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So I, believing less each summer, pry
open that lost last year to see the bright
earth jewel smooth and blue in velvet night.
20JULY1969 by W.W. Cooper
The world turns and Chang E is anchored to its orbit. She feels it pull at her, feels the lunar ground below her feet tug at her body, tug at the push-pull tides of the greening oceans beneath her.
She used to look up at the moon and think I wonder.
She used to look up at the moon.
The rabbit lounges at her side. He is soft to stroke when he is calm and not preoccupied with his work. He is soft in spirit too, if coated with an aloof exterior. She pets his wide body, his folded ears. He will not leave her, not ever.
"You're thinking again."
After all this time, she thinks there is a certain part of her brain that is wired to his. With only one another for company, they can read each other's thoughts. Or something. Wu Gang lingers behind them; he has not spoken for many, many years. He cuts his tree even as it is replenished and he grimaces at them in frustration. They leave him to it.
"Yes."
"About?"
For a rabbit he is awfully annoying.
She smiles. "About how one might expect living on the moon to be peaceful, and yet…"
His ears flatten in reproach.
She is silent for a while. Below, there is moonlight on Africa and she can distantly see her homeland on the fringes of waking.
"I was really thinking about how long it has been."
The rabbit clicks his teeth together.
"It has been many thousands of years, you know."
He knows, of course. He does not need her to tell him how many times they have witnessed the planet circuit the sun.
Still, she goes on. "My children's children's children would be long dead by now. If I had had children."
She thinks if a lot these days. It is not a terrible existence, this chasing through the skies, but it is not what she thought would be her lot in life.
Chang E remembers the air tucking her up toward the sky. She remembers shock and dismay and wonder and a thousand different things all at once. She remembers before, being a mortal woman and tipping her head to stare at the perfect O of the moon high above.
"They are sending men up here, you know."
The rabbit feigns ignorance but she sees his ears twitch.
"Yes," she continues, "They are building a ship that can travel the distance."
"What will they see when they get here, I wonder?" His voice is old as time. He is tired, always.
"You know, they have a theory that there is a man in the moon."
"In the moon?" The rabbit does not laugh, but she sees his lips pull back all the same. His teeth are grinding.
"A man."
She thinks the explorers of earth are long overdue for taking to the skies. She thinks they will like it out here, this peaceful expanse of nothingness and everythingness existing at once in paradoxical unity. There is much for them to learn, and she has watched them for long enough to be rooting for them.
Lights flicker on beneath them, and she remembers when the people of earth lit lanterns instead of electrical beacons piercing the planet like small stars.
She finds herself looking forward to meeting them, at last.
The rabbit is still as the moon continues shifting. Chang E strains to see beyond what her eyes let her see, to catch a rare glimpse of the sun. She is unsuccessful.
She allows herself a sigh of frustration, just this once.
"Shouldn't have taken that damn pill, then," the rabbit says, before hopping out of reach.