The beauty of the moon

Henry Finch

It was the late hours of the night, the moon was still high in the sky and the sun nowhere to be seen over the horizon.

The dull Wednesday night air was crisp and chilled in the kind of way that makes it just that much cosier to wear a hoodie, or pull your warm blanket up you your chin and nuzzle into your pillow.

A quiet teenage boy sat cross-legged on his crumpled grey duvet, a baby blue, thick knitted comforter made by his nanna Dot, well Dorothy, may she rest in peace, was wrapped tightly around his shoulders. His eyes were locked in a vacant star, gazing at the bright red neon lettering of his alarm clock.

11:40 pm.

His pale aquamarine eyes slowly regained their focus, yet still very heavy with the wishes for sleep. He knew he was supposed to be asleep, drifting in the land of dreams awaiting one to take its hold on him for the night. Yet he couldn't manage to bring himself to care, granted that wasn't uncommon as of late. It was becoming common practice for him,  a regular thing he found himself doing almost nightly.

He just couldn't seem to care.

Now, it was not the case that he chose to become impassive. In actuality, he was always tired now, a slow and heavy kind of tired, like someone has laid a weighted blanket on his back whenever he tried to stand, and it slowly drags him down as he tries to walk. Besides, when he did let his tired eyes lids droop and close, sleep would never find him, no matter how much he would wait. It became a pointless task, and he really wasn't fond of those.

So he stopped trying.

Instead, he chose to make use of his time at this sleepless hour. He sat with his back to the black window frame, curtains pulled shut in a way that would just allow a sliver of dazzling moonlight to drip through. The bedside lap a dim yellow glow by his pillow.

He held an almost complete hardback black sketchbook in his lap, opened on a half sketched scene he had created of a palace sitting upon a cloud above a battlefield, a vivid depiction of death and decay, it was rather impressive.

His eyes wandered the page slowly, his pencil tapping away as he searched for mistakes or details to add before he traced over it in permanent black ink.

Leaving his mistakes cemented.

He chewed in the sleeve of his red hoodie, it was two sizes too big for him, it was funny considering how tall he was at 6'2. It had belonged to his father when he was younger, though it wouldn't fit the behemoth of a man now as he stands at a whole 7'1. It had a blue ink stain in the corner of its right pocket, courtesy of a leaked fountain pen his father had owned. The left sleeve was slightly tattered with little wholes, all thanks to a habit he had developed of chewing and picking at it.

His father was practically jumping for joy as it stopped him from biting his nails, something his father sound disgusting.

Once the boy, Henry, was satisfied with his search turning up no imperfection, he began to trace over it. He held his tongue slightly out the corner of his mouth in deep concentration, something his father had rightly dubbed adorable. He had always done this, ever since he was little and he didn't see a future where he stopped.

Henry had always loved drawing. Ever since the moment he could hold a pencil in his once tiny hand, it had seemed as if he never put it down. He loved the escape his art gifted him, a wonderful world without rules or the utter confusion that is other people for him to create, and he had become quite talented. Though he never shared his creations with anyone but his father, the man always showered him with genuine praise and that was what he was happy with.

He didn't share his creations with others because they simply weren't for them. They didn't understand them anyway.

Once he had been drawing in class, a classmate had seen what he had done and cried, the teacher had called for the school counsellor and the office had called his dad.