Letter to the Moon

Dear Moon, aka the moon

I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while and I miss you but perhaps it’s me. I’ve been looking down a lot, naval gazing and avoiding the harsh gaze of your hot sister; I know she’s not your sister but I don’t know how else to think about her.

She’s getting hotter and hotter and she seems to have developed a taste for the limelight and won’t leave us alone. Any clouds which get in her way are savagely burned off. Our only hope of respite is the upcoming eclipse in August where she will lose her power if only for a minute or so. Hopefully it will give her a taste for the privacy she once craved.

You probably don’t want to hear about this but educated people say it’s all because of our actions and if they’re educated and wealthy they go on to say that they're installing air conditioning units in their homes so that they can sleep. If only I could hold a mirror up to their faces. Of course they are neither as beautiful or as truthful as you are, reflected on the sea or the lakes and rivers, or even in a puddle if you can find one.

I heard you were pulling away, slowly but deliberately. Apparently as fast as my fingernails grow, mine grow very fast in summer. I hope we haven’t upset you but I understand if you are feeling violated, what with all our meddling in space. It’s rare to look up into the night sky now without the view being interrupted by obnoxious satellites. 

Elon Musk has his sights on extra terrestrial resources and he has the finances and the power to do it. The rest of us think it’s a terrible idea but sadly we don’t get a say. This is one of the key features of living in the 21st century, we are returning to a world where fewer and fewer people have the money and the power. The rest of us argue over scraps.

Many feebly claim Musk to be a bad man. He’s certainly unusual and extremely high functioning. Interestingly he has ADHD which can affect one’s ability to empathise and apply self control. It’s typically a mitigating factor when crimes are committed and often garners a sympathetic approach although he hasn’t yet broken any laws as far as I know.

I hope I can see you again soon. We’re all getting sick of the sun, zapping our energy and polluting clear thinking. Maybe it’s all part of the plan to deactivate us. Personally I’m too tired after work to even complete a full vacuuming circuit so it’s unlikely I will have the energy to rise up. In order to fight this invisible monster we must unite in a calm, strategic manner and slowly remove its power and restore balance in society.

I can’t help feeling that from your distant and objective perspective, you might be able to identify the monster and explain it in terms that we understand so that we can defeat it. Perhaps you could draw it for us so that we know for sure when we see it and we can identify it quickly, turn away and never feed it, cut off its supplies so that it grows weak and eventually collapses. 

I hope you don’t mind me writing to you like this. I wonder if it’s because you are one of the few things that are real in this world of increasing blurred lines and Artificial Intelligence. Your presence at my side makes me feel calm and cool, so unlike the sun. They say that you are the colour of silver which is interesting because I was thinking of investing in some silver because I’ve heard that it may increase in value.

Unfortunately this brings me back to the monster. The data centres which run the servers which facilitate AI need silver for the hardware to run efficiently so any investment would be indirectly feeding the monster. 

The thing is my head is spinning back and forth between global recession proof, virtual investments and real life apocalypse proof investments like big bags of dried beans, seeds, a bow and arrow and logs of wood. I briefly thought of purchasing an actual silver ingot but I struggle to imagine a scenario where that would really benefit me.

The only things I really believe in now, Moon, are you and the planting of trees. Forget air conditioning units, stupid little fans which go around your neck from Amazon; each with a nasty little lithium battery which you can’t even remove so you throw the whole thing in the wheelie bin so that the rubbish tip catches fire. Forget all that and plant trees.

Everyone complains about the grey squirrels, ‘tree rats’, that’s what they call them but at least they are planting trees by going about their convoluted attempts to bury seeds and nuts without being observed by other squirrels. Apparently they make such a play of pretending to bury them that when they go back to locate them, they can’t remember the spot and a hidden snack becomes a tree.

I seem to have gone off on a tangent and once again ended up on the subject of rodents. Typical since it’s rodents who are likely to survive in the event of environmental doom and the oak trees, maybe silver birch and gingko, the living fossil, fittingly it can help boost your own memory too. Not that you ever forget anything, Moon, dear Moon. You are so calming to me.

I hope to see you again soon. I’ll look out for you. We’ve known each other for so long and I have to say, out of everyone, you’re the one I trust the most now.

I love you,

xxx