the pink moon that night

I once saw the most beautiful woman on earth. Sadly, I was not on earth that day. I was looking at her, feeling dazzled, but my seat was on the moon.

Normally, whenever I see such beauty, whether it might be a woman or something non-human, I feel the blues, for the beauty is not mine. Sometimes the glory is mine, but everything belongs to something, if not someone, else. I’m used to his law, and I kneeled before it. My present, in return, was a seat. A seat wherever I felt like I needed a seat.

That day, no color seemed adequate to describe how I felt before her. Not the usual blues, not the unusual black, not even my favorite grey whenever I pray.

The moon was pink that day. Everybody knew the meaning of such colors, the unlikely ones in the skies. But she, of course, knew the meaning the better. In a sense, I wanted her to know that I was watching her. She knew, as is customary for women, that someone would always be watching her. I couldn’t stop but behold, and she couldn’t stop but perform.

The night was ours. She knew these nights, and she was restlessly riding it. I was enchanted.

To be frank here, I knew I should have stopped. I know “the lord” who is always watching and protecting. I guess that day, Milord needed his eyes for himself, and I took his place as the observer. My fault might lie in the fact that I was so shocked by such beauty that I became the non-participating observer. This is not my lord’s style.

Oh, I shouldn’t indulge myself and tell you what happened that night. But a story is in order, and I should see it through up until the end.

There I was, on my seat, and the next second, I found myself before her. I did not know whose place I took, but I was there.

She had already been talking to the person I took the place of. I knew it since she did not seem fazed by the fact that the person she was talking to was now someone else.

I listened. I was still enchanted by her beauty, and a word that I’d speak would break the spell. She was talking nonchalantly, but her eyes told a different story. I was actively listening, trying to understand the hidden story in her eyes. And I did. I felt so angry, so sad, so mad. A man knows such agony.

At that point, I must have made a mistake in a detail that I cannot remember right now. No, I shall be frank with you, I remember. The mistake was that I found her hidden story.

Those hidden stories, and with time I learnt that everybody had at least one, are to be handled with utmost responsibility. They transform both the holder of the story and the listener. I am used to being transformed by such histories of individuals, but she was so sick of everyone just trying and being the man she needed.

Alas, there I was, and the transformation had already begun.

I tried for a second, and said that it’s OK. I knew she wanted to cry, but she was strong. She wouldn’t cry in front of others. She was above that.

Because she was not able to cry, my eyes began to hurt. I was just like her, unable to cry. This was the hard part. We looked at each other, trying to see who’d cry first. She knew the game, and she wouldn’t be the loser. I was dying to lose the game, but she wouldn’t let me go easily.

I was fortunate, for I knew both the game and the end. The solution was easy: “Let’s get wrecked,” I said.

Usually, booze is nothing for me. I drink it just to kill the evil living inside me whenever the fire burns a little too powerful. What I did not know is that her fire, perhaps because the moon was pink that day, was not less powerful than mine.

Thus we drank. Everybody left, and we still were looking each other in the eye, trying to understand who’d leave first. She was sure I’d be the one, and I was looking for my Lord’s call to bring me back, but the agony was real.

She called her dealer. She laid eyes on me, trying to understand if I was still there. I didn’t mind.

And for some hours, the dealer’s number was spot on. We laughed, we sang, we danced. My ears didn’t hear Milord’s call. I was having so much fun with the most beautiful woman on earth, that I did not hear Milord’s call. He still brings that day up whenever I mess around.

Since I’m frank, I’ll tell you what I told him: “I don’t care. I was having the time of my life!” He has his look to remind me how the story ended. My eyes still burn whenever I remember the end to that night.

I saw how happy she became. I wanted to make her happier, and said “Let’s mess around with everybody who has wronged you.” I was out of line.

She looked right through me, and I knew I was dead to her. The person whose place I had taken came back, and I was ascending back to the moon. She took one last look at me, right when I was between her and the moon. I died a second time.

When I returned to my seat, the sun was rising. Milord was already waiting for me, he took one look at his watch and told me: “What did you think? She’s to be married.”

As a punishment, he gave me the job to watch and protect her every single night. Whenever I slept, she was in my dreams. The night she married, she didn’t cry, for my eyes gave in.

I thank Milord for that job. She became a lady of mine, and her pearls are the same tone of pink from the moon that night. I’ll be having a seat wherever I need, and my lady rides the night without doubt whenever she wants, because any harm directed towards her is directed towards me, and let me tell you: I just love taking those arrows, bending them, and doing whatever I do with them. Milord calls me for another mission as I write these lines down, thus fare thee well, my friend, my reader.