Man in the Moon … Or Not by Christine Larsen

The Man in the Moon?... Or Who?

by Christine Larsen

Long after giving birth to her last litter of kittens, Smokey began noticing the moon differently. At 19 years old, she wasn’t altogether sure if she was losing it or actually finding a new reality. It had all begun when she was teaching her son, Speedy, how to lap water from a bowl, instead of forever hanging from her for sustenance. The magic happened one night when the moon reflected itself in her bowl of water. (It really wasn’t HER bowl at all.) This one was outside and belonged to the dogs, but they were nowhere near and the big bowl gave her far more benefits than her own cat-bowl inside.

Smokey naturally took advantage, visiting here often on still moonlit nights, loving how the intensity of the reflected moon in the water glowed like a halo around her head. Its magic puzzled her greatly, becoming more and more disturbing to her valuable sleep time as she dreamt of quests and schemes to discover the truth of who indeed inhabited that mystic moon. In faraway days of early motherhood, the major problem was being fresh out of time because of the incessant demands of her furry family. When she found time to scratch herself, that’s what she did… thoroughly. And washing. Did it never end? One day, she promised herself—but that one day took a long time to happen, as Life kept getting in the way. One still night, her two-legged family lay on rugs out on the lawn, studying the star-studded sky and its amazing focus this night… the Harvest Moon. Mum and Dad told the kids details of its surface were the clearest seen in memory, according to the experts. That set them to wondering if there was, in fact, a ‘Man in the Moon’. Dad said there had been, in 1969, but only for a short time—two days, he thought, those Earth visitors were there. Mum said last Christmas Eve she’d seen the silhouette of Father Christmas, his reindeer and sleigh sailing across the moon, although there’d been no report of him stopping there—not in her living memory, nor any history books, either. “I can see the Easter Bunny in the moon,” declared the youngest, Nicky; getting up and jumping about a bit. It was so exciting and all this laying about was too difficult for a small, enthusiastic boy. Michaela and Brett nodded vigorously. They needed to do a quick jig of their own before settling once again. Both children agreed with their young brother, having always seen the same, and simply figured this was the BIG bunny’s home in between Easters. Bizarrely, Mum and Dad had never shared this vision, though they tried… HARD! Smokey agreed. Could she have talked ‘human’, she’d have shared her particular concerns. No-one, it seemed, gave consideration to the Cat and her Fiddle of Hey Diddle Diddle fame; and although Smokey had heard of a cow jumping OVER the moon, there were no reports of one getting stuck there. And that little dog laughing?!? That wasn’t any of her canine sisters—Gypsy, Taffy, or Sheba. Annoyingly, even the dinnerware got in on that rhyming act, with a final, dramatic mention, when… ‘the dish ran away with the spoon’. No cats featuring at all? Surely this was a monumental miscarriage of feline justice! Smokey’s curiosity deepened with the mystery of her water bowl reflection, made even more vivid by this appearance of a huge ‘halo’ of the Harvest Moon around her head. As she tried to absorb the mystique of the occasion, giving little concentration on the current job of drinking, a splash of water missed her mouth, and flicked into the air before her nose. In the neardaylight brightness, the droplet flashed like a diamond.

A quick, but gentle paw-pat on the side of the bowl was totally irresistible, causing more amazing ‘diamonds’ to fall… an entire shower of them. Smokey couldn’t resist more pats, stronger every time, until a lengthy trail of ‘diamonds’ stretched and snaked their way across the ground. Despite an initial warning growl at their alien-ness, Smokey soon found herself totally bewitched by this amazing happening. As she wondered at the spectacle, the ‘diamonds’ abruptly formed themselves into a giant glittering ladder, soaring forever into the night sky. A hasty glance over her shoulder proved Smokey’s ‘humans’ couldn’t see this… actually viewing nothing out of the ordinary, though the shortest distance separated them. Smokey tentatively put one paw on the first step, though doubting she’d get far at her age. Her war wounds, as she liked to call her scarred old tissue and joints when they ached, would surely not permit her going far. To her amazement, she heltered and skeltered up those steps as if only two years old again. In nanoseconds she was at the top of the ladder, stepping out onto the moon itself! She looked back at her Blue Planet in amazement. How insignificant in the Universe’s scheme.

Eerily, a voice spoke inside Smokey’s head through a shimmer of rainbow hues in her mind’s eye. “You’ve puzzled and pondered for a long time in your tiny world, and I have taken pity on you.” As the iridescence intensified, Smokey understood how her young family had formed the belief of a rabbit in the moon. The long bunny ears were actually the tall, sharply pointed ears of the Great Siamese Cat Bastet—the Feline Goddess of Motherhood of Egyptian times. The original MUMMY?!? And the voice heard her thought. And responded. “Yes, my dear, I AM Bastet, the Great Siamese Cat! Enshrined forever in the heavenly glow of the Moon, itself the embodiment of Immortality and Eternity. See? I can send a ladder of diamonds any time… or never; keep you here, watching over your world… or send you back in the quiver of a cat’s whisker—which is the thing I WILL do this time. But NEXT time we meet, my dear, I’ll summon you sometime around your 21st birthday, and THEN I will reveal ALL.” Bastet performed the most lengthy and beautiful stretch Smokey had ever seen and yawned behind a delicately raised paw before continuing, “But enough now. I’m weary.” Smokey felt herself sliding down, down, down… all the way back to her own special ‘Home, Sweet Home’. This time, as she looked admiringly at the Moon, she didn’t need to wonder any longer. The vision of the Great Cat in the moon was as clear as her own mirror reflection. Squinting her eyes into tiny slits, Smokey could definitely see Bastet's face and huge eyes high above in the Moon; and she was sure there were many other cat's eyes surrounding the Cat Mother of ALL time. Smokey found herself amazingly content to wait for the final summons with no trepidation; no regrets. This ninth Life was proving to be the best of them all.

Christine is an Australian in the middle of her seventh decade - a writer, farmer, wife, mother, grandmother - now on their retirement farm, and returning from an absence to reignite her works. Christine’s three main genres are - Memoirs - of growing up in the 1950's in Australia, of farming, and of treasured collections. Children's Stories - mostly for middle-school age readers, but also excellent read aloud stories by parents, siblings, grandparents, babysitters, teachers. Short stories + Flash-fiction (and non-fiction) Collections - a range of almost every genre, encompassing every emotion from humour to deepest sadness.