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There was once a boy who loved the moon.
Day by day he would work and play as children do, but in the night he would never sleep. How could he, when the moon was so bright and beautiful, and so lonely? No one kept the moon company, so he took it upon himself to stay awake with her, reading her stories, but mostly sitting in quiet serenity until the sun rose and exhaustion pulled him into sleep for a few scarce hours before morning.
His parents soon realized that he was growing tired. Dark circles curled under his eyes and his movements were slow and cautious, as though he would fall over if the sun shone too brightly on his paper skin. They worried, but they did not know why he never slept, and the boy never told them. Despite his exhaustion, he still smiled, and no one could deny that he was happy.
As years passed by, the boy grew from a pale and weak child to a shadow of a man. His skin hung from his limbs like an old man, but his face was still young, as sallow as it was.
And every night, shaking, quivering, he would walk to the open window, leaning on his bed frame for support, and sit with the moon, to talk with her and keep her company. And even though his youthful energy was long gone, he still smiled with as much sincerity as he had smiled when he was a boy.
And then the man grew older. He was still fairly young, but the gray in his hair and the knobby joints in his knuckles and elbows made him seem ancient. He was too tired to do much of anything anymore, but lay in his bed and wait patiently for the moon to return, so that he could keep his sworn promise and stay awake with her, even if he could only see her through the glass on the left side of wall in his room.
And as he watched her, rising slowly from above the treetops, golden in her entrance and silver in her brightest hour, he wondered why no one else seemed to share the awe of her beauty like he did. He loved every part of her, had committed the dips and crests of her to memory. He didn't think there could be anything more beautiful than moonlight on the earth, gentle and soothing. And he longed to feel it on his skin, if just one more time.
Wearily, aching, he edged to the window, prying it open with shaking hands that were too withered to be the hands of someone of his age. He crawled out of the window and into the open air, where the sky was fully visible, and thousands of stars glittered like diamonds in the cloudless sky.
The man sat in the moon-soaked grass, leaning against the wall. He looked up at the night, breathed deeply, and sank contently to the ground.
There were no more stories to tell her. Every tale he could think of had already crossed his lips, which were now too cracked and his throat too hoarse to utter more than a sigh.
"Rest," the grass whispered under his fingertips.
"Rest," his bones creaked, as his eyelids began to weigh deeply over his eyes.
He glanced one last time at the moon, full and unspeakably remarkable in her beauty.
"Rest," she said, as kind and gentle as he had always remembered. "Rest."
And the man slept under the night sky for the first and final time, while the moon kept him company.