone-colored wildflowers. Not even the Titans, the rock-creatures that inhabited the mountains, made home to this particular one as though stifled by the exceptional power that radiated off of the cliffs.
Yes, my dear children, there was something remarkable about that mountain. This was the mountain where the tideologists controlled the Earth’s oceans in the most incredible buildings that they called their labs. They were tall, monstrous constructs made of melted crystal, so fine and so pure that the absorbed light from the stars danced and swayed and wiggled with a life of its own. The outside walls were adorned with carvings of the sea creatures of Earth, breathtaking whales, warrior sharks, delicate jellyfish, and every animal in between, so wonderful and so different from the plain, white fish found on the moon. Large, semicircular windows gave insight into the curious jobs of the tideologists and showed that the inside walls were bejeweled with animated maps and pictures of the oceans of Earth. Due to this, the interior shone with the dark blue, shimmering light of the imaginary, charming waters as though the labs were actually submerged. However, that would have been a ridiculous notion to even toy with considering there is no water on the moon.
Cosmo sat on the curly tail of a statue of a proud, crystal seahorse with eyes stern and lordly. From here he could observe all aspects of nighttime at the Moon Kingdom, alone with his thoughts and undisturbed. He gawked at the spectacle below, too miserable with his dreams of Earth to join in the festivities.
And festive was the Moon Kingdom, as it is on every new moon. This was the day the hardworking moon people took a break and played in the stone streets of the kingdom amidst houses made out of moon rocks and the magnificent palace, the most brilliant sight of all the moon, made of pure white crystal and so large that it touched the stars with its pointed roof. The moon women danced about in their flowing white dresses and stuck flowers in one another’s hair, smiling sweetly in all their elegance. The farmers, chariot pullers, and tideologists all mingled together and swapped stories of their professions, laughing and joking about a particular, new story about a boy who abandoned his work to play hide-and-seek with his rabbit.
The only ones missing from the spectacle were the rabbits themselves. They were, most reliably, creating immortality potions from the harvested flowers deep within their secretive burrows. Not a soul knew the recipe or the process to make the potion, not even Cosmo who was abnormally close to one of the moon rabbits, and they prided themselves in their secret. However, the moon people were their friends, companions since the Moon Princess and the first moon rabbit became allied, and they had no problem in sharing their potions. At the end of nighttime, they would emerge from their holes and distribute immortality which was, after all, a cause for celebration itself.
Ah, and the celebration! From atop his mountain on the seahorse, Cosmo could hear the music played by indiscriminate bands of lutes made out of the white wood of the moon trees, strings, large and small, with cords and bows made of cow hair, and drums of all kinds that boomed and rattled through the atmosphere with their percussive sounds. He could even smell the food that the kind moon bakers made: the moon cheese, so creamy and rich that it literally melted in your mouth, the dusty stone bread, hard and satisfying, and cinnamon, primary due to the abundance of cinnamon trees on the moon.
But neither the rollicking jigs nor the intoxicating aroma of the food could lift Cosmo’s spirits. After his frightening confrontation with Capella, he had worked in the fields, absentmindedly clearing away the crystal flowers of the crescent moon in preparation for Nighttime. Though he did his work dutifully and (more or less) flawlessly, he wore a depressed scowl through it all, and his colleagues would stare at him until he was forced to look away.
“Look at that strange boy,” they would whisper behind his back. “What in the Milky Way is wrong with him? Just look at his frown! Now how can anyone be so unhappy farming the crystal fields? It just doesn’t make sense.”
Cosmo leaned against the belly of the seahorse, looking out over the Moon Kingdom, and sighed. “They’re the ones that don’t make sense. How can they be so happy farming the crystal fields when they can see Earth so clearly from our nonexistent skies? Don’t they feel the same pull, the same longing I do? How can they never grow bored with the same thing every day?
“Dear Deimos, I feel so alone with these feelings. Am I really as strange as they say, if no one else feels the same as I? Sometimes I think that all I have is Brightfur . . . speaking of which, she’s late meeting me here, stupid thing. I wonder, if I turned her paws into necklaces, if anyone would buy them. Probably not; they wouldn’t bring much luck as far as rabbit feet go.”
Cosmo stared down the rocky path that led to the labs, overgrown with threatening thistles and depressing daisies, until, finally, he caught sight of the white pelt of his friend.
“I was wondering if you would show up at all, with how late you are,” Cosmo said as Brightfur hopped over to him. “Honestly, I thought that rabbits were supposed to be good with time.”
Brightfur stopped in front of her friend and gave him a most annoyed look, one that seemed to say, “Unlike some people, Cosmo Bahram, I was actually hard at work.” A new vial of potion hung from her small neck, and she put a protective paw over it, giving Cosmo a spiteful, but mock, glare.
“Oh come on, stop being so vindictive; I was only kidding,” Cosmo said, and when Brightfur continued to glare at him, he reached into his pocket and produced a carrot, gray and hard like all the other produce that grows on the moon. “Here, I got this from the Mercury’s farm. They kindly gave me a whole bunch of carrots for you.”
Brightfur’s hurtful charade melted, and she traded the potion for the carrot in Cosmo’s hand. She chomped down on it with a fervor as Cosmo weighed the vial, groaning.
“Well, here’s to another eternity of dissatisfaction and languor,” Cosmo said, and he gulped the sweet liquid. His veins were warmed, all of his dreariness was lifted, and his heart began to beat more powerfully, invigorated as forever flowed through his body.
“I’ll give you this, Brightfur; you make a good potion. Even though I can’t stand the thought of living forever, it does help me feel a little better, physically, at least,” Cosmo said, stretching out his arms. “Especially when I’ve been actually working in the fields, my muscles tend to get kind of sore. Now, come here.”
