So, this is a short story I wrote when a random thought popped into my head: "What would happen if the moon disappeared?" It really wrote itself, honestly. I thought I'd share it (I hope I have not posted this story twice- I think my computer crashed the other time I tried sending it, so if it is a double post, I humbly beseech the admins to please remove one). Thank you and please enjoy!

  It was an absolutely ordinary twilight when the moon vanished from the night sky.

   There was no warning about such a cataclysmic event. One moment, it was there, the man in its craters looking somberly below, the coyotes howling at the round ball of cheese, the silent lunar queen weeping for her husband the sun, never to touch.

   The next moment, it was gone.

   It didn’t disappear in a great flash of light, a heralding of some sort of apocalyptic happenstance. It simply faded out of existence, leaving behind a patch of darkness where the creamy white and yellow sphere had dominated the night sky. The queen had hidden herself in shrouds of darkness- or had died.

   Below, in the bustling cities so bright they outshone the stars, no one saw it go. With all of their eyes directed down at their feet, running and shouting and conducting business, no one had time to spare to look up, except the lone boy, a small creature. He wore his flannel pajamas far too long for him, the bottom of the pants legs swallowing his feet in a way that made it a wonder how he could walk in them without tripping. He clutched a teddy bear in one arm; the other- or, rather, the thumb of the other- was in his mouth, though he looked slightly past the age where such was acceptable, despite his white hair.

   “Where’d the moon go?” he asked the passing man.

   “Where it’s always been,” the man grumbled, not looking up.

   “Where’d the moon go?” he inquired of the woman hurrying past.

   “I don’t know; look up at the sky and tell me,” she snapped, not bothering to check the sky herself. Instead, she clamored, “Taxi! Taxi!”

   “Where’d the moon go?” he said to no one in particular, and no one answered. No one was good like that; ask no one a question, and no one was guaranteed to say anything back. How nice of no one.

   The boy made his way down the street, holding the teddy bear to his chest. The traffic signals and lamp posts were bright, so very bright. The cars sped past or roared in impatience at stop signs and the red lights, and the overall shout of people, people, people drowned out the quiet murmurs of the wind.

   He crossed the street winking back at the stars, but his winks seemed more friendly then theirs. “Where’d the moon go, stars?” he breathed.

   The screech of brakes, angry cries. “Get out of the street, idiot!”

   “What’s a small boy doing out here so late at night?”

   “Doesn’t this kid have any parents?”

   The boy blushed, looking down at his dirty, barefoot toes. “Sorry,” he mumbled, finishing crossing the street and nearly running. He hadn’t realized the car was coming. He’d been too busy looking for the missing moon.

   “Have you seen the moon?” he murmured, but no one heard him as he continued on his way, the sidewalk concrete rough on his poor soles. “Have you seen the moon?”

   He should be heading home, he knew, but he couldn’t. Not yet. “Nobody’s seen it yet,” he whispered. “I need to find the moon, and bring it back.”

   The boy was leaving the center of the city behind him, now, entering the outskirts. From here, he’d have a hard time walking much further without getting trouble from the members of society with ill-repute. It wasn’t safe for someone like him to be out at this time of night.

   “But it was safe for the moon,” he said, “and now it’s gone. So nobody has a guarantee anymore.”

   He stopped at the top of a hill in the middle of a park and lay down in the grass, looking up at the sky. “No one misses you, moon,” he said slowly. “No one’s even noticed that you’re gone. Where’d you go?” He repeated, again, his questions. “Where’d the moon go? Have you seen the moon?”

   “The moon?”

   He let his eyes fall from the sky and alight up the girl sitting next to him. She wore an orange dress, too light for cold, nighttime weather, and her blue eyes looked into his darker ones with obvious mischief. She had long blonde hair that hung loose round her shoulders, much neater than his brambles of albino locks.

   “Yes,” he said. “If you look up, you’ll see the moon’s not there anymore. Where’d the moon go? Have you seen the moon?”

   The girl bit her cheek and looked up, as the boy had instructed. “I see it,” she said. “It’s still there.”

   “No, it isn’t,” he said. “The moon’s gone, and I have to find it…”

   “Why?”

