Under the Moonlight

3

Even though I just had known her recently, it made me feel like I'd known her for a long time already, as if she was the only person who was kept sane from this gobbledygook world we live in, untouched by the influences of society, and so in all of my vanity, I decided to keep my knowledge a secret. I don't ever want to share my experience in this unruly society I live in that's all about jobs and being pertained to as the 'reality' like it's everything there is to it out there.

Still, despite all the innocence she has about her ill-informed adequacy in the world below, I find it unimaginable how one could simply be living on the moon despite it being so far away from here on Earth,

and in the next hour, I just simply asked her questions about her home:

"What do you think the moon would be like if it had a river?"

"What's a river?" the girl asked me.

She looked at me with her head tilted as if she seemed concerned about my wellbeing, which to my surprise, felt different, as it is physically impossible for someone to not have seen a river once in their life.

"You see, a river is something where the water is continuously flowing."

"Endlessly?"

"Yes! Endlessly." I replied to her.

She then looked at me and smiled, acting all enthusiastic and vibrant to see one.

"If I had the opportunity to go to the moon, I'd do so with all my might," I said to her.

She looked back at the moonlight, which too has been glaring below us up in the ridges where we're seated the nearest to it, more than any mountain tops around us in our sight!

"Why is that so?" she asked me in disbelief.

"Isn't everyone able to go to the moon?" she added as she felt broken by the mere fact that I had never been to the moon before.

But I didn't bother to reply to her question. I just looked up at its intangible beauty, though I felt as sad.

Then she added as she sighed:

"Oh, how I wish more people would come up there more often,"

"Is it lonely up there?" I finally spoke after a while admiring the moonlight upon me.

"Not particularly, the sun is bigger over there than here, so I had the advantage!" The girl laughed as I soon joined in as well.

"Plus, everything is free on the moon," she added.

I was wondering what kind of 'free' she was talking about.

Food?

Rent?

Shelter?

Being alone in a gray-looking, giant ball of rock above the night sky might just feel the loneliest one can be.

But I dare not to question as I felt I would only hurt her, plus, I bet they don't have the concept of money even, so she must have felt free!

I can only imagine myself sitting on top of the rock, eating my favorite meal.

"How do you like it on Earth anyway?" I asked her out of sheer curiosity.

"I like it pretty far, thanks to you!" she replied to me with zeal.

"Is it hard to go to the Earth?" I asked her once again about her journey.

"Oh, very!" she said to me, "You know, back on my planet, all I did was throw rocks over and over!"

It must be fun being on the moon, just like on top here.

"But unlike here, you could always float on the moon, jump your way between large gaps... unlike here where you're pretty much limited." She added, which brings me baffled as to what she entirely meant by floating around.

What made me curious about the moon is how it felt entirely by going way up there to touch it.

Are the rocks the same there as it is on Earth?

One thing's for sure is that I won't quite know the answer to that, at least very soon, since the last time we've only achieved such success in the skies was with planes, and even then, they can only reach about certain altitudes.

For instance, a P-51 Mustang can only reach a certain altitude of about 15000 feet, while the distance between the Earth to the moon, according to Greek astronomers Aristarchus and Hipparchus, was roughly estimated at about 233000 to 267000 miles!

I doubt I'd see a man walking on the moon, in my life at least...

"Do you know what a pilot is?" I asked the girl as planes were the first things that sprawled up my mind when she told me about her experience with the moon.

"A pie-lot?" she asked me, intrigued by the word.

"In here, a pilot is the one that flies around, together with an airplane."

"What's an airplane then?"

I had no words to reply when she asked that question since describing an airplane to her would be like asking a blind person what color is to them.

After a long reflective silence trying to mutter my words together, I finally came out with a concrete definition.

"An airplane is like a companion; they rely on one another," I murmured the words out of confidence.

"So the pilot needs to build the airplane's trust?" she asked me in her utmost interest.

I nodded at her as I proceeded to draw a pilot and an airplane.

If you ask me, seeing them in person would be preferable because not everything I draw can be reflected back into actuality.

"Oh, so that's how they look!" she said in excitement as she clapped at my illustration.

"A pilot and an airplane is the closest thing I could think of when you said you're floating around on the moon," I told her.

"Well, I don't really think I would have an airplane," she said to me,

"Why?"

"Cause you don't need a companion whenever you want to float on the moon." She said to me as she tittered.

And, with maybe a hint of grief, she added:

"And I'm all alone on the moon,"