Moonset

The moon had drifted into the west through sparse clouds, scanning the sky with its waning light, as though searching for a long-lost friend. Young Donna kicked her heels at the porch of her grand-uncle’s house, rattling the boards.

Her small eyes returned to the thick shadow which whispered on the horizon. It was not as clearly defined now as it had been in the afternoon, before curiosity had set in, but it was still noticeable against the flatness.

“Grand-unkie, what’s that?” Her fingers gestured with an assertiveness more mature than her six years.

“Out that-a-way?” He mimicked her motion as best he could.

“Uh-huh.”

“Way out where the moon touches?”

Had she been a few years older, she might have snickered to herself at her grand-uncle’s comment, but since she was six, she simply nodded.

In the glow of the porch lamp, she saw him gesture for her to come over. He hoisted her into his lap and cleared his throat of words resting for an age. “That’s Cape Canaveral.”

“What’s that?” She’d seen a few capes in her short life, some of them quite recently and none of them looked like that.

“Actually, darling, that’s not the Cape. The Cape goes on for a ways. That’s the…” He paused a moment, pulling out an especially old set of words; so old that they ground in his throat like gravel when he spoke them, “…vehicle assembly building.”

Donna smiled at the words. She didn’t understand them, but they felt so fun to hear. At the same time, she felt a little frightened as well. It was like imagining a dragon snoring.

“Who lived there?” She could only conceive of something or someone huge.

“Nobody lived there but a lot of people worked there. They made things. Great big things.”

“Why?” She knew that big things were really cool, but she didn’t know why grown-ups would want to make things really big.

“Because they wanted to.” There was a touch of something she couldn’t quite place in his voice.

“What were they for?”

Her grand-uncle’s eyes glimmered. “To send people into space.”

“Space?” She’d heard a little about space.

“Yes, space. Past where the sky ends. Up above where anything else goes.”

“Why did they do that?”

He intoned again, “Because they wanted to.” She could hear that something in his voice again. It sounded like when he talked about her grand-aunt. She died five years ago.

“How?”

“With those big things they made. They called them rockets.” The last word burst out of his mouth with strength she didn’t know her grand-uncle had. He stroked her hair softly to make up for startling her.

“Rockets?”

It took grand-uncle a moment to recall. “Yes, rockets. They were big and loud and shook the earth.” He struggled a bit with the imagery, knowing that she wouldn’t understand at first.

“They were like a volcano and the sun and a large fire, burning through the sky, pushing people into space.” Even though she couldn’t understand, she nodded for her grand-uncle and asked, “But they didn’t burn up?”

“Nope. They were as safe in their rockets as you are here in my lap.” He patted her on the shoulder.

“And in space?”

“All safe there too.”

“Where did they go?”

“Well, there are so many places to go in space because it’s so big. Most people just went a little ways but a few of them…well, they went to the moon.”

“The moon?” She looked over at it again.

“Yes, darling. They went to the moon.”

“Why?”

“Because they wanted to.”

She knew the moon was pretty, but she didn’t know why grown-ups would want to go to the moon. She’d heard it was really cold there.

“Didn’t they have to wear a lot of sweaters?”

“They had to wear a lot, yes. Not sweaters though. Spacesuits. And they had to take air with them too since there isn’t any on the moon.”

She grimaced. “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“It wasn’t, but it was something no one else had ever done before. And they wanted to do it.”

Donna stared at the tall, butte-shape of the building. By now, the moon could almost touch the top of it. She could make out unevenness, like a set of blocks with the side kicked over. “What about now?”

“Now…” Her grand-uncle wavered, gazing longer than she had before continuing. “Now. We’re on the edge of the park that used to be the Cape.”

“And space?”

She heard that something in his voice again. “Well darling, people don’t go into space anymore.”

“How come?”

“....I guess they just don’t want to.”

He set her down gently on the porch. “The night chill is starting to get in my knees. I’m gonna go inside and sit by the fire. Do you want to stay out here a little longer, darling?”

She nodded.

“Ok, don’t be too long.”

He shuffled in and shut the door slowly behind him, as though concerned that too much of a sound would disturb something.

Donna sat back on the edge of the porch and watched the moon over the building. She swung her legs back and forth. The night curled her hair around her every so often with a teasing gust of air.

It took a while but eventually the moon slid behind the building. Donna couldn’t see it too well for a while, but she did see it amble past the horizon. She rubbed her legs to warm them and watched the last rays of moonlight fade, leaving the building hidden in night.

She rose, turned one last time to look, and walked inside.