The Sun and the Moon

A diner rests comfortably on the edge of a road. It pulls the sky about it as one would pull a blanket over their shoulders, flickering neon lights poking small holes in the dark. It is open. There are people inside, but the parking lot with faded lines and a bent stop sign lies abandoned.

A traveler makes her way down to the parking lot. I couldn’t tell you if she is walking, stumbling, or trodding. There is nothing more to her gait then the act of moving forward. There is little more to her than the act of being. Glitter hides under her nails and light traps itself in her hair. Her clothes are ragged and worn and dripping through with sleepless intensity. The dark freckles adorning her move and shift with a magnetic flux. Should I have the gall to describe her any further, I would tell you endlessly about the dances she once blessed the sky with, about the warmth that gave so much life, story after story about flaming chariots and melting waxen wings. Now she does no such thing.

Her hand presses against the diner door. The glass would have melted under her touch, years ago. Chatter soaks the space in its own sort of light and warmth. Her eyes open wider. They are no more awake than they were, nor more alive, but they are still there. Bright. Luminous. Flickering like the generic sign outside. There is no dramatic hush as she enters, but the cozy air stokes the embers in her lungs. A family of five is squished into one of the booths, with dilapidated leather and salt spilled on the table, and one of their children is coloring an astronaut on a napkin with broken crayons. Two older women are catching up over pancakes and coffee, their hair grey with wisdom and their skin lined with experience. A man dressed in a baseball cap, work clothes, and peaceful exhaustion is draped over the bar, asleep next to his scrambled eggs. The waitress won’t disturb him for a few more minutes. Even then, it will be on accident, by dropping a plate. She has had a long shift. He won’t mind.

The traveler flops majestically into one of the comfier booths. The cheap material squeaks as she slides across it to look out the window. There are stars. Have we discussed the stars? There are too many of them, too many for her dimming eyes to see clearly, all friends and neighbors. She holds no grudge against any particular one. There is nothing but a dull fondness in her spirit as she fogs the panes with her breath, hot and raspy. The moment is interrupted.

“Do I know you?”

Millennia of voices boil out of our traveler’s mouth as she opens it, every pitch and range crashing into each other in the constraints of her words. The woman now sitting across from her is smiling. A tooth is missing. One of her hands is rough and pockmarked, while the other has held life tenderly. She is the same age as our traveler. Perhaps she is slightly more distant than she was in the beginning, perhaps the marks have taken their toll, but the smile is the same. Her hair is still a brilliant grey. I don’t know what color it would be if she shook the dust out of it, so I won’t venture there.

“Of course you do, Helios.”

“Have we met before?”

“You’ve met everyone, in your own way.”

“I suppose.” Our traveler, who has been taken from us in some little way by assuming an identity, sighs. “Do I know your name?”

“You do.”

“Artemis? Or do you go by Diana?”

“It depends on the century. You could have said the same. Phoebe, you can call me Phoebe.”

“Can I help you, friend?”

“You’ve dropped out of the sky. You must be tired.”

A laugh filled with solar gravel chokes Helios, “I am tired. You didn’t come all the way here to tell me that. You know there’s nothing to be done. Why aren’t you tired? Surely, you must be. We all are.”

“I’m not on fire. Burning is a rather exhaustive process, dear friend. That’s quite the point of it. Do not mistake my words, I am tired, but only in the way that the woman behind the counter is tired. There is love behind it, just like you. Look,” Phoebe points at the waitress, who is handing the child more crayons while balancing three stacks of pancakes, “She is protecting them too, in her own way.”

“She doesn’t get hit by meteors.”

“Eh… That’s a good thing. Most of yours burn up, don’t they?” Quiet, for a moment, before Phoebe continues. “Are you all burnt up? Do you think you are?”

Helios slouches back, undignified. “Getting there. Gravity is a heavy thing sometimes. I can’t breathe very well, even with the weight of nothing but myself. What’s going to happen to you? I mean, if I just fizzle out.”

“Not sure. I can’t keep them warm like you do. I direct the tides, give them calendars, but that’s not worth much if you’re nothing but… I don’t know, a supernova splatter.”

“There’s nothing to stop me from becoming that. Not you, not myself, not the void of space. Everything will burn away, and then where will we be? The void? You and I both know it too well to usher these little ones into that inky darkness. They have watched us dance as long as they have known us, and now…. There is truly nothing I can do to continue. My light is no longer warm and comforting. My chariot in the sky is in desperate need of repair and the horses are old. I’m going to drown in myself.”

“Good graces, you are a dramatic one.”

Helios pricks up in shock. She has never been described that way before.

“Eat a truly insane amount of pancakes, and you’ll be fine. There is no end that has been written for you.”

“How could you say such a thing? The end is inescapable. That’s just how… Physics work, I suppose. I am very little more than cold atoms.”

Phoebe smiles again, though the smile lines never quite left her face, “I say what I like. Math is boring. Everyone in the room is more than just the stuff that makes them. To argue would be like saying our dear waitress is only flesh and cloth and an old notepad. You know there is more to her spirit. I’ve been near enough to watch. But then, if she were to do nothing but serve the diner for her entire life, the light would go out here too. It would be a small apocalypse in its own way.”

“I am dying. Do not try to enlighten me with metaphors.” Helios, still prickly from the insult, returns her attention to the night sky.

“You didn’t like me telling you to take the classic pancake approach.”

Our two travelers remain there until the early hours of the morning. Cups of coffee come and go over bickerings which wander from subject to subject, story to story, lifetime to lifetime. As the hours on the broken clock march on, a plate of pancakes arrives at the table.

Phoebe nods at the breakfast. “Go on.”

“I don’t think the collapse of a dying star is negated by a confectionery.”

“Come on. The worst thing that could possibly happen is that I am proven wrong and you have your dramatic- yes, I did use that word- death scene with a full stomach.”

“While I begrudge you such a sickly use of vocabulary,” Helios, sparking with temper, rolls one of the pancakes into a messy tube and begins to scoff the thing, hands taking priority over utensils in her race to win the philosophical debate, “I shall delight in also begrudging you victory!”

“I don’t think you’re using that word correctly.”

“Don’t talk to me. I’m winning.”

“Sure, honey.”