Moon landing
by White Tea
Five pictures, a flag and a phone call later, Aldrin and I were on our way back to the Lunar Module. He was in the highest spirits. Most certainly he was, as we just happened to be the first humans to ever have set foot onto this orb! But I was haunted by a shadow. Aldrin wasn’t aware of this, but he also had not seen the terror I had encountered the first twenty minutes I had been alone out there. Nobody knew which horror I carried in my mind. Which horror I brought back. From the moon.
It has been several months since our return from the moon. We had been celebrated as heroes, but I myself couldn’t enjoy the festivities or even start to recover anyhow. The dark memories are still following me. I awake at night, all sweaty and nervous. I desperately embrace every new day, hoping that the night shall never return. I just cannot stand the rise of that dark orb, the look of it, lurking there at the sky, watching me. Waiting for me.
The shadow that had overcome me that fateful night is feasting on my blurring mind. I cannot go anywhere, not interact with anyone, without those dreadful memories reaching out their dark limbs for my psyche and recklessly wrenching at it.
Yesterday I had shouted at a woman who randomly had burst out in laughter during her conversation at the store. I hid my face immediately and ran away before anyone could recognize or follow me – no one except the shivers running down my spines, caused by the thought of that laughter that still was present up there and of the being that it belonged to. Every single night I was able to hear those crooked tones, that terrifying symphony of horror.
Today I saw my son Mark reading a “Dark Horse” comic book! I had a huge argument with him. Of course he did not see why he should get rid of that book. How should he? I have finally started to turn against myself. I cannot control those fears any longer. They control me! They cause me to lose my temper and to hurt those whom I love. But I must endure. Neither may I surrender, nor pull anyone else into this maelstrom of madness of mine.
I told Janet about it all a few weeks ago. She was indulgent, but her picture of me as a mad-man seems to have been growing more and more intense day by day ever since. She told me that these were just the consequences of my long and unfathomable journey – but we both knew she was wrong.
Janet cannot even begin to grasp what happened up there. To realize even in the slightest, which kind of being I happened to stumble upon.
I dream. Dark dreams, and many of them. I see those cold eyes, like snow and ice covering a dead winter forest. I remember the horn. The horn that threatened me and the menace of death that emerged from it. I am adumbrated by those gigantic wings, black as the space that surrounded me.
I try to fight it back. All of it. But even during the brightest hours, even during the happiest of times, I can hear that bloodcurdling laughter. I am getting weaker by every day that passes by, but nobody seems to notice besides Janet and me myself. I don’t know how long I will be able to withstand those dreams anymore.
I have started to see Doctor Palmer. The meetings are kept under tight wraps. No one would be amused when they heard about what happened to me. An iconic national figure that turned into a nervous maniac. I am still able to hide my situation from the public, but Janet has been rather repellent recently. I believe she won’t be able to deal with this circumstances much longer. Dr. Palmer is my last chance to win her back, I assume.
After 38 years of marriage Janet has decided to leave me. I had been on the best way to recovery, but I might have gone too far with my newly awoken enthusiasm. I have met another woman, who isn’t at all aware of the darkness that still clings onto me. It had started to become less and less thanks to Dr. Palmer, but it was still there. But I have begun to hope again. To laugh again. To believe again.
It has been so long since that dark day. But today I feel renewed. I sense my inner harmony growing back. I can share laughter once again, be kind to people and also – most importantly – kind and loyal to my family. Moreover have I started to generously invite friends to my home again. There is no longer any reason to hide for me. And above all: No reason to lie any longer, neither to my friends and family, nor to myself. I have finally been able to recon the truth and to embrace the events of that time as what they meant to my country: Something wonderful, which brought us ahead a giant leap. My own words.
Sometimes I think about that other thing that happened up there. But today, it is just a fading memory to me. The moon is bright tonight, silent and cold. It is waxing again.
How can this be?! Over 40 years have passed, and that creature is still there, still drooling for me?! I can see the shadow of the moon. It is loosening! It is peeling away from it! That dark, head-shaped shadow – it is growing a body! I can see them again! Icy eyes – deadly horn – overshadowing wings – She is coming for me! After all those years, my darkest assumptions and my most abominable fears have come true! She is heading this way. The moon is bright again. The shadow has broken free. She is coming for me. The mare in the moon. Nightmare Moon…