“Our ancestors dug deep, grinding away at the Moon’s alabaster skin like potters at the wheel. Deep their Machine clawed, exploring the Moon’s innards unmercifully, like a clumsy surgeon’s finger probing an arrow wound. And before long, they had exposed the core of the Moon where the precious gemstones lay — the source of all her power.
“A god’s life is not free from pain, my child. But this new agony was different from anything that the Moon Goddess had ever felt. Until that point, the Moon had never had a living creature grace her surface, had never felt a plant root in her soil or an animal leave tracks in her dust. She had never known rivers or lakes, or even air. The Moon had known what it was to exist, but not what it meant to be alive, and those things aren’t the same at all. For the first time in her aged existence, the Moon experienced fear … and it drove her mad. Because with the knowledge of life, comes the knowledge of death.”
“Gods can die?” the boy asked, incredulous.
“Of course,” Grandmother replied, clicking her tongue twice as her people do when a child asks a silly question. “Everything that exists can also be taken out of existence. Even gods. And not even the Moon can live forever.
“The Moon tried to frighten our ancestors away with deep, monstrous murmurs, such as the fluttering a heart makes during the body’s death spasms. She tried to shake the diggers off her surface with terrifying quakes, as a dog attempts to flick away fleas. She tried to open yawning chasms to swallow them whole.
“But our ancestors were ready. They had Machines to plug their ears, and Machines to steady the ground beneath their feet. And always — always — the gnawing hunger of the Queen Spider lay in the hidden spaces of their minds.
“And so the Moon Goddess realized what she must do. Conjuring all her power, she waited until our ancestors had fallen asleep and entered their dreams. Searching their minds for nightmares, she made them imagine that their worst terrors had come to life. And then it was our ancestors’ turn to go mad. In the end they slew each other to the last sailor, insane and demented, killing themselves with the very Machines that they had brought to steal the heart of the Moon.
“And through it all, the Moon smiled.
“As the Moon entered the mind of the last man, a digger named Goel, she decided to be cruel. She searched the man’s mind — delved deep, as they had done to her — looking to find his worst fear and bring it to life in his waking dreams. And of course, my child, she found it.
“But it was then that the Moon learned her second lesson of the day, one that she could never have guessed from her infinite perch in the loneliness of the heavens. There are few things more powerful than life and death in this world. But there is one force that is stronger than even death, a sole invention of humanity, our greatest contribution to the universe. It is a force that even the Moon must bow to, even the Moon Goddess must obey and respect.
“And upon making this discovery, she gasped, and released Goel from her grasp.”
The boy clenched his hand, and realized that he had unconsciously wrapped it around Grandmother’s. “What did the Moon see?” he asked.
She squeezed his hand back. “Pumpkins … she saw pumpkins, my child. You see, Goel’s worst fear was that he might never get to see his wife again. His dream was of their first night of sexual congress, when they had lain together in the soft earth of a pumpkin patch under an infinite sky. Goel had made her a promise that night, a pledge that everything would be all right as long as their love endured. He dreamt of her, and he dreamt of the only force more powerful than life or death.
“He dreamt of pumpkins.
“And it was then that the Moon knew that she had made a mistake. But it was too late, because in the waking world — in a fit of madness — Goel had pierced his own throat with a sharp tool and was dying on the deck of the Leviathan.
“As death took him, the Moon Goddess appeared to Goel in his dream.
“‘I AM SORRY TO HAVE CAUSED YOUR END,’ she said. ‘PLEASE ALLOW ME THE HONOR OF GRANTING YOUR LAST DESIRE.’
“Desire can be cruel herself at times, twisted and self-serving, and many a mortal man has been granted a vain dying wish by a god. But Goel’s last whispered plea was simply to look upon his wife’s face one more time and tell her that he loved her.
“‘Just let her see my eyes,’ was all he asked.
