What is Left

When I was younger, as I shuffled past dusty houses on even dustier streets with the stars as my only guide, I would wonder what those lonely walks home would be like if I had the glowing orb that hung on the backdrop of the sky as a companion, a gem amongst the black of the night.

My dad had described it before in bedtime stories, his voice almost wistful despite the fact he himself had never experienced it- "It circled the Earth similar to how the Earth circles the sun and moved whole oceans with its weight alone. It was even worshipped at some time far before the Great Move. Men felt great triumph at landing on its cratered surface, something we would have laughed at today. That was a major accomplishment for them back then. Still, I wish we could have gotten the chance to actually see it."

I could hardly even wrap my head around the concept of the Night's Sun, as it was often called in stories revolving around it. No one really knew any specifics on the Night's Sun because almost everyone who had been alive to see it was dead before even my grandfather was born. But since the stories my father told to me were one of the things I held onto as I would walk home in the dark to keep the fear at bay, I hardly cared for the validity of what he had told me. I dreamed of a world where the night sky could be nearly as bright as the day, and I wouldn't have to be worried of what may have lurked in the shadows any longer.

I don't dream of the moon anymore.

I no longer had reason to once I began looking in the shadows for what was hiding.