Luna

Chaos

From fright, a grain of bread shoots into my windpipe and I start coughing really hard. Oliver wants to get up to gently slap my back, but I wave him away. I need a moment to myself. I reach for the tea Sabine has put down for me. The tea is still hot and the sweet smell of fruit invades my nose. I carefully take a sip and the crumb ebbs away. "You're kidding" I say in a husky voice. Oliver simply shakes his head. I begin to laugh slightly nervously. "Me to the moon? Totally not logical and not feasible. How do you think I'll get there? No, wait I'll fly there myself. This is nonsense Oliver!". The nervousness turns into pent-up anger. All kinds of thoughts swarm through my head. I look at Oliver angrily. Everyone simply knows that this is utterly ridiculous. "Luna you must understand that I am only telling you this because it is a necessity. If this were not the case I would never have pulled such a stunt to bring you here." I catch my breath and want to start my sentence, but then what he just said permeates my mind. Oliver gets up to sit closer, but I don't want anything to do with him at the moment. I walk toward him and stop at an appropriate distance. He is just close enough that his scent permeates my nose. A scent of a pine forest and roses passes by. Over the years, that hasn't changed. For a moment I wander, but then I realize what he has just said. "You never would have brought me here, then, if it hadn't been necessary. So you would have let me continue to rot there while you knew I was there. For how long did you know I was there?". I look at him questioningly, but he says nothing further. I stand up, bend toward him and spit in his face. "If only you had let me rot there." Furious, I turn and walk toward the huge French doors. His words are hurtful and they hit me deeper than I thought, he made me feel like I didn't matter. 

With a hard force I push open the French doors. With great angry steps I find myself wandering through the fenced backyard. The fence consisted of a large tall dark green hedge with all sorts of colors of roses woven through it. The garden looked more like a sort of maze than a normal garden. Most of the garden consisted of grass and small gravel paths with all kinds of different shrubs and flowers next to them. As I wandered through the garden I let my fingers glide over the flowers. Soft, pure and colorful. In the back of the garden I find a small gazebo with a wooden bench underneath filled with cushions. Everywhere I walk the scent of flowers invades my nose. The smell takes me back to the old days. Before the First Landing, we lived in a big white house in the middle of the city. The combination of old-fashioned and modern, along with a garden with all kinds of flowers. Even though we lived in the city, the backyard was so big you could get lost in it. My mother was caring, but a big secret. She gave nothing away and made up riddles for everything. Even the backyard was a mystery. The garden had all little paths and secret places where you could hide for hours with a good book. In the middle of the garden was a pond in which small fish swam. Next to the pond was a large willow whose branches hung over the pond. Our backyard was more like a kind of fairy forest. The gazebo was in a rusting state, but the roses had wrapped themselves sinuously around its legs. Carefully I sit down on the wooden bench and sigh deeply once. In my head is complete chaos. First the attack, then Oliver and now a completely deranged idea that I should go to the moon. I put my head in my hands, close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. Fresh air rushes in through my nose and fills my lungs. Slowly, calm returns to my body, but in my head it remains chaos. In the distance I hear slowly approaching footsteps, I look up irritated and see that Oliver is walking with difficulty in my direction. With a deep sigh, he carefully sits down next to me and looks at me. "What do you want to know?" he asks me. For a moment I look at him confused and tell him to start at the beginning. 

June 3, 2028

We walked together hand in hand, the finest feeling there was. Everyone declared me crazy, I could get much better. But she was everything to me, her white skin, white hair and bright green eyes, she was perfect. She was very small, slim and incredibly fiery, but on the other hand very sweet. She didn't have very many girlfriends left by now since we had been together, but it didn't seem to bother her much. We had decided to have a picnic today and I had brought a filled basket of food. We had found a spot under a large tree and for the most part sat in the shade. She stared ahead and out of the blue she asked me where I would want to live if I had all the money in the world. I was surprised by her question and didn't really understand where it came from. I thought seriously and told her I would like to live in New Zealand. She nodded approvingly and I asked her the same question. She didn't have to think for a second and immediately pointed to the sky. She wanted to live in space so she would be closer to her father. And no, not because he was an astronaut, we always said that when someone dies you become a star. Her father had put an end to his life last year, and it affected her a lot at the time. I put an arm around her and pulled her into a hug. She clasped her arms around me and we stayed like that. The peace between us was short-lived, because after a few minutes dark circles appeared in the sky. Amazed, we looked at the sky, which became darker and darker. Spinning circles appeared and slowly grew larger and larger. The panic in me struck and without thinking about it I grabbed all the important things and grabbed Luna by her wrist. My look in my eyes was apparently enough for her, she quickly got up and ran with me back to school. Upon arriving at school, teachers are leading everyone inside and the doors are barricaded. So there is more going on than just a "storm." In school, Luna and I choose a safe spot in the theater room and sit at the very back near the storeroom. Outside, it looks like huge bricks are falling to the ground and everything in the school is shaking. Luna has wedged herself against me and pretends to be tough, but deep down I have never felt so incredibly scared. Time crawls and it seems like we've been sitting here forever. Slowly it gets a little quieter outside, but that doesn't bring a little more peace to me. Luna looks at me and says she wants to get something to eat in the cafeteria. I nod and together we carefully walk out of the theater. The hallway is quiet and Luna gently squeezes my hand as she grabs it. Where is everyone? We turned down a corridor a few times until we came out at the central stairs. Walking down the stairs you came out to the cafeteria. We heard chatter coming from the cafeteria and we were glad of that. We walked a little more confidently toward the cafeteria until we saw that all the men in black suits were standing there and all the boys were lined up. We looked at each other and knew immediately because we were almost standing in the opening that we had been seen. All two of us were grabbed and taken away. I could see from Luna that she was totally panicked. I was watched from all sides and not long after, all the boys were taken away. The girls were told that it was safe again and that it was wise to go home. That was the last time I saw Luna.