   The question caught him off-guard. “What do you mean, why?” he demanded. “Because it’s missing, that’s why!”

   “Is that all?” she sounded disappointed. “Surely there’s more than that.”

   “Well, the tides will get all messed up…” the boy pouted. “Doesn’t the moon control the tides?”

   “So they say,” she said.

   “What, they might be wrong?” he demanded.

   “Or they might not be,” she replied. “Is that all? You’re worried the moon being gone would steal the tides?”

   The boy frowned. She didn’t talk like the girl she looked like. She appeared to be his age, six, seven, eight at the most, but she somehow seemed older. Wiser. Yes, that was the word, no matter how overused. Some words were used often because they fit so well.

   “The tides going away would be terrible.”

   “Mm, yes. But what can a little boy like you do against the tides? Or for them, for that matter. Nothing.” She looked up again. “The moon is still there, child. It’s yours that’s missing.”

   “My moon?”

   “You’re not looking for the moon because things will be terrible without it,” she continued. “You’re looking for the moon simply because it’s gone.”

   “That’s what I said,” he grumbled.

   “Yes, yes. It’s gone, and that seems wrong to you. It’s strange, and we don’t like strangeness, do we?”

   She smiled at him. “Do we?”

   “No,” he admitted.

   “And how do you know,” she asked, “that it’s even gone?”

   “I can’t see it,” he said. “It’s gone.”

   “Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” the girl said. Looking up, he saw a sliver of the moon’s fat white silhouette reappear.

   “Just covered by a cloud,” she said. “I am moved you’d look for me, though. Not many take the time to look up, and even less take the time to wonder about it.”

   “Look for you?” he repeated. Dawn was beginning to creep up now, laughing with the girl. “Look for you?”

   He stood.

   She was gone.

   “Hey,” he called to the sky. “Where’d you go?” Understanding came upon him, then, and dawned in his mind the way the sun was dawning the sky. “My moon,” he said, then screamed happily and threw his head up at the pink and rosy sky. The sun was in the horizon, blooming brightly.

   “My sun,” he said, and as he watched, the sun disappeared.

   There was no warning about such a cataclysmic event. One moment, it was there, fire burning in the sky, the drop of gold and ambrosial yellow hanging on an invisible thread, the solar king reaching with the sunrise’s rays of light for a queen that’d already left.

   The next moment, it was gone.    

   The boy shook his head and started the walk home. The farthest thing from his mind was what his parents would have to say to his long romp about the city looking for the moon. Rather, he was pondering the girl he’d spoken to.

   “Excuse me,” breathed a white-haired girl next to him, holding a teddy bear to her chest. Seeing it, the boy realized, with a start, that his was gone.

   “One sec,” he said, sprinting back to the hill. The girl followed behind, and he fell to his knees when he saw it was gone.

   “Are you looking for this?” The girl waved the teddy bear she was holding, and the boy understood. It was his teddy bear. How’d she gotten it?

   He snatched it without thanks. After all, she had probably stolen it. She looked very familiar, in fact. Too familiar.

   The boy hugged it to his chest, walking back along the sidewalk and gesturing for the girl to come with him. As he walked, she skipped next to him, smiling and humming as if she was the protector of a great secret. They passed the window of a toy shop, the various goods and dolls lined up, smiling wide grins and gesturing with open arms that they were ready to embrace him, but he didn’t need them. He had his teddy bear. He had the moon. He did notice, however, that in the shop window, his reflection seemed to have golden hair, not the earlier white. He attributed it to the morning light, or perhaps the tinted window’s glass.

   “Excuse me,” the girl said.

   “Yes?” the boy said. “What do you want?”

    Her eyes sparkled darkly. “What lovely blue eyes you have in the day, you know. Mister Moon, have you seen the sun today?”

Wow. Just...wow.

I have no idea where to even start after a story like this. The simillies, the expressions, the whole story actually. It's art. Incredible work on what may be your best piece yet, Stephi. I'm amazed at the talent.

Eirinn : Wow, thanks. Thank you so much for also reading and responding! Just a read makes me happy, but a response makes me even more so.