One Night, the Moon Starts Crying

Tears falling to earth in gulps of rain. No one knows why the moon is crying but everyone’s making a guess. Mr. Blake from the hardware store blames it on the fact that no one buys light bulbs anymore. “Got them LED things that never burn out, and soon,” Mr. Blake says, “no one will know how to change one.” Mrs. Hobson, the neighbor lady no one ever listens to, says “if I had to look at the sorry earth all day I’d cry and cry and never stop,”

The newsman blames the weatherman. The weatherman blames the sky. The sky, the weatherman says, is filled with everything the earth doesn’t want. Clouds and fog and useless dreams.

Everywhere people start to feel bad that they made the moon cry. Except Mr. Blake who is sticking to his light bulb theory. “People like to change the light bulbs,” he says. “Makes them feel important. Like God on that very first day.” Mrs. Hobson tells him “shush, people will hear you,” but Mr. Blake doesn’t listen and goes on saying it anyway.  Even when people stop looking at him. Even when they stop buying everything from him.

When everyone runs out of nails and boards, their roofs fall in. They are left staring up at the crying moon. No one wonders anymore why the moon is crying. They just wish it would stop. Great rivers are forming and running into the streets, and no one can leave their houses anymore.

Except Mr. Blake who has built himself a rowboat out of all the nails and lumber nobody wanted. He rows down the street, passes the roofless houses. Past the weatherman standing on a rock and waving his fist at the heavens, past Mrs. Hobson, clinging to a tree branch her mouth a moving gurgle. Everyone waving and waving at him to stop, to help them, but he doesn’t. Calls them all fools underneath his breath. Knows how sorry they will be when the moon stops crying and burns itself out, like any other light bulb, and nobody with any idea how to change it.