Cosmo bent down, picked up Brightfur, and held her close. He could feel her tiny little heart, beating like a dainty hummingbird’s wings, mixing with the rhythm of his own. He smiled as he laced his fingers into her velveteen fur.
“I want to show you something,” Cosmo said. “Look through this window.”
Still sitting on the seahorse, moon boy and rabbit, they peered into the labs, and Cosmo pointed at one of the pool maps with an excited fervor. “Look, Brightfur, look at that!”
On one of the maps showed a beautiful day, one where the sky was clear and the animal clouds frolicked in front of a warm-looking sun. A tiny boat rocked to-and-fro in the gentle sway of the cerulean sea, and a man, a human, with long black hair and a scruffy, matching beard was hugging a small child, obviously his son (they both had the same black hair and emerald eyes) and smiling and laughing with wonder. Creatures with sleek, gray-purple bodies and kind faces jumped out of the water around the boat, playful black eyes glinting with all the joys of life. I’m sure you’ve never seen these creatures, moon children, but they are called dolphins, and they are the most spirited, lighthearted animals of the sea. As they jumped through the air, they smiled at the modest family and their boat, twirling without a care in the world.
“The humans look so happy,” Cosmo said, jealousy and awe thick in his voice. “Even those creatures are grinning, too! Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just jump through the sea all day, Brightfur? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just smile and laugh and be ourselves without being judged by our peers?”
Brightfur let out a small sigh; she found the idea an attractive one as well.
“If I could just figure out how to cast off these shackles of my labor, I would. How I wish I could be as free as that man and his son. How I wish I could be as free as those sea creatures. But we are stuck, Brightfur. Don’t you wish you could leave, too?”
Brightfur nodded vigorously, as drunk as her friend on the conception of autonomy and, of course, on the image of the beautiful, blue and green Earth so far away. Even moon rabbits can feel dragged down by the monotony of their job, no matter how crucial it is and no matter how dependent the moon people are on their secret potions. Yes, freedom even filled Brightfur’s imagination, and she stared out at the Earth with her friend, black eyes wide with wonder and hope. She would imagine dashing through the lush, green fields of a forest, feeling the breeze rake its fingers through her fur, and playing rabbit games without worrying about the moon people’s disapproval. And, of course, she often marveled what an orange carrot would taste like.
“I just wish that I could find a way to leave the moon,” Cosmo said. He turned his attention back towards the Moon Kingdom and the joyous party going on below. “See, even the Sun Warriors are more free than we are.”
Cosmo was, of course, referring to about twenty beings that had just arrived in the middle of the town, transported by giant carriages made of such pure gold that they seemed to be on fire and fastened to enormous, powerful, fearsome golden lions with manes that blazed and eyes that scorched. The beings that drove these carriages and lions were, however, really on fire. They were humanoid, like the moon people, but their skins were shades of orange and red and their hair flowed out from behind them in a glowing inferno. They wore heavy armor made of the finest gold and carried weapons, swords and bows of awesome proportions, to match. These were the Sun Warriors.
Yes, I know that you are already aware of whom the Sun Warriors are, my children, but you may not know all about them. They are fierce creatures who inhabit the sun on the other side of the Earth, millions and millions of miles away, a territory that we would find terribly inhospitable. It is a marvelous kingdom with golden fields and scorching forests, but the beasts that roam the terrain are, like the lions, fierce and often cruel, even more so than the Titans that we are familiar with. Such a violent home had forced the sun people to become warriors, spending their days forging weapons and armor, and the heat from the forge creates the blazing fire that we see from the moon. Though intense and sometimes savage, the Sun Warriors made a pact with the Moon Kingdom long ago, sometime after the princess and the first moon rabbit returned to the moon, where they would provide protection to the peaceful moon people in return for the immortality potion. It was, after all, a fair deal, for we are no fighters.
So, every nighttime, the Sun Warriors would ride their blazing chariots across space to exchange weapons for the potion. The moon people, of course, were very hospitable, and tended to their valiant lions, entertained them with stories and songs, and fed them most generously. After all, the party was put on for them as well, and moon people are the best of hosts.
Cosmo frowned at the Sun Warriors’ fiery smiles, and he said, “I know that I am a pacific creature of the moon, but a part of me can’t help but to be envious of those warriors. They are able to travel; they are able to feel the stars in their blazing hair. They even pass right by Earth on the way to the moon, close enough to smell the oceans and smell the forests, so close that they can probably reach out and touch it, if they want. The humans even are aware of their existence, calling them their ‘shooting stars.’ They are so close to what I want, to what I crave. If only, if only. . . .”
Cosmo’s voice trailed off in the midst of a crazy thought that had popped into his head. He continued to stare at the Sun Warriors and at their magnificent chariots and at their almighty lions, and slowly, very slowly, a smile crept onto his face, and he began to laugh.
Brightfur raised an eye at her friend, and if she could talk, she would have probably said something like, “I think that you’ve finally lost it.”
Cosmo lifted his rabbit up, and she seemed a bit frightened by his sudden, mad exhilaration. “I just had the most outlandish, eccentric, zany idea, Brightfur! I think . . . I think that I can get us to Earth.”
Brightfur raised a skeptical eye, and Cosmo said, “My dearest friend, when have I ever let you down?”
When the rabbit continued to give him her unimpressed stare, our farmer jumped to his feet and tossed Brightfur in the air, much against her disapproving squeals. “Don’t be so doubtful of me! Listen, and listen well; I have a plan.”
Cosmo smiled more widely than he had ever smiled in his entire life, one that stretched from moon ear to moon ear, and he pointed at one of the Sun Warrior’s chariots. “I’m going to get us to Earth, and I have found the transportation to do so!”