The Moon's Ocean

My mother was the sort of person whose plump and rosy cheeks would never fail to lift happily, forming a smile upon seeing anyone she knew. They were anyone including neighbors, family, friends, people she had lived with for thirty years and even the elderly she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl. I knew my mother’s warm smile as much as I knew the sun. She smelled of roses and cinnamon, and would hum a familiar tune to herself whenever she strolled through our garden under her favorite pear tree. Sometimes she would pick flowers for my father, whose stern face would melt as his delighted smile revealed the crows feet that painted around his eyes full of love.

When I became too big for my father to carry to bed, the yellow light of summer faded into grey skies and orange leaves. It was time for me to learn how to read the books on the shelf I was suddenly tall enough to reach. My mother hugged me tightly the first morning I ever left for school, wrapping her arms around me with tenderness. When she pulled away, I saw droplets dancing down her cheeks. Most confusingly, my mother’s eyes didn’t hold pain nor sadness - in them I saw a thousand waves of feelings that I was too young to understand. Above all, her eyes were happy. It was the first time I had ever seen someone cry other than my young self.

That very first day of school, I put my quill and ink down and eagerly trotted over to the teacher who sat at his desk. In a quiet voice, I curiously asked if our eyes could perform magic.

“Oh? Tell me why you ask, ” he chuckled with amusement. He was a gentle and clever man with just enough worldly wisdom to guide any lost soul through life, whether young or old.

“I see sparkles sometimes,” I babbled to him, my words melodic. “I think my mom’s eyes are magic!”

The teacher laughed with delight at my youthfulness and curiosity, shaking his head softly. He leaned forward to me, placing his elbows on the desk and lacing his fingers together, peering at me with a grin.

“That’s an excellent question, young man. Though I can answer any question about the alphabet you can think of, I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to this one. Sometimes even teachers have much to learn,” he said, feigning a sense of curiosity and wonder as he tapped his foot under the desk. “Some say magic is only a silly story, but I don’t! I’ll tell you what. You keep studying in school, and one day you just might find your answer.”

“Me?” I asked him, my eyes growing wide with excitement.

“You may need to search to the moon and back, but I believe you can. When you find your answer, you must write to me! I can’t wait to learn all about it,” he finished with a tricky glimmer in his eye. Through the thick rims of his round glasses, he winked at me with a smile.

Though he was only playing along with my child-like curiosity, the words changed something within me. His playful request had settled into my being like a calling of destiny. With a determined nod, I grabbed the pear my mother had packed and placed it on his desk before trotting back to my papers. I picked up my quill, eagerly dipping it in ink. From that day forth, I was a new person.

As the years passed, my passion for studies and academics grew and expanded far beyond the walls of school. I would attend my classes in the morning, study theories all afternoon, and read the classics late into the evening by candlelight. Every few days or so, a new book or rolled parchment borrowed from the library would replace the previous. There was always more to learn, more to understand. It drew me in like a moth to a flame.

By the time I was an educated young man, my mother and father had tragically passed away. Illness had taken over them, and inevitably pulled their lives away from me. At their funeral, I gave a eulogy that exposed the inner workings of my brain. I told the crowd that if magic does in fact exist, I believe I saw it in my mother’s eyes on my very first day of school. That night before it got dark, I read poetry to my mother’s pear tree in hopes she could somehow hear me.

As days dragged on, I realized I could no longer ignore the request that still laid deep within my mind. Though it was almost twenty years later, I knew I owed someone an answer. I knew I owed it to my late parents as well. Ultimately, I knew I owed it to myself. I was going to find out why our eyes appeared to hold magic, and how they spoke hundreds of words in one heartbeat.

I bought a ship and sailed for weeks across oceans and time itself. The stars were my map to guide me, eventually lulling me to a rare sleep. I adventured through days as clear as glass, and survived storms as wild as monsters. I mastered the wheel, the ropes, the mast, the maps, and the sails. I was growing leaner, stronger, and bolder - but I had yet to grow wiser. Somewhere far across the seven seas, my answer awaited.

Perhaps it was a stroke of luck when fate had come to answer my prayers. On a chilling night so crisp and clear, the full moon rippled as a reflection on top of the deep waters. I thought of my mother, and how she told me stories of the man on the moon. Grief struck through me like a dissonant chord.

“If there truly is someone up there on that moon, please show me the way,” I pleaded. “Please show me the answer.”

