Reg. No.

: 199302156

The Moon was Falling down

By Arjun Taneja

The dying light of day shined through the dense canopy, emerging
through the leaves and marking the forest floor with bright yellow. The
does, reluctantly galloped home to their anxiously waiting mother. The
mother, counting all her offspring, finally contented, prepared to
drowse for the night. The birds called out to their young’uns; and the
hares, playfully stomping around on the bed of leaves, gave the forest a
final forlorn look, before finally hopping into their burrows. The forest
was settling down, and before we knew it…Night had fallen.
Through the occasional croaks of the frogs and the perpetual chirping
of the crickets, the forest seemed to snore, in its slumber. To the
untrained eye, the forest seemed to be continuing to exist in its
nonchalance, but it wasn’t so. The air, seemed unusually burdened.
All seemed normal, when from the ground arose white threads of
wisps. They stood towering on the forest floor, casting no shadow,
playfully wrapping around, and crashing into each other. They finally
settled down and took the shape of a woman. She seemed to be in a
trance, with her arms out wide, and her feet elegantly capering and
twirling around.
She would stop suddenly, gaze around, as if looking for a partner, and
finding no one, would continue to sway in dismay in her trance-like
state. Out came more wisps, seemingly rising from the depths of Hades,
and morphing into the twisted, deformed silhouettes of men and
women. They all had their mouths open, their faces stuck in a perpetual
state of agony. They mourned.
The natives believe that everything in the world has a soul. Whenever
the forest suffered, these entities would rise, and they would mourn
the dead. No one knew if this was real, or just folklore meant to keep
the children inside at night. They just knew that they would all dance,
and the forest would witness…
The winds howled, the leaves rustled, and the twigs and feathers
snapped, forming a haunting orchestra for these ghouls to dance to.
The spirits leaped and pirouetted and slammed into each other. It went
on all night.
Dawn had arrived. The forest had woken up. The hares came out to
play and the birds cleaned their wings and sang their morning songs.
The does came out to a bright morning and looked expectantly at their
mother, for it was feeding time. No trace remained of the events of the
night before. Nature, it seems, is good at keeping secrets.