Moon

Jeremiah sat in the darkness of the night, staring up at the moonlit sky, a thin jacket wrapped loosely around his shoulders. Even in the summer, the late nights would get cold, but not so cold he would have needed a parka, or anything of the like. He sat in his yard, staring at the twinkling lights of the stars, and the single spotlight that was the moon. He couldn't remember how long he had been staring up at that enormous light in the sky - not just that night, but for his entire life. Even as a child, there had just been something about the moon and the way that it hung in the sky that captivated him, and called to him.

It had been three days since he had submitted his application to the space station. He knew that it could potentially take up to a month to respond to him, and that there was no guarantee that he could get the position, but that didn't keep him from thinking about it constantly. The thought of finally achieving his dream of going into space. Of getting to go to the moon. Of not looking at it from earth, but looking back at the earth from it. Knowing that he had traveled so far from home, so far beyond the boundaries of where he was supposed to be, to be in a place where he literally could not even survive, and yet have the equipment and ability to do the impossible.

But there was something more to it than that. Something that he couldn't quite explain. Something about the moon, in its perpetual night time perfection, the way that it was always there right where it should be, the way it always looked exactly the same. The only time it ever changed was when the sun moved around it in strange ways, painting it red or being blocked out by it. But the moon itself was always consistently the same.

It was beautiful. More beautiful than anything on earth. If he could, after he had flown out to the moon, he would settle down there. Make a new home. Spend the rest of his days out there, where things were consistent, and you woke up every day knowing exactly what was going to happen. Where you didn't have to worry about what the people around you might do, because there were no other people. Where you could count on you and only you to get things done, and you always knew exactly what there was left to do.

He stared up at it near every night, longing for the moon. It was the only thing he desired. And, hopefully, sooner rather than later he would be there.