Like the species she represented, she had always been a creature of two minds; dissatisfied unless her brain was wrapped around two dreams at once: one immediately controlling her eyes and fingers and all of the other things belonging to the real world, while her heart burned with some more essential, private dream. Now, as she lay on a custom-built couch, her essential mind was on a beach walk with Stephanos, nights ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They had climbed through a notch in the dune vegetation, and sat down as the surrounding sea oats framed the moon and hid everything else. She laid her head in his lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTell me stories of the night,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stroked her sensibly-short hair and smiled at the way she always asked for his stories. He thought awhile, and then pointed up at the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe ancients,\u201d he said, \u201ccalled her Selene.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat, the moon?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour moon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She turned her eyes into the pale white light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey said she was destined to someday give birth to Pandia, which means \u2018all-brightness.\u2019 Homer said Pandia was \u2018exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said, \u201cAnd all I have to do, to give us that daughter, is to touch the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He smiled in the darkness, and said nothing. She stretched her arm one faint yard toward the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSeems so easy,\u201d she said. \u201cSeems so impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd yet, you are the hope of people dedicated to doing the impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in her first mind, she heard a bodyless voice ask a question. She studied a screen and replied. \u201c42.5. Nominal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephanos, at the beach, pointed back at the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Lakota indigenous people have their own story: a legend that the Sun and the Moon were once lovers, living together in each other\u2019s arms. One day, their followers got into a war over which of their gods was greater. After, it was decreed that the Sun and the Moon would live together forever in the same sky, but forever separate, seeing each other only rarely. The legend has it that, on those rare occasions when the Sun and the Moon are allowed to come together, the Moon is so hungry for her lover, that she gobbles up all of his light, and doesn\u2019t spare any for the Earth. And thus, we have eclipses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Giggles. \u201cI think I\u2019m glad they don\u2019t allow you to teach science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He gave a noncommittal wave she barely saw in the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll wisdom is poetry, dear Ann. That was science, told with a flair. Modern scientific cosmology says that the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth were once the same heavenly object. They split, and gave birth to life, and mankind. And you. Although I do think you\u2019re mostly moon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She raised an imaginary glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo reunions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her first mind, she heard the voice say, \u201cOne minute,\u201d and she answered, \u201cRoger that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the beach, with Stephanos, she said, \u201cThose are other people\u2019s stories. What\u2019s your story, oh my wise teacher?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stared out at the unceasing waves and thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA story of a lonely man, in love with a world that didn\u2019t love him. One day a beautiful goddess held him and welcomed him a to the humanity he thought had rejected him years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She smiled and sat up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAh, but what about the moon? These are supposed to be stories about the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLike all mankind, he is literally built of pieces of the moon, held together with moonbeams. Every moment since the dawn of creation, tiny particles of moondust have fallen to the earth, driven by the sun\u2019s powerful radiation. And they become part of every one of us. To be a man is to be shot through by the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes, but what of the moon in this story?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe, too, is waiting for that girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She kissed his arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou are such a dreamer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He paused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are all dreamers. And you are the apex of those dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She squeezed his arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd you are the protector of those dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stood up, did a slow 360 and scanned the beach cottages and industrial buildings that now appeared beyond the grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, I am going to go be the protector of sleep. We have a lot of work in the days ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stood up and surveyed the cottages to find the path home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her mind of the here and now, and for mankind\u2019s future, Artemis Mission Commander Ann Bradley lay strapped to her couch in the cramped metal capsule balanced atop the 98-meter-tall SLS launch vehicle. She glanced at her companions as the voice counted down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThree, two, one. Liftoff. Liftoff, of Mankind\u2019s Return to the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ann said, \u201cRoger, Control.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flames finally poured out of her rocket, the way her species\u2019 dreams had poured out for centuries. She felt her new home shake with the fire until it broke free of her old earth home and rejoined the sky where her species belonged. She glanced out the window at the Launch Control Center and her second mind imagined she saw the man she loved inside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Launch Control Center, Range Safety Officer Stephanos Palmas kept his hand hovering over the switch with ABORT written on it in big red letters. His eyes were focused with an all-consuming vision on the screens in front of him, searching for any sign of trouble that would mean he would need to hit that switch and save the crew\u2014his crew\u2014from a mission gone bad, at a cost of giving up mankind\u2019s dream of the moon. Only when he heard the voice say, \u201cMECO\u201d did he take his hand away, and allow it to begin a very human shaking as he watched his dream, and the dream of mankind, sailing to their destiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like the species she represented, she had always been a creature of two minds; dissatisfied unless her brain was wrapped around two dreams at once: one immediately controlling her eyes and fingers and all of the other things belonging to the real world, while her heart burned with some more essential, private dream. Now, as … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-U1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3473"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3475,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions\/3475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Michael Guillebeau is a seventy-two-year-old former NASA worker and novelist. He lives in Madison, Alabama, Panama City Beach, Florida, and Portland, Oregon. And on the road between them all.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"