The Moon

Flash Fiction

The Moon

“Hey Honey, look at that!” Janet pointed up to the sky. Four-year-old Sandy looked up.

“It’s just a moon…” she said, looking back at the yard.

“Just the moon? It’s huge, it’s beautiful! The moon is full!”

“Of what?”

“What?”

“What is the moon full of?”

“Oh, no Honey that’s not what that means” Mom laughed a little.

“What does it mean?”

“Ah, it means you can see the whole moon.”

“Are the other moons not a hole?”

“Ah… what other moons Honey?”

“The ones that look like necklaces.”

Confused now, Mom said, “We only have one moon Honey… Sometimes it looks skinnier but it’s the same moon.”

“Oh, why does it want to be skinnier?”

“I don’t know if it wants to, but it looks skinnier because the sun shines on a smaller piece of it. The brightness comes from the sunshine, and the moon’s shadow is because we are in the way of the sun shining on it. Well… I think that’s right…” Mom said, suddenly unsure of her thoughts.

“So, we make the moon skinny?”

“Ah… well not you and me, well kind of yes, you and me, but also everybody, on our whole planet…”

“Does the shiny part come in the hole?”

“What hole?”

“You said the hole on the plant…”

“Oh, the planet, not a plant… We live on a planet…”

“I thought we lived in Franklin…”

“Yes, we live in Franklin. Franklin is on the planet so we live on the planet…”

“Does the moon live on the planet?”

“Ah, no… The moon just circles around the planet… Hey! look at Mrs. Gates’s house! You can see right in her window!” Mom said, giving up.

“Wooey! Let’s go peek at her!” off Janet ran.”

Mom walked… for some reason Mom was exhausted…