“‘Just let her see my eyes …’
“And so the Moon Goddess, humbled by such a request, took a knife and carved off her own face, replacing it with Goel’s image. She displays this fully every thirty days, hiding her face in shame for the rest of the month. We in turn, assure the moon that our terrible transgression will never happen again by placing a pumpkin seed on our windowsill every year. And now, my child, you know why.”
Grandmother stopped speaking, and for a moment the boy thought that she had fallen asleep. After a long while, she turned her creaky body towards the half-shuttered window and stretched a finger skyward, where a silvery light was warming the autumn horizon.
“Look,” she said, her voice evaporating in the air like steam off chicken broth. “The Face in the Moon. It is the face of Goel, smiling at his love from across the universe, telling her that everything will be all right … in all places … forever and ever. He reminds his wife of their night in the pumpkin patch and the promise that he made. He reminds us all that there is something stronger than life, stronger than death, stronger than gods.
“And that is why we Diggers tell this story.”
Grandmother then kissed the boy on his forehead, and tucked him back into bed.
“Dream well, child,” she told him. “Dream well and free. Dream of love, and of Machines, and of all the things in between. Because the day may come when you too, get to make such a wish.”
After Grandmother left, the boy peered out the window for hours, staring at the stars and picking the dirt from under his fingernails. He thought about the sorrow of gods, until the night wrapped its willowy arms around him, and the warmth of his blanket made him begin to float inside of himself.
And that night, he dreamed of the Moon
Eric Kiefer is a writer/journalist, a modern-day troubadour, and a 15-year factotum. In addition to his debut novel, The Soft Exile (a story about suicide, Mongolia, and the U.S. Peace Corps), he is fresh on the heels of his debut CD, The Spectre and the Dozer. Learn more at TheKiefer.com.
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Abraham, the Boy Prophet
by Michael Pacheco; published May 28, 2013
His first creation was a turtle. The round mound of clay was the size of a tennis ball sliced in half. Four little knobs protruded from its sides.
“Where’s the head?” asked Jimmy.
Abraham crouched low to the ground and pointed to an indentation on the side of the mound. “There, you see that little hole? Her head is in there.”
“Her head?” Jimmy was only six years old just like Abraham. Yet, he was old enough to know about males and females and how each gender possessed its own unique characteristics no matter what species he was looking at. “What makes her a girl turtle and not a boy?”
Abraham grinned. “It’s complicated, but mostly it’s because I made her that way.”
Jimmy stared at his thin roll of clay. “Mine’s a snake. No, wait. It’s a worm; too short to be a snake.”
They both chuckled. In the distance, they heard the clanging of a light musical tone. Abraham stood and craned his neck. Down on the creek side where they stood, a grown person could not see their house, let alone a six-year-old kid. But to Abraham, the sound was unmistakable. It was his grandmother, summoning the boys to dinner, ringing a metal triangle. “We should get back.”
“Yeah, I’m really hungry, anyway.” Jimmy gazed at their clay animals. “What do you want to do with our animals, pets, or whatever they are?”
Abraham looked at his obese friend and wondered whether Jimmy’s diabetes was acting up. “Well, if yours is a worm, put it near
the water. Maybe it’ll crawl into the mud and disappear.”
“Good idea,” said Jimmy. “How about yours?”
A strange, tingling feeling came over Abraham, much like when he let the hot water in a shower trickle down his body. “My turtle’s name is Tinka, and she’s gonna have baby turtles.”
Jimmy laughed. “You mean baby clay turtles? That’s kinda funny.”
“No,” answered Abraham. “I mean real turtles. Check it out.” He waved his hand over Tinka two times like a magician’s wand. Jimmy froze in a stare locked on the little black hole on the mound. Then, as if by wizardry, a tiny brown head eased out from under the turtle shell. Jimmy’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
That was over a year ago. Jimmy never told anyone about what Abraham did either because he did not believe it actually happened or simply because he thought no one would believe him. For Abraham, today that tingling feeling was back.