Truth be told, I felt lost. My childhood full of chasing invisible faeries in the garden, hiding from the ghosts in the attic, and creating potions out of twigs and grass was all a distant memory. A lifetime of academics had rendered me nearly hopeless that such magic existed, but I never stopped dreaming. I had wondered if magic was merely the science I had yet to understand. What happened next was both unexplainable and extraordinary.

As the moon light shone down upon my face, I swore I heard the angels singing. The stars grew brighter, the breeze gaining speed as I found I could only look up at the moon to hear a chorus of angelic singing. The ship rocked side to side, huge waves sweeping underneath. My intuition beckoned me from within.

Close your eyes.

I succumbed to the request, praying to find my answer. The angelic singing went quiet. The rocking stopped and everything turned utterly still. All that was left was the comforting sound of the waves rippling and crashing. I heard another voice - this time, one that was not my own.

“Open your eyes.”

My eyelids fluttered open to meet the most large and beautiful ones I had ever seen. In front of me was a woman I had never seen before, and knew she couldn’t have belonged anywhere on Earth. Her long hair cascaded elegantly down her body, and she wore a flowing dress the same color as the bright moon. She gazed at me with a smile, and with eyes that glittered and shined...like magic. I must be dreaming, I thought to myself.

“Are you a goddess?” I whispered.

“Almost,” she whispered with a voice so full of wisdom that must have surpassed space and time itself. “I am the Lady of the Moon.”

I gazed around me to see sapphire blue waters that splashed gently at my feet, which stood on white sand so crystal clear it glittered like freshly fallen snow. All around us were stars, so bright and up close they emitted an orchestra of notes as they hummed and called out to each other. All of my books, papers, and studies had said that a man would never walk on the moon. They had said magic could not be real, nor would anyone ever prove it to be. Yet, here I stood on the shore of the moon beside its ocean.

My eyes drifted back to the Lady of the Moon who watched me with a gleam in her eye that shone a thousand colors at once.

“You’re a lost sailor,” she whispered, reaching down to lift my chin to hers. The Lady of the Moon gazed into my eyes, shattering the once cold and vast world as I knew it. “Searching for an answer.”

“Yes,” I whispered. Something deep welled within me, although I didn’t know what.

“You’ve had the answers all along, haven’t you?” she said. “I can see it in the rivers to your soul - you miss those you loved before.”

Barely knowing if I was dreaming or dead, tears released from my eyes. They dropped into the blue seas that swept by my feet, plinking like snowflakes onto glass windows in the winter. They swirled away into the sea, cleansing me of the pains of life as though I were a little boy again who could laugh without regret.

“Look,” she whispered. “Look at my ocean.”

As I pried my eyes away from the white sand and out to the blue sea, I saw...myself. I was a child again, running beneath the pear tree with a sparkle in my eye. The crashing mists of the waves and sea foam had swirled into the air, creating a canvas of memories for me to see. In these memories, I noticed something I had never seen before.

Just as I was always fascinated by the magic in the eyes of those around me, I suddenly became fascinated with my own. I watched as a young me studied books in the library with a gleam of hope, baked cookies with a flash of joy, walked through the gardens with glitters of gratitude, and hugged with endless oceans of love. All of my memories throughout life showed the ways in which my eyes reflected the magic in my soul. For the first time, I saw how much they resembled my mothers.

When the canvas of sea foam and mists faded back into the ocean, I turned to the Lady of The Moon. My long awaited answer had finally arrived to me as I understood. All of my studies, passions, and efforts had all led me to this. The answer was as clear and bright as the stars.

“Eyes are the window to the soul,” I said with a smile of relief. The last thing I saw before my eyes closed was the Lady of the Moon smiling back at me.

When I finally opened my eyes again, I found myself back on my ship. The moon had drifted to the horizon, beckoning a sun that would soon rise with oranges and pinks that would paint the morning sky. The waves rocked gently beneath me as I stood almost breathless.

Without another word, I turned and raced below deck. Lighting an old white candle, I quickly swept the maps and knick-knacks off the desk near my bed with one stroke of my arm. I sat down excitedly, no longer caring about the exhaustion that ached through my bones. Grabbing a piece of parchment paper and dipping my quill into my finest black ink, I wrote to someone I had not spoken to in a long time. I knew he would be eager to hear my answer nonetheless. I smiled with child-like glee as I began to write, taking a bite from the ripe pear that sat on my desk.

To the teacher who never stopped believing in me,

I did it, sir. I found the answer.