Moon story.

“What is it?” Ellie asks, knowing it’s a ball.

“It is a moon, wrapped in brown paper”, he tells her. Mama casts him a dirty look, preparing for disappointment. Yet, when Ellie pulls off that brown paper, there it is, silvery-grey, glowing, wanting to float.

Outside, the sky is dark. There are stars, but no moon.

“How did you find it?” Ellie asks.

He shrugs. “It was caught up in the ash tree. I climbed up there, prodded it with a stick, managed to catch it”.

She thinks of him, risking the thin branches at the top to bring her treasure.

Later, they climb the hill behind the house and let the moon go. Hand in hand they watch it rise, bobbing into its familiar place. She knows she will always have a bond with the moon now. Its smile will be for her.

A flash fiction for Bjorn at dVerse. We take our line from Carol Ann Duffy’s poem Valentine: “it is a moon, wrapped in brown paper”

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