~~~~~
Abraham was not sure why he did it. He was alone, with his parents and older brother picking cotton. At seven years of age, he was too little to help pick the fluffy balls of white, so they left him in the car to watch over his younger sister, Magdalena.
He was standing at the edge of the cotton field, not tall enough to see over the plants that stood four to five feet tall. The voices of his mother and the others trailed off as they plucked the cotton step-by-step, gradually blending into the darkness of the field. Magdalena slept curled like a kitten when he last checked on her.
Abraham understood his responsibilities and would never consider leaving Magdalena alone or putting her in any danger. His father had made a special effort to impress upon him the seriousness of being a diligent babysitter just like Abraham’s brother had done for him. He explained that little ones like Magdalena were likely to grab a poisonous scorpion or eat harmful berries or simply create their own hazardous circumstances. Abraham assured him he could handle any of those situations. In any event, in his mind, what he was about to do did not constitute a neglect of his duties.
The sun was still rising in the east and beginning to itch Abraham’s skin. Earlier in the day, he’d felt that strange, tingling feeling of a year ago. He had told his mother that he felt a dust storm coming their way. He said it would be ominous and scary. Now, under a cloudless sky, he felt rather silly.
Even though it was late summer, his mother had dressed him in a long sleeved, plaid shirt and blue jeans, for his protection, his mother had said. He was covered from his wrists to his ankles. Still, he could feel the searing heat penetrate his clothing.
Abraham wasn’t afraid of being alone, but he was curious how far his family had progressed into the field. They weren’t moving fast because the cotton was plentiful that year. The trailing sack behind each individual slowed their pace. With every boll of cotton, he saw their backs bend under the increasing weight.
Something inside Abraham told him that he could see his mother without being there with her. It was more a feeling than words that spoke to him, but her image was just as clear. He obviously knew what she looked like, so conjuring up her image was easy. She wasn’t much different than other petite Mexican women with raven hair, dark brown eyes, and a warm smile. But as his mother, she was unique, his flesh and blood, and in that regard she was like no other.
Abraham closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He heard the wind whistle through the cotton field and the cawing of a crow far away. He dug his toes into the soft soil. He was careful not to lose his balance, fearing he might fall into an irrigation ditch that ran perpendicular to the rows of cotton. The trench was less than a foot deep, but it was muddy and filled with smelly pesticides and he didn’t want to fall in it. The crow went silent.
Abraham was facing west with the sun burning the back of his head. Yet, after he tilted his head far back, the brunt of the sun’s rays bore down directly on his closed eyelids. At first, the sun pricked the delicate tissue, causing wild sparks and patterns of light to dance on the canvas that was the interior of his eyelids. He tried to discern whether there were specific images or simply random bursts of light. His head began to spin and the dizziness made him wonder whether he was headed for the fetid ditch.
Just then, the infinite number of lights that had lit up his eyelids started to die out. One by one they began to darken until they had all extinguished themselves. He was conscious of his arms and legs but could not move them. It was an odd feeling to have no sensation in his limbs. It was as if they belonged to someone else.
Then it happened.
One pinprick of light appeared directly in front of him. The light grew like the opening eye of a camera’s aperture. It continued to expand until it came at him like a fast moving train with his frozen body standing on the tracks. However, instead of an object coming at him, it was a window of sorts.
Abraham found himself moving through the opening and then hovering over the valley floor. Up until that time, he’d never flown in an airplane nor traveled by any other means than his father’s Crown Victoria. He glanced down at his feet and his toes were not moving. His hands and arms were positioned flat against his sides, yet he was moving through the sky! His heart swelled, not like someone’s with a heart disease, but rather swollen with joy and awe.
He was at least twenty feet above the ground and began to recognize roads and markers on the valley floor, like the Palo Seco Mesa in the distance and the interstate highway running north and south. He didn’t know how he did it, but he turned his direction of travel to where he expected the cotton field to be. Sure enough, there they were, his mother, his father, and his brother, as well as other workers he did not recognize. The cotton pickers had reached the opposite side of the field. Waiting for them was a large truck with a flatbed trailer behind it.
As he flew over them, his mother seemed to know that Abraham was near. She stopped picking cotton and gazed toward the heavens, shielding her eyes from the sun. Abraham wanted to wave at her, but his arms were still paralyzed.
Emanuel, his pudgy, oldest brother, was having trouble lifting his sack of cotton to the hook on the weigh scale that would tell him how much he’d picked. He tried to lift the sack and almost fell when the sack refused to move. Abraham’s father took hold of the sack and between the two they placed it on the hook. His mother patted Emanuel on the back, apparently congratulating him on a job well done.
It then occurred to Abraham that Magdalena might have awakened and that he should return to the car. In mere seconds, his flight took him quickly to the Crown Victoria.
To his utter amazement, he saw a young boy standing near his father’s car. As he flew closer, he realized the boy looked a lot like him. The boy wore the same plaid shirt and blue jeans as Abraham. The strangest thing was that the boy had his eyes closed and was facing the sky. Abraham willed himself to look in the car and thanked God; Magdalena was still asleep.
In the far distance, a menacing cloud was building. It was like a dark thundercloud, except that this one was touching the ground as it tumbled toward the cotton field. The rolling monster cloud would hit his family and shower them with unknown debris and danger. He had to warn them immediately. Yet, in this altered reality state, Abraham could not move an arm, a leg, and probably not his mouth or voice either.
He willed his mind to close the panoramic view before him and shuddered when a crimp in his neck shot a pang of pain through him. He suddenly was back on the ground and in his standing position in front of the Crown Victoria.
He glanced through the window and Magdalena had not awakened. He opened the door and observed her more closely to assure that she was breathing. His body relaxed when he saw her little chest rise and fall.
He closed the door and sprinted toward his family to warn them of the oncoming dust storm. The ground was covered with dried pieces of the cotton plants, and it felt like he was running over thorny blackberry bushes. He ran so fast that the dried leaves of the standing cotton plants cut his face. He felt the warm blood trickle
down the side of his cheeks and on his forehead.
When he reached his mother, she screamed in terror. Abraham stood there, catching his breath, blood dripping down his face.
“What the hell happened to you?” asked his father. “And where’s Magdalena?”
“She’s asleep in the car. She’s fine, Dad.”
Abraham’s mother dropped her cotton bag and wiped the blood from his face. “What are you doing here, son? Why did you leave Magdalena?”
“There’s a big cloud coming, Mama. And it’s not your regular kind of cloud. It’s rolling on the ground like a big steamroller.”
He spotted the cloud five or six miles away. “Look! There it is!”
Everyone turned to look at the sky where Abraham’s finger was pointing. Directly above them was cobalt blue. Approaching them was an ominous blackness.
“Oh my God!” exclaimed Abraham’s mother.
Abraham’s father did not hesitate as he climbed out of the harness that carried his sack. “Drop the sacks everybody. Hurry, let’s get back to the car.”
Abraham’s mother grabbed his hand and they all hurried back to the car. She shielded her son’s face from the sharp edges of the cotton plants. As they ran, a rumble shook in Abraham’s ears like when his dad drove fifty-five miles an hour with the windows rolled down.
Emanuel was the last one to jump in the Crown Victoria. Just as he shut the door, the sky turned black and within seconds, a sudden pelting of debris and dust befell them. With the windows rolled up, they stared at the darkness in disbelief. Magdalena finally woke up when a sizable piece of wood hit the roof of the car. She started crying. Abraham’s mother turned and faced him from the front seat.
“Are you okay, son?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered, lightly touching the scratches on his face.
Emanuel was still trying to catch his breath, wheezing as he reclined against the seat. He looked at Abraham with a frown. “How did you know that thing was coming? You’re just a kid.”
“I know, huh?” answered Abraham. “I saw it inside of me.”