The Moon Who Loved Water

A Story for All Ages by Aaron McEmrys

There once was a moon who loved water. She hung above her brother, Earth; dry as a bone, for eons, wistfully watching all the excitement below.

That little blue marble practically hummed with life, especially in its seven great seas, where dolphins frolicked, whales breached, coral grew and children splashed in still clear water.

Moon was lonely; and in fact could not remember a time when she wasn’t. And although watching all that watery life below made her own dry loneliness all the more apparent, she couldn’t look away for long before there she’d be again, looking down wistfully upon her spinning little planet with her full face.

Moon sighed. “If only I could splash,” she thought, “or drink, or feel the feeling of cool water against on my face. If only I could touch it, those magical seas that make my brother, just for a second, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone. Maybe I could have a little life too…I don’t need much, just a little.”

But there was great distance between them and so Moon stayed as she was, dry and lonely as an old scrap of newspaper blowing across the desert. And she could not cry, for she had no water for her tears.

One day she could take it no more. Moon summoned up all her energy, and took a deep, deep breath, her mouth open like a dark coin in the sky. She inhaled with all her might, pulling, pulling, pulling her brother Earth closer.

He stayed where he was, of course, weighed down by the Rockies, the Himalayas and by all his great stone continents. But the water, all the waters of the Earth felt her breath and responded, reaching toward Moon’s silver-sad face with delicate fingers.

Moon breathed in, and white-topped waves rose up on oceans that had always been still. Moon breathed in, and the first tides began, not only in the great oceans, but in every body of water; in every creek, rill and rivulet and even inside every human body, which is like an ocean in and of itself – all the life-loving waters of the Earth reached up and up and up toward their long-forgotten sister, Moon. And so the tides were born.

Most of the water fell back, tired from reaching so high, but some of it, just a little, made it all the way to the sky, where it touched, soothed, loved Moon’s parched face. And it was enough – and the Moon drank it in every bit before gratefully exhaling, letting the droplets fall back across the fields and forests of the Earth and into the wide oceans where they were born.

And so the deserts were watered and corn grew tall where there had only been sand.

Down below on brother Earth lived a little girl who loved water almost as much as Moon did. Her family lived in a little house by the side of the sea, and her people were fishermen. All day long she played and swam and lazed on the beach just where water met sand.

And when Moon breathed deep, summoning the waters, Emily felt her call. As the waves reached high around her something in Emily reached up too.

“I think the Moon is sad, Papa. Look how lonely she is.”

“The Moon is just a rock, dear, a thing. And things can’t be sad or lonely,” her Papa laughed as he ruffled her hair.

“Does anyone ever visit her?”

“I told you, it’s a thing, not a person – but yes, I suppose astronauts vaster her, I mean, “it” sometimes.”

Emily tried to believe him, but every time the tide came in and the waves grew wild she felt Moon’s face on hers and her blood danced. “Someday I’ll come visit, and you won’t be lonely anymore” she whispered into the sky, “just see if I don’t.”

Emily grew up, and one day, many years later, Astronaut Emily Brown landed on the Moon. And when none of the other astronauts were looking, she knelt down in her heavy white spacesuit and put her hand on her friend’s dusty cheek. She carefully took a small vial of water out of a small zippered pocket over her heart and opened the stopper.

At first the water just hung there, neither rising nor falling, and in the soft white moonlight the hanging droplets sparkled and shone like a field of stars.

Moon didn’t know such a feeling was possible, Emily’s hand on her face, sweet water so close, so sweet, so pure – how can this be? Moon inhaled, breathing in slow and deep taking each drop of water into herself one by one by one.

“See, Moon; I told you I’d come.”