Fly Me to the Moon by Jonvi

A quiet, cloudless night. On nights like this, I get in my beat up ‘78 Chevy Nova and ride out past the
city limits until I can escape all the bustling and buzzing. So as soon as the sun began to set, I snatched my
coat from the closet and hopped in. It was late February, during that anxious period when winter starts to
show signs of wearing out and you can see spring’s eager eyes peeking from just around the corner. And
since the cold had slowly but surely been loosening its grip, I found myself taking these little trips more and
more often.

I don’t hate the city life. I had been drawn to the big city for college, and after graduating I took a job
in a big business firm. It’s not as though I hate my entrance-level job being everyone’s assistant, but
occasionally frustration arises from attempts to check my ambition. I know I won’t be at this low-level post
forever, but would it hurt to climb a little bit faster?

I know it’s cliché, but when I was little I had the dream of becoming an astronaut. I didn’t just want
to fly – I wanted to soar so high that I wouldn’t be pulled back down again, and be freer than the
revolutionaries that had to shoot and yell to feel liberated. I wanted to be alone in a place no one had ever
seen before, a place everyone else could see but only I could get reach and they’d all look up at me in awe and
jealousy and admiration. I always wondered what the Moon was like, if She was really as beautiful up in the
sky as from here on the ground.

But I outgrew those dreams just like I outgrew my clothes, my pacifier, my Sippy cup, my innocence.
And now I fetched coffee for managers and stock brokers and CFOs.

Maybe I shouldn’t complain since there are still worse lives out there. Or maybe that’s one of the
reasons I find myself escaping the city on nights like these.

Tonight found me cruising down the two lane road out to the country, with one hand guiding the
wheel while the other rested on the gearshift. I drove on to the music of the wind rushing past me, leaving
behind disharmonious symphony of the city. The country road leading me cut through dark oceans of fields
of green, an ocean where I was the lone sailor in my humble dinghy.

Except, on the horizon of the vastness, a lighthouse slowly crawled into view, and she was dazzling.

As I got closer to her, my eyes were drawn to her like the Moon is drawn to the Earth. Here she stood
in the middle of the country, and I couldn’t imagine how she had ended up here. Despite the cold, she wore a
slim, formal black dress. So I put my foot to the brakes, vaguely aware that the even before she came into
view she had been watching me, waiting for me.

Pulling up to her, I was able to make out her features more clearly. Her black dress held a simple and
elegant luster – I’m sure that dress would disappear if I held it up to the starry sky. The dark beauty of it
brought out the fairness of her skin, which shone like the moon’s reflection on a quiet beach. Her hair,
though enticing, held a curious impenetrable darkness that made it all the more alluring. She was beautiful,
and the crescent moon of her soft, thin lips had me almost hypnotized. Her eyes though, kept me in my
place; in her darker than black eyes I thought I glimpsed the edge of the universe.

“Would you like a ride? It’s awfully cold out here,” I boldly asked. She responded with a picturesque
smile that dazed me and my confidence like a camera flash; and she got in the car and joined me on my
voyage.
 I continued on before, as if nothing had changed. The Chevy cruised on through the sleeping fields
now fully embraced by the night. All that was different was a passenger. But even though she sat there still
and quiet, she exuded a profound radiance, a light which changed everything on a subtle, basic level the way
a colorless breeze affects the motions of the immense waters.

As we drove on, I found myself echoing her silence. I was completely flustered. It all just seemed
unreal, too good to be true, like I was living out a dream. I didn’t know what to say, but I suppose I was
afraid the bluntness of words would shatter the beautiful illusion I had fallen into. If this were a dream, it
wasn’t one I would want to wake up from.

It took only minutes, though to me seemed to be hours, until the silence tugging at my sleeve began
to weigh me down. But I still couldn’t, or didn’t want to, find any words to say, so instead turned on the
cheap, worn out, and dusty CD player I had installed years before. Usually I enjoyed the lonely quietness; it
gave me time to think and relax. Living in the city, I’d been bombarded by noise to the point of becoming
numb to it all. But now I felt strangely vulnerable, and I needed some way to slip through the silence.

So I popped in the only CD I owned, and let Sinatra bridge the silence between us. I stole a few
glances at her, but it was incredible how little reaction there was. She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon,
without so much as a budge, let alone any indication of whether she was enjoying the music or not. I didn’t
know what to do besides keep on driving.

“The way you wear your hat…” The words flowed sluggishly from the stereo.

I began to wonder if I had imagined her here. Maybe this girl sitting next to me had as much form as
the air, and she’d disappear if I tried to so much as breathe her in. Was this real? I felt as if I would be torn
apart by the anxiety like a leaf in a tornado of knives. So I swallowed my inhibition and as the next song
began to play I joined in,

“Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.” I belted out the words as best I could in my
tuneless tenor voice. “Let me see what spring is like on, Jupiter and Mars. In other words, hold my hand –“

A bolt of lightning raced up my spine, as my flustered mind explained the situation to me: she had
laid her delicate hand, a work that Michelangelo’s angel himself must have come down to carve from flesh
and marble, on top of my hand that had been resting on the gearshift. The whole world did a flip, and I
struggled to regain enough of myself to keep the car steady. Dazed, I looked over at her to the welcome
greeting of her bright, beaming eyes that soothed my blurred mind to a gentle wave. I was amazed. She was
real.

We drove only a little while longer, with her hand still resting on mine. After a few miles, we had
reached our destination, the quiet field where I always came to enjoy the stars. I parked my Nova on the side
of the road, reluctantly took back my hand, and we got out of the car. As I got out, the cool breeze caressed
me, but it couldn’t compare to her lovely hand. A cozy meadow of short grass and wildflowers, the field was
an oasis in the midst of the rolling waist-high ocean of grasses between us and the city.

I began to walk into the heart of the night, with only the starlight to guide me. I waded through the
green away from the road, our last lifeline to the city and my life in it. As soon as that was out of sight and
consequently out of mind, I stopped. I raised my eyes to the sky, to gaze at the stars that hid themselves from
the chaotic rush of the city. They were incredible, like a handful of shining grains of sand strewn across the
black waters, the ocean of beauty. I could feel their warm eyes focused on me and I stretched out my hand to
meet them. And as I was searching the heavens for the moon, a sound sent chills throughout my being.
 Her voice was as graceful and elegant as a crystal chandelier, and I could hear the faint beating of
wings as it soared.

“Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forever more,”

I turned to see her head tilted upwards in the direction of her melody as she serenaded the stars.

“You are all I long for, all I worship and adore,”

I walked back towards her, eager to fill myself with her song.

“In other words, please be true,”

The winged notes took hold of my quivering heart with their gentle talons.

“In other words, I love…”

She looked at me with eyes twinkling brighter than all the stars in the sky, and I found myself
gravitating even closer to her. Just as we began to collide, she drew me into her arms and I drew her into
mine. And we kissed. It was breathtaking, the entire universe melting around us in a cosmic symphony. All I
could feel was bliss; it eclipsed all of my anxiety, my fears, my frustration. My entire life in the city seemed to
melt, leaving the two of us embracing each other in the starry sky. Everything but her faded into the oblivion
of space. The bliss outshone it all… until the bliss itself dimmed to nothing.

I opened my eyes. In my arms stood only the cold, night air, and I was alone in that sprawling field. I
started to walk back to my car, my heart filled with an odd concoction of satisfaction and emptiness. I fished
my keys out of my pocket to open back up my old life. But as I took one last glance at the night, the brilliant
full moon looked back at me from Her throne in the sky and sang to me one last beautiful note.

